The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-07 00:00:00

THE CIRCA SSIAM.

The s& joined are extracts from a letter written by
W. S. France. a native of Leeds, now of her Ma-
jesty's tranrperr Wiltiann Beckett. The letter is dat4d
"Off Awe., July 29:"--
" From Bolaklava• we' bad a splendid passage to'Con:
stantinople, from which place we were sent out here. .1
shall, therefore, endeavour to give y u some idea of the
place. Anapa- is situated on a—long tongue of land;
which runs into the sea about hal a mile, and is at the
foot of the range of the Caucasian mountains. It for-
merly belonged to the Circassian!, who exported large
quantities of grain, &c., but after it was taken by the
Russians it wss closed to the commercial world. The
town is large and well laid out, and is defended on the sea
side by a high stout stone wall, with towers, and on the
land side by a very wile ditch and fosse wall, which is
topped all round by earthwork!. The Russians tried
to destroy these on their departure, but did not suc-
ceed. They were more fortunate in destroying the can-
non, &c., although' a good many fine pieces still remain
entire. In destroying the houses they succeeded most
effectually, for there is.not, a-house in the whole town
but has been sacked and burnt. They left a great quail-
City of shot and shell, and other material of war. The
place is now occupied by 50 Frenchmen, 100 Turks; and
a large body of Circassian's, who are coming down from•
the mountain with their women, children, and flocks.
The Circassians are a fine body of men, very tall, and
well made; they wear high bats, made of pheep skin and
coarse woollen,, which give them a very fierce appear-
ance. They always carry arms about them, and it is
quite common to -see one with the following.' set out
Two pistols about two feet long, a gun slung across the
back, a long sword, 'and an orn:' mental knife about 18
inches long, together with cartridges, which the; always,
carry in small ivory or wooden tubes across the breast,
abOut twenty in number. Only picture what a conster-
nation one .of these fellows, six feet high (without shoes)
would cause in walking down Briggate. Some of
them • never saw a steamer before, and made me
understand they would like to come on board.
I took about a dozen, and showed them over the vessel.
They were very intelligent, and wished to know the use
of a.most everything ; but• the things that a"tonislied
them most were the engines, our waterproof coats, &c.,
and a revolver, 6 barrel'. In return they took us in the
country a few miles, lent-us their horses, which are fine
Arabians, and never were shod. They also lent us their
pistols to fire at a mark with, and showed us many of their
tricks, such ae picking up a stick when the horses were at
full gallop, firing at marks, &c. They perform duty as
videttee, similar to the Cossacks, and are first-rate riders.
-"The French are busy haymaking; that is to say, they
are employing the Cirea"sians 'ln fetching and mowing
the hay in the valleys. which they are stacking in the
principal square in the town, and intend to remove
it to the Crimea in a short time. It is rather singu-
lar our commanders have never thought of such a
plan in getting supplies, but depend solely and en-
tirely upon home supplies. The Turks are, as usual, diity
and idle, and are doing duty in guarding the entrench.
ments on the land side. They are commanded by a
pacha of one tail, whom I went to pay my respects to
yesterday. He is an old, jolly-looking fellow, and was
very polite ; but as I cannot talk Turkish, and be very
little French, and no English, we were obliged to part
without any conversation or anything else, except eye-
ing one another down very well and shaking hands.
The only thing I fell in love with about his establish.
ment was a beautiful pipe-stick, eight or nine feet long,
which was handsomely mounted with gold, stones, and
silver, and his long white beard and moustache."