The Circassians, evermore engaged in war, are in general all well armed. Their equipment consists of a rifle, a sabre, a long dagger, which they wear in front, and a pistol stuck in their belt. Their remarkably elegant costume consists of tight pantaloons, and a short tunic belted round the waist, and having cartridge pockets worked on the breast; their head-dress is a round laced cap, encircled with a black or white border of long-wooled sheep-skin. In cold or rainy weather, they wear a hood (bashlik), and wrap themselves in an impenetrable felt cloak (bourka). Their horses are small, but of astonishing spirit and bottom. It has often been ascertained by the imperial garrisons that Circassian marauders have got over twenty-five or even thirty leagues of ground in a night. When pursued by the Russians, the mountaineers are not to be stopped by the most rapid torrents. If the horse is young, and not yet trained to this perilous kind of service, the rider gallops him up to the verge of the ravine, then covering the animal's head with his bourka, he plunges, almost always with impunity, down precipices that are sometimes from ten or fifteen yards deep.
The Circassians are wonderfully expert in the use of fire-arms, and of their double-edged daggers. Armed only with the latter weapon, they have been known to leap their horses over the Russian bayonets, stab the soldiers, and rout their squared battalions. When they are surrounded in their forts or villages, without any chance of escape, they often sacrifice their wives and children, set fire to their dwellings, and perish in the flames rather than surrender. Like all Orientals, they do not abandon their dead and wounded except at the last extremity, and nothing can surpass the obstinacy with which they fight to carry them off from the enemy. It was to this fact I owed my escape from one of the greatest dangers I ever encountered.
In the month of April, 1841, I explored the military line of the Kouban. On my departure from Stavropol, the governor strongly insisted on giving me an escort; but I refused it, for fear of encumbering my movements, and resolved to trust to my lucky star. It was the season of flood, too, in the Kouban, a period in which the Circassians very seldom cross it. I accepted, however, as a guide, an old Cossack, who had seen more than five-and-twenty years' fighting, and was all over scars, in short, a genuine descendant of the Zaporogues. This man, my interpreter, and a postillion, whom we were to change at each station, formed my whole suite. We were all armed, though there is not much use in such a precaution in a country where one is always attacked either unawares, so that he cannot defend himself, or by superior forces against which all resistance is but a danger the more. But what of that? There was something imposing and flattering to one's pride in these martial accoutrements. A Tiflis dagger was stuck in my belt, a heavy rifle thumped against my loins, and my holsters contained an excellent pair of St. Etienne pistols. My Cossack was armed with two pistols, a rifle, a Circassian sabre, and a lance. As for my interpreter, an Italian, he was as brave as a Calabrian bandit, and what prized above all in him was an imperturbable coolness in the most critical positions, and a blind obedience to my orders. For five days we pursued our way pleasantly along the Kouban, without thinking of the danger of our position. The country, broken up by beautiful hills, was covered with rich vegetation. The muddy waters of the Kouban flowed on our left, and beyond the river we saw distinctly the first ranges of the Caucasus. We could even discern the smoke of the Circassian aouls rising up amidst the forests.