"I had to make my own way in the world, and was tired of sitting on a stool in London. So I got a commission from the firm to Amsterdam, my father being one of the partners, and there I heard of something which sent me across Europe to meet a Russian merchant at Odessa. I found him quite a young man and very enterprising, which was not very often the case with them in those days. We became good friends, and he told me that he had heard from a brother of his, a Russian officer then serving against Shamyl, of a wonderful discovery of emeralds they had made among the mountains of Daghestan. My knowledge of jewels was greater than his, and he made me an offer which I could not resist, to pay all expenses, and give me all benefit of Russian protection, if I would join him in the search for this treasure; and if we found it, 25 per cent of all net proceeds. "This was a wild-goose chase, you will say, but what young man of spirit is not a wild goose? We had a rough time of it and repented every day of our folly, but still went on with it. The Russians had an enormous army, spread far and wide, and whenever we could keep near them we got on well enough, but where we had to trust ourselves to native guides, with the help of some interpreter, it was scarcely ever safe to close our eyes. Let me see, it must have been in 1858, towards the close of Shamyl's long defence. It has often been said that the allies should have landed a large force in Western Caucasus, to help him during our Russian war. But it would not have done a bit of good. He was far away in the Eastern chain, and it would have been a stiffish march to get near him, I can tell you, and when we were there, we could have done no good. People talk of Caucasia as if it were a nation. I cannot tell you how many tribes there are; but for the most part they hate one another, and they speak about seventy languages, and cannot write any one of their own. How could you ever make a Nation of them? Russia might have conquered them a century ago, if she had been in earnest about it; and it is the best thing that could possibly happen to them now. Some little law and honesty, without any real oppression, is ever so much better than a lot of murderous freedom. And pretty freedom! Why, in many of the tribes, the women have to do all the work, while the men lounge about, or rob their neighbours. My opinion is, Mr. Cranleigh, that we talk a lot of rot about civilization. Nature won't have it everywhere; and she shows what she means, by the way she marks the places. And the worse they are in all common sense, the closer the natives stick to them.