(11.) “they suppose that a man struck by lightning is a saint.”—The “Starchas” or Tcherkess—Circassians—were known to Giovanni dal Piano di Carpine, Aboulfeda, Barbaro and others, and were more generally called Zikhes and Cossacks, two branches of that people. The proof of the identity of the Zikhes with the Cossacks or Tcherkess is to be found in Interiano (_Ramusio edition_, 196), who visited the country in 1502: “Zychi in lingua vulgare, greca et latina cosi chiamati, et da Tartari et Turchi dimandati Ciarcassi”. Their identity, however, is established in the present work, and therefore before the Italian’s travels; it being stated in chapter 56 that the Turks designate the “Sygun”—Zikhes—by the name of “Ischerkas”—Tcherkess. In the days of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (_De Adm. Imp._, c. 42), their territory extended along the Black Sea shore over a distance of three hundred miles, from the river Oukroukh (Kouban), which separated them from Tamatarcha (Taman), to the river Nicopsis at the frontier of Abhase, a country that reached to Soteriopolis situated in all probability where is now Pytzounda the ancient Pityus, to the north west of Soukhoum Kaleh, for it is stated by Codinus (_Hieroclis Synecdemus_, etc., 315) that Pityus was at one time called Soteropolis. The Abhases and the Tcherkess speak different dialects of the same tongue (Güldenstädt, _Reisen durch Russl._, i, 463). The former were converted to Christianity through the exertions of the emperor Justinian, about A.D. 550; but Christianity was spread among the Zikhes previously to this, and if many adopted the Mahomedan faith, proofs are not wanting that they did so from political motives and to please the Turks (Marigny, _Voy. dans le pays des Tcherkesses_, in Potocki, ii, 308). Their conversion to Christianity has never kept them from a love of pillage and the sale of their own children, as is reported of them by Schiltberger and confirmed by Marigny, who is unable to conceive how a people to whom freedom is the greatest boon could think of thus disposing of their own offspring. Marigny also confirms the statement that thunder was held in great veneration by the Tcherkess. “They have no god of lightning”, says this author, “but we should deceive ourselves in supposing that they never had one. They hold thunder in great veneration, for they say it is an angel who strikes the elect of God. The remains of one killed by lightning are buried with the greatest solemnity, and whilst mourning his loss, relatives congratulate each other upon the distinction by which their family has been visited. When the angel is on his aerial flight, these people hurry out of their dwellings at the noise he makes; and should he not be heard for any length of time, they pray aloud entreating him to come to them.”—BRUUN.