When it was decided to attack the forts, several hundred Shapsookians, including gray-haired old men and youths of tender age, swore to conquer or to die. They kept their word. At the fort of Michailoff, which made the most obstinate defence, the ditch was filled with their corpses. The conduct of the garrison was truly heroic. Of five hundred men, only one third were fit for duty; the others were in hospital, or on the sick-list. But no sooner did the Circassian war-cry rend the air than the sufferers forgot their pains; the fever-stricken left their beds, and crawled to the walls. Their commandant called upon them to shed their last drop of blood for their emperor; their old papa exhorted them, as Christians, to fight to the death against the unbelieving horde. But numbers prevailed: after a valiant defence, the Russians retreated, fighting, to the innermost enclosures of the fortress. Their chief demanded a volunteer to blow up the fort when farther resistance should become impossible. A soldier stepped forward, took a lighted match, and entered the powder magazine. The last defences were stormed, the Circassians shouted victory. Then came the explosion. Most of the buildings were overthrown, and hundreds of maimed carcases scattered in all directions. Eleven Russians escaped with life, were dragged off to the mountains, and subsequently ransomed, and from them the details of this bloody fight were obtained.
The capture of these forts spread discouragement and consternation in the ranks of the Russian army. The emperor was furious, and General Rajewski, then commander-in-chief on the Circassian frontier, was superseded. This officer, who at the tender age of twelve was present with his father at the battle of Borodino, and who has since distinguished himself in the Turkish and Persian wars, was reputed an able general, but was reproached with sleeping too much, and with being too fond of botany. His enemies went so far as to accuse him of making military expeditions into the mountains, with the sole view of adding rare Caucasian plants to his herbarium, and of procuring seeds for his garden. General Aurep, who succeeded him, undertook little beyond reconnoissances, always attended with very heavy loss; and the Circassians remained upon the defensive until the year 1843, when the example of the Tshetshens, who about that time obtained signal advantages over the Russians, roused the martial ardour of the chivalrous Circassians, and spurred them to fresh hostilities. But the war at the western extremity of Caucasus never assumed the importance of that in Daghestan and the country of the Tshetshens.
From the straits of Zabache to the frontier of Guria, the Russians possess seventeen Kreposts, or fortified posts, only a few of which deserve the name of regular fortresses, or could resist a regular army provided with artillery. To mountaineers, however, whose sole weapons are shaska and musket, even earthen parapets and shallow ditches are serious obstacles when well manned and resolutely defended. The object of erecting this line of forts was to cut off the communication by sea between Turkey and the Caucasian tribes. It was thought that, when the import of arms and munitions of war from Turkey was thus checked, the independent mountain tribes would soon be subjugated. The hope was not realised, and the expensive maintenance of 15,000 to 20,000 men in the fortresses of the Black Sea has but little improved the position of the Russians in the Caucasus. The Caucasians have never lacked arms, and with money they can always get powder, even from the Cossacks of the Kuban. In another respect, however, these forts have done them much harm, and thence it arises that, since their erection, and the cession of Anapa to Russia, the war has assumed so bitter a character. So long as Anapa was Turkish, the export of slaves, and the import of powder, found no hindrance. The needy Circassian noble, whose rude mountains supply him but sparingly with daily bread, obtained, by the sale of slaves, means of satisfying his warlike and ostentatious tastes – of procuring rich clothes, costly weapons, and ammunition for war and for the chase. In a moral point of view, all slave traffic is of course odious and reprehensible, but that of Circassia differed from other commerce of the kind, in so far that all parties were benefited by, and consenting to, the contract. The Turks obtained from Caucasus handsomer and healthier wives than those born in the harem; and the Circassian beauties were delighted to exchange the poverty and toil of their father's mountain huts for the luxurious farniente of the seraglio, of whose wonders and delights their ears were regaled, from