The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1879-09-13
A Murdered Nation.

In 1881, when the Empress Catherine
stopped at Azoy on visit to the southern
part of her domains, she was struck by
the majestic aspect of the Daghestan
mountains which interpose their snow
capped ramparts between the Russian
steppes and the garden lands of Tiflis and
Georgia; and on that day the conquest
was first resolved upon which has since
been accomplished at the cost of three
million human lives. AS early as 1888.
General Lazareff made raid into the valley
of the Terek, but was driven back with
the loss OF 5000 men, and had to recruit
his forces in the Ukraine till the spring
OF the following year, when he landed at
Anapa, and attempted the same region
from the south side. He was again re-
pulsed, but fortified the village OF Redout
Kaleh on the sea-coast; and thus estab-
lished base of operations, for all future
expeditions, which year alter year were
sent forth, and as often vanquished,
though with greater and greater difficulty,
by that heroic resistance which mere
butchers arithmetic could foresee must
cease at last Lazaref and his successor,
General Godolitsch, gratified the Czarina
by monthly bulletin of raids and mas
sacres; and thereis something
which seems inexpressibly revolving in
their cynic admission of the superior
strategy and valor of an enemy whom
they hoped to subdue by starvation and
ruSe-that is, treacLery, and the mas
sacre of hostages and non-combatants.
The passes of Western Caucasus were
defended by the Lesghians and Ossetes,
who, in 1895, could still muster force of
10000 warriors in the Spartan sense of
the word /; but with the return of every
Spring fresh swarm of Cossacks, Cal
mucks and Muscovite serfs fell upon that
devoted band standing at bay like wild
animal against pack of butcher dogs
The valleys were devastated, domestic
animals were slain the auis, or mountain
villages of Western Lesghia, were burned
and their defenseless inhabitants butch
cred; and in innumerable encounters
the passes were strewn with the bones,
and the mountuin streams of Circassia
dyed with the blood of her native SONS,
who, though almost victorious, found no
time to repair their losses before an i'm
perial ukase sent new horde of blood
hounds against them. Yet in 1924, more
then forty years after the commencement
OF hostilities which had already cost the
lives of nearly half million of his sub
jects, the Gar could not yet call a square
yard OF the Caucasus hs own. unless he
kept within cannon range of his forts.
Shamyl Ben Haddyn, man whose
name is almost unknown to America and
Western Europe; has left a record in the
memory of his countrymen about which
coming generations may kindle into wor-
ship. Unless ultimate success alone be
criterion of merit, the exploits of Hanni-
bal, of Cromwell, of Kosciesco and Carl
Ixn1I 49, Z.
the feats of the Lesghian prophet-chief-
tain. There is somewhat doubtful
tradition about Gothic knight, named
Pelagius or Pelayo, whose father had been
slain with King Roderic, in the battle of
Xeres de la Frontera, and who, when
Spain was overrun by the Saraeens, en-
listed corps of volunteers from the
Christian fugitives with their aid. d.defended
himself year after year in the Businesses
of the Pyrenees, till the power of the
Moors was broken in the seven days fight
atTours, and the little band of patriots re-
ceiyed succor from their brethren in
Southern France. If the story of Pelayo
should be authentic, the achievements of
Shamyl Ben Haddin are hardly equalled !;
otherwise they stand altogether unap
preached by anything the history of the
world could adduce from the records of
y L
mopyle, though defended against greater
odds, was only defended for twenty four
hours, while the followers of Shamyl
maintained their ground for more than
twenty-fou years. Mithridates, King of
Pontus and Asyria, resisted the powers of
Rome for even longer period; but his
resources were almost as vast as those of
the Orbis Romanus, while the Circassian
patriot, with never more than 10000
lighting men, defed the legions of the
Russian Empire, which were increased
under Prince Baryantnski to ninety-fve
of Regiments, forty of artillery, 1000 polks
of mounted Cossacks-together almost
third ofa million. Frederic the Great, in
the Seven Years War, showed the same
manful selfreliance, fortitude and heroic
have surrendered Brandenburg and Ber-
lin as well as Silesia, if the four-fold nu-
merical superiority of his enemies had
been increased forty-fold, the seven years
protracted to twenty-seven, and his regi.
ment restricted to diet of beechnuts and
water2 Or, to take an illustration from
the history of our own country, would the
resistance of General Lee have been pro-
longed for, we will not say twenty seven
years, but that number of weeks, if Vir-
ginia had been attacked by a combina-
ton of the "Solid South" with the solid
North. East and West if all the artillery,
all the horses, all the cooking stoves,
medicine chests, tents, shoes, blankets,
hous, sugar and coffee, as well as all the
cash had been monopolized by General
Grant and Lees own commissary supplies
reduced to hickorynuts and wild berries
of the Blue Ridge? How few of our hardy
ancestors would have undertaken for any
for any temporal or eternal reward what
the Lesghian chieftain had done, and
done in vain. His followers diminished
from year to year and at last
succumed, worn out, in the most brutal
sense of the term, by an ungenerous
enemy, who increased the terror of his
superior force by atrocities which make
the conquest of Caucasus the blackest
page in the history of the world.
But to the Circassian themselves their
untimely grave has, perhaps, been a
refuge from worse evils, since the doom
of Poland would have been the penalty
of submission and in thus far, at least,
they have still been the arbiters of their
own destiny. Five successive generations
have been called upon to decide between
death and Muscovite citizenship, and
they have deliberately chosen death as
the less horrible alternative. By hun
dred years war, and the sacrifice of a
| million human lives the Russians have
thus become the undisputed master of a
graveyard, but they will hardly find it a
renumerative acquisition. The tendency
of the cosmetic regulations is adverse to
cruelty, and we may trust that the same
by law OF nature which prevents the
hunter from digesfing the flesh of tor
tured animal will not permit the butchers
of the Circassian patriots to utilize their
victory. For alimentary purposes viyi-
section is an improbable business.
CHARLOTTE CUsHMAN's 0LD FuNITuRE.-
The Cushman property on Catharine
street is one of the most quantity fur
nished villas in Newport. Several years
l.. q.