ning--morn, in whose light
Terek glides, and ripples, and murmurs! The clouds, like a torn veil
whirling on the breeze, appear and vanish fitfully among the icy
peaks. The sunbeams discover jagged profiles of the summits on the
opposing mountain wall. The rocks glitter freshly from the rain. The
mountain-torrents leap through the morning mist; and the mists
themselves creep winding through the cliffs, even as the smoke from a
cottage chimney, then twine themselves like a turban round some
ancient tower, while Terek ripples on among the stones, curling as a
tired hound who seeks a resting-place.

In the Caucasus, it must be confessed, there are no waters in which
the mountains can worthily reflect themselves--those giants of
creation. There are no gentle rivers, no vast lakes; but Terek
receives in his stream the tribute of a thousand streamlets. Beneath
the further Caucasus, where the mountains melt into the plain, he
seems to flow calmly and gently, he wanders on in huge curves,
depositing the pebbles he has brought down from the hills. Further on,
bending to the north-west, the stream is still strong, but less noisy,
as though wearied with its fierce strugglings. At length, embraced
by the narrow gorge of Cape M. aloi (Little Kabardi,) the river,
like a good Moslem, bending religiously to the east, and peacefully
spreading over the hated shore, gliding sometimes over beds of stone,
sometimes over banks of clay, falls, by Kizlar, into the basin of
the Caspian. There alone does it deign to bear boats upon its waters,
and, like a labourer, turn the huge wheels of floating mills. On its
right bank, among hillocks and thickets, are scattered the villages
(aoule) of the Kabardinetzes, a tribe which we confound under one
name with the Tcherkess, (Circassians,) who dwell beyond the Kouban,
and with the Tchetchenetzes much lower by the sea. These villages on
the bank are peaceful only in name, for in reality they are the
haunts of brigands, who acknowledge the Russian government only as
far as it suits their interest, capturing, as Russian subjects, from
the mountaineers, the plunder they seize in the Russian frontier.
Enjoying free passage on all sides, they inform those of the same
religion and the same way of thinking, of the movement of our troops,
and the condition of our fortresses; conceal them among themselves
when they are assembling for an incursion, buy their plunder at their
return, furnish them with Russian salt