Bismillah! there is but one God, and Mohammed is His prophet; and on earth He is the powerful hand of Him who moveth the stars, who giveth light to the sun, and throweth darkness on the souls of the Russian unbelievers. I am a Circassian, and, consequently, a Mohammedan, being a native of those districts of the Caucasus which have waged a ceaseless war with Russia--I mean that portion of our mountains which lies between Tamrook and the strong fortress of Anapa, whose ramparts are washed by the waves of the Euxine Sea. We are all soldiers from our birth; thus, out of a population of three hundred thousand souls, our tribe can at any time muster fifty thousand warriors, well mounted on fleet Caucasian horses, and well armed, after our own fashion, in coats of mail, with musket, bow and pistol, sabre, dagger, and cartridge box; men, brave and handsome, and stubborn as their native rocks--men to whom danger is a pastime, and death but the door to Paradise. Thus the mountaineers of the Caucasus, though mustering only about two millions of souls, have never stooped before a conqueror; but, in the face of all the world, have hurled back the legions of the Russian Empire, and maintained against it a struggle for fifty years--a struggle which, when our valour and disparity of numbers on one side are contrasted with the ferocity and overwhelming force on the other, has no parallel in the history of the modern world. The Russians name us the Tcherkesses, which means literally "those who bar the way;" for never did a foreign host leave their cursed foot-prints, on the summits of the Caucasus. Our mountains have become the ramparts of Turkey and of Persia, as our Declaration of Independence asserts; but they will become--unless we are supported by Western Europe--the avenue to both! We voluntarily submitted to the khans of the Crimea, and afterwards to the sultans of Constantinople; but, alas! we have lost the chiefs, whose banners could have summoned a hundred thousand warriors; yet now are we all, as one man, united in a deep and undying hatred of Russia! She has built forts on our territory, but dare her soldiers venture a foot beyond their cannon? In short, sirs, Circassia is free and independent; for neither the lying maps of Russia, which are spread throughout the world, and which mark the Caucasus as her territory, nor words, nor arts can enslave us. Arms may do it, but the steel has never yet been forged, nor the cannon cast, that will make the proud Circassian stoop his crest before the barbarous Russ! Bismillah! The wild Tcherkesses are still free as the stormy wind that sweeps from Azov down the Euxine.