childhood upwards, with the most glowing descriptions. The trade, although greatly impeded and very hazardous, still goes on. Small Turkish craft creep up to the coast, cautiously evading the Russian cruisers, enter creeks and inlets, and are dragged by the Circassians high and dry upon the beach, there to remain till the negotiation for their live cargo is completed, an operation that generally takes a few weeks. The women sold are the daughters of serfs and freedmen: rarely does a work consent to dispose of his sister or daughter, although the case does sometimes occur. But, whilst the sale goes on, the slave-ships are anything but secure. It is a small matter to have escaped the Russian frigates and steamers. Each of the Kreposts possesses a little squadron of row-boats, manned with Cossacks, who pull along the coast in search of Turkish vessels. If they detect one, they land in the night, and endeavour to set fire to it, before the mountaineers can come to the assistance of the crew. The Turks, who live in profound terror of these Cossack coast-guards, resort to every possible expedient to escape their observation; often covering their vessels with dry leaves and boughs, and tying fir branches to the masts, that the scouts may take them for trees. If they are captured at sea by the cruisers, the crew are sent to hard labour in Siberia, and the Circassian girls are married to Cossacks, or divided as handmaidens amongst the Russian staff officers. From thirty to forty slaves compose the usual cargo of each of these vessels, which are so small that the poor creatures are packed almost like herrings in a barrel. But they patiently endure the misery of the voyage, in anticipation of the honeyed existence of the harem. It is calculated that one vessel out of six is taken or lost. In the winter of 1843-4, eight-and-twenty ships left the coast of Asia Minor for that of Caucasia. Twenty-three safely returned, three were burned by the Russians, and two swallowed by the waves.
A Turkish captain at Sinope told Dr Wagner the following interesting anecdote, illustrating Circassian hatred of the Russians: – "A few years ago a slave-ship sprang a leak out at sea, just as a Russian steamer passed in the distance. The Turkish slave-dealer, who preferred even the chill blasts of Siberia to a grave in deep water, made signals of distress, and the steamer came up in time to rescue the ship and its living cargo from destruction. But so deeply is hatred of Russia implanted in every Circassian heart, that the spirit of the girls revolted at the thought of becoming the helpmates of gray-coated soldiers, instead of sharing the sumptuous couch of a Turkish pasha. They had bid adieu to their native mountains with little emotion, but as the Russian ship approached they set up terrible and despairing screams. Some sprang headlong into the sea; others drove their knives into their hearts: – to these heroines death was preferable to the bridal-bed of a detested Muscovite. The survivors were taken to Anapa, and married to Cossacks, or given to officers as servants." Nearly every Austrian or Turkish steamboat that makes, in the winter months, the voyage from Trebizond to Constantinople, has a number of Circassian girls on board. Dr Wagner made the passage in an Austrian steamer with several dozens of these willing slaves, chiefly mere children, twelve or thirteen years old, with interesting countenances and dark wild eyes, but very pale and thin – with the exception of two, who were some years older, far better dressed, and carefully veiled. To this favoured pair the slave-dealer paid particular attention, and frequently brought them coffee. Dr Wagner got into conversation with this man, who was richly dressed in furs and silks, and who, despite his vile profession, had the manners of a gentleman. The two coffee-drinkers were daughters of noblemen, he said, with fine rosy cheeks, and in better condition than the others, consequently worth more money at Constantinople. For the handsomest he hoped to obtain 30,000 piastres, and for the other 20,000 – about £250 and £170. The herd of young creatures he spoke of with contempt, and should think himself lucky to get 2000 piastres for them all round. He further informed the doctor that, although the slave-trade was more dangerous and difficult since the Russian occupation of the Caucasian coast, it was also far more profitable. Formerly, when Greek and Armenian women were brought in crowds to the Constantinople market, the most beautiful Circassians were not worth more than 10,000 piastres; but now a rosy, well-fed, fifteen-year-old slave is hardly to be had under 40,000 piastres.
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