Nor only did the double wall of rocks and human breasts throbbing with the love of independence prove impenetrable to the Russian columns led on by a chief of transcendent abilities, but that wall was gradually strengthened and enlarged. Schamyl could not be kept within bounds. The year after the fall of Dargo he broke through the cordon of fortresses, and pouncing upon the neutral provinces of Kabarda, performed the most brilliant exploit in his whole career. The Kabardas, the great and the little, are twin provinces lying on the northern side of the Caucasian range midway between the two seas, and in a north-westerly direction from the Lesghian and Tchetchenian highlands. It is a land of green valleys and sunny hill-sides, more broken on the side where it joins on to the mountains; softly undulating in the central portions; and to the north, where it falls down to the banks of the Terek and to the level of the steppes, a plain almost as smooth as a sheet of water. Here, until the coming of the Russians, a people mainly pastoral had kept their flocks and herds for centuries. Simple in their modes of life, yet trained to arms, they were of the blood of the gallant race of the Adighés or Circassians of the western Caucasus. Scarcely less lovers of freedom than the tribes who dwelt higher up in the mountains, nor less ready to lay down their lives in defence of it, they contended for a quarter of a century or more with the invaders who came into their land, pretending to a right to rule over them. But in this long period of resistance the chivalry of the Kabardas was gradually wasted, whereas army after army came out of the north as from a womb of men which was inexhaustible. These semi-barbarous knights had also to contend with a more advanced civilization; and nature besides had not come to their aid with those bulwarks of rock and forest with which she so fondly encircled the free homes of the highlanders. A half century ago, accordingly, they were finally obliged to succumb to superior numbers, though not to superior valor. But they came out of the contest with the honors of war, it being stipulated in their capitulation that they should retain their arms, and be still governed by their chiefs, on condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the czar. Gradually, however, as the foreign civilization got a foothold with its advantages of trade and its superior modes of tillage, the influence of the conquerors grew stronger. Their colonists, consisting mostly of Germans, pushed forward into the fertile and pleasant valleys. Many of the chiefs, long courted by gifts and pensions, were seduced into favoring the Russian ascendency; a species of militia was drafted among the warriors to assist in the subjugation of the other tribes; and the hot young bloods, captivated by the sight of the epaulettes and plumes of the imperial cavalry, allowed themselves to be enrolled in its ranks, and formed that splendid body of horse having the guard of the