The Express.
London, England, 1856-02-20 00:00:00

I rim, 11Ar Arke, tabDA v ffari IeJS BR UAR, Y 20, 1858.

lonmolathe of Bnosian power in the Black Sea. Sebas-
topol was the fulcrum of that mighty lever. This was
the arsenal of her armise—the harbour for her fleet.
Twenty yews naively sufficed to famish that anneal
and to ante that fleet. Now both fleet and arsenal are
nothing. Let us only measure the importance of ow
conquest by the importance which the mousy attached
to that which we have conquered. Thus may we
form some just idea of the blow which the CZAR has
sustained.

Peace may be the oonsequence of this great doer' I
ter to his arms. But, whether it be or not, the
Allies have nothing to fear. We speak in no boastful
mood. But we regret to observe in some quarters a
disposition to disparage oar resources. According to
some whimsical persons, England has not strength
enough to make her voice heard, or to insist on such
terms as may consist with her own honour and dig-
nity, and therefore with the pesos of the world.
We have no aces to distrust Lord CLARENDON.
His colleagues are entitled to our confidence. Even
if they wanted patriotism, they do not want common
sense ; and they must see that the gazette which
announces unsatisfactory terms of peace will announce
to them the boar of their fall. Bat most aseuredly
the country which they represent is quite equal
to enforce its demands. For if we may credit
the accounts of our army in the Crimea, never
was there a finer body of men assembled. Even
although a campaign in the Crimea should be
deemed inadvisable or too hazardous, the game
is still in our hands. Let the field of battle be
Asia. Sufficient garrisons migtt easily be left in the
Crimea to occupy a considerable body of Russian
troops. The troops in the pay of this country amount
to 63,000, the Sardinians to at least 16,000, the Turks
under Oitut Nan to 32,000: with these 100,000
men alone it is no exaggeration to say that
General Motrarvim would find himself in a
position by no means enviable. The troops
thus assembled would be inured to war and educated
by experience. The system of organisation has been
brought to something like a working system ; and
the eagerness of the men and their leaden to repair
past blunders would, no doubt, lead to the happiest
results. The conquest of Georgia in a single cism•
paign is a result which neither Russia can contest.
plate without anxiety, nor England without exulta-
tion ; and yet it is this result to which, unless peace
is concluded, the course of events will most probably
lead. Assuredly there is so reason why the Allies,
and least of all England, should assume a less lofty
tone than becomes her, as one of the Great European
Powers.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

