It was during these latter wars that the people of the Caucasus began to be seriously uneasy about the designs of Russia. The special protection accorded to the Christian populations, the successive downfall of the principal chiefs of the country, and the introduction of the Russian administration, with its abuses and arbitrary proceedings, excited violent commotions in the Caucasian provinces, and the mountaineers naturally took part in every coalition formed against the common enemy. The armed line of the Kouban and the Terek was often attacked, and many a Cossack post was massacred. The Lesghis, the Tchetchenzes, and the Circassians distinguished themselves especially by their pertinacity and daring. Thenceforth Russia might conceive some idea of the contest she would have to sustain on the confines of Asia.
We now approach the period when Russia, at last relieved from all her quarrels with Persia and Turkey, definitively acquired Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh by the treaty of Adrianople, and directed all her efforts against the mountaineers of the Caucasus. But as now the war assumed a totally different character, it will be necessary to a full understanding of it that we should first glance at the topography of the country, and sketch the respective positions of the mountaineers and their foes.
The chain of the Caucasus exhibits a peculiar conformation, altogether different from that of any of the European chains. The Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Carpathians, are accessible only by the valleys, and in these the inhabitants of the country find their subsistence, and agriculture develops its wealth. The contrary is the case in the Caucasus. From the fortress of Anapa on the Black Sea, all along to the Caspian, the northern slope presents only immense inclined plains, rising in terraces to a height of 3000 or 4000 yards above the sea level. These plains, rent on all directions by deep and narrow valleys and vertical clefts, often form real steppes, and possess on their loftiest heights rich pastures, where the inhabitants, secure from all attack, find fresh grass for their cattle in the sultriest days of summer. The valleys on the other hand are frightful abysses, the steep sides of which are clothed with brambles, while the bottoms are filled with rapid torrents foaming over beds of rocks and stones. Such is the singular spectacle generally presented by the northern slope of the Caucasus. This brief description may give an idea of the difficulties to be encountered by an invading army. Obliged to occupy the heights, it is incessantly checked in its march by impassable ravines, which do not allow of the employment of cavalry, and for the most part prevent the passage of artillery. The ordinary tactics of the mountaineers is to fall back before the enemy, until the nature of the ground or the want of supplies obliges the latter to begin a retrograde movement. Then it is that they attack the invaders, and, entrenched in their forests behind impregnable rocks, they inflict the most terrible carnage on them with little danger to themselves.
On the south the character of the Caucasian chain is different. From Anapa to Gagra, along the shores of the Black Sea, we observe a secondary chain composed of schistous mountains, seldom exceeding 1000 yards in height. But the nature of their soil, and of their rocks, would be enough to render them almost impracticable for European armies, even were they not covered with impenetrable forests. The inhabitants of this region, who are called Tcherkesses or Circassians, by the Russians, are entirely independent, and constitute one of the most warlike peoples of the Caucasus.