THE TURKS AND

(run ors own COMMIPONDIXT)
801JARTM-KALEH, Jas. X
Like many another partisan bout, the vaunted
vcd-will with which the Circassian were said to I
have welcomed the Turkish general and his troops
proves, on examination, to be we of those imaginative
creations in which fiction and fact are agreeably
I blended, in much the same proportion as were bread
I and sack in the vinous supper in Eutcheap. By
this, however, I do not mean to insinuate that any
feelings of loyalty towards the Russians kept them
from hailinig the arrival of the Ottoman force with es
lively a satisfaction as the despatch writers asserted;
for, though nominally subjected, these tribes of the
Black Sea are at heart as thoroughly opposed to
Muscovite domination as are the Lesghis of Dashes-
tan or any of the independent mountaineers of the
south. But my own brief personal experience agrees
with that of nearly every one of the Eoglish (AIMS
who first landed here with Omer Pasha, in proving
that of goodwill on the ground of the alleged iden-
tity of religion, from which so much wu hoped, not
a particle exists; and, failing on this ground, their
estimate of the virtues of the Turkish national cha-
racter in other respects his not been sufficiently
favourable to secure it. Of the seventeen principal
tribes that comprise the whole Caucuian popula-
tion, only a very smell minority are sufficiently
Mussalmea to have much sympathy in this matter
of faith; and, in the absence of such • tie, the confi-
dence of the remainder—amongst whom these Abe-
signs may be reckoned—in the disinterestedons of
their visitors, is hardly strong enough to induce
many displays of a gushingly warm regard. Indeed,
laying aside all hyperbole of expression, I hare found
the animus of the people, in this neighbourhood at
all events, to be very different from what it was
represented to be both in print and by report; and
I am assured that inland, around Redout-Kaleh, it
is still more markedly anti-Turkish. Here, as yet,
this evident distrust bears fruit in an almost total
stand-off on the part of the surrounding native
population, combined with • nearly general refusal
to send in supplies, or seen to sell them in the vil-
lages; but in Miogrelia it has manifested itself in
acts of much more positive unfriendliness, and not a
few murders have been committed round the out-
skirts of the camp. In a few instances, dread of the
retributive memory of the Russians may operate to
produce this unexpected semi-hostility; in others it
may be traced, partially or entirely, to outrages com-
mitted by the Turks themselves • and, in every use,
more or lees to feelings of jealousy and mistrust,
which Omer Puha has not dissipated--assert to the
contrary who may. When the Birder and his troops
landed here in October lest, the expectation was all
but general that from Anapa to Fort Bt. Nicholas,
and from the Enna to Bltirvan, every tribe which
had maintained the enema struggle for liberty ever I
since the treaty of '29 gave a colouring of legitimacy
to Russian claims, or which, though beaten into ap-
parent submission, still cherished hatred of the op-
pressor, would fly to arms as one man and lend their
aid to the great Turkish chief in sweeping away
every trace of Muscovite power from Caucasian soil.
The uninformed and the over-sanguine were toed in
their predictions of Minn given back to the Shah, of
Georgia recoostituted an independent principality,
and of Cireamia restored to the enjoyment of its
primitive patriarchal freedom. To be sure, it
is as yet premature to assert that these vest
hopes are all to prove delusive ' • but it may be mo-
destly remarked that, though nearly four months
have now gone by, the first step towards their fulfil-
ment has yet to he taken: Schamyl bee not struck
one 00-operative blow, and the active goodwill of the
population generally still remains to be secured.
This latter feet and its inconvenient consequenoes
have limited my excursions interiorwards from
this point to • much narrower circle than I had
expected; so much so, indeed, that though I leave
spared neither effort nor reasonable expense, I have
found it utterly impracticable to penetrate farther than
a short day's journey from Bookkum-Kalish.
Of the people themselves, it would be premature to
speak generally from the few hundreds of them which
my rambles have brought under my eye; bet so far
es
an opinion can be formed of the whole from such
samples, I would say that, beyond all comparison, the
men are physically far superior to the women, much
as foreign ignorance has extolled the beauty of these
latter over those of Western Europe. Tall, fair-
complexioned, broad-shouldered, and
proportioned
the Apollo Belvidere, thee@ men, with their dark
blue eyes, and feet that would All with envy the
21hborn dandy ever booted by Hay. are, taken
1t all, the finest specimens of manly beauty I have
over sees. Is sestrast, tee, with the slouching
amble of the Turk% their erect, elastic gait seems
aimed the periled's of graseftl movement, and hu-
ssies alndraltly with the aggregate of the other
ensellemes of firm and femme which Judaea
Blemealmsk k selseting from amongst them people
his aside of the human race. Of the "lades"
—as illempean =Shoelace persists in calling them—
Ig=ifer my own sake, and for that of choking-
popular notices of the West, that I have
not as yet saes one whose beauty would honestly war-
rant the remotest approach to a horde It
would be may to let the imagination via wld de-
scribing seen ideal charms of foes and limb as pre-
scriptive fancy bestows on the Circassian girl; but,
Wens the remoter Interior possess nymphs of another
and mare celestial maid than those who meet the
traveller's eye along the sera, such hyperbole of
praise may bo awarded with_peater justice to
claimants muck nearer home. There ie. Wee& *
natural gracefulness about these Caucasian maids
which a western education might develop into an
elegance that would contrast favourably with the
artilloiel gloss of mere conventional refinement; bat,
for the bewildering beauty that dazzles the eye and
carries the heart by • mop der:eel, you mays"' man
of it on a fine aria( 'hereon in Rotten-row and the
Drive than I have been able to catch sight of here
daring three isdustriose weeks. Lest it should be
inferred from this admission' of non-sacesse is this
respect that the rusk mentioned hie arisen in any
degree from the retiring bashfainess of the sex, I
may add that it is only the married women—and of
them the ugliest are, min Turkey, ever the readiest to
, hide their shams from the stranger's eye--who wear
the veil; thesingle and unsold may be looked at till
the goner is outset.
I flume beginning to pen down some hatmeatery
~. I learn that the cotanmading Parka has
aft an order forbidding all persons essassted
any way with the army to stray=iths limits
lof the town, icseeasequesee of the ends/
of a Oilman* yesterday by a Turkish soldier, and
of the &elated intention of the dead mask fellow
villagers to take life for life. About a festal& ago
a Turkish military doctor ventured out aloes noose
ample of miles into the country, to the neighbour-
of a village I have frequently visited since, and
was found deed on the road side the next morning,
with seven different dagger wounds in his body, but
without being rifled of anything—a proof that other
motives than thaw of robbery had actuated his mur-
derers. This second unfortunate incident. and the
implacable feeling of revenge which it has excited,
furnish another unhappily opportune illustration
of the ill-will of the native population towards our
Allies, and so far confirms what I have remarked on
that head.

I may jolt add pseudo. of the report that the
Sirdar islands the removal forthwith of nearly all
his troops from thin coast to Trabisood, leavieg
only a small occupying force lime sad at Radom-
Hash, with the view of making &mous his base
of °piratical in early spring. Experience has thus
taught Mai to fall back se what would have bees his
wise palsy at first.

TURKEY:

CONSTANTINOPLE, Fax. 7.
(MON 001 OWN 00/1/000NDINT.)
As announced in my last, notwithstanding the
weather, which was rather lase favourable, the Sultan
melted at the French ambeasadoe's bell, which Mooed
our carnival festivities. I have not dme, nor do I
consider it requisite, to my mach on this subject,
which you will And exactly detailed in the Journal
ds Consfaalisop/e.
The Balton, escorted by his own guard and mount-
ing • splendid Arab charger, richly eaparisoned,
reached the French embassy at half-past seven, and
having has. conducted to private apartments, had as
opportudty et esamesing in French with M. Thos.