begun without doors continued within. Whatever was Russian perished: the luckless Commissioner from Tiflis first; Cognard's aide-de-camp and his immediate suite were cut down; but the main search of the insurgents was after Cognard himself. A Russian picture, largely copied and circulated, represents him seated composedly in his chair, unblenched in feature, unmoved in limb, confronting his assailants. Pity that so artistic a group should have existed only in the artist's own imagination. The Colonel had not, indeed, made good his retreat, but he had done his best thereto by creeping up the large fireplace, of Abkhasian fashion, in the principal room. Unfortunately for him his boots protruded downwards into the open space; and by these the insurgents seized him, dragged him out to the mid apartment and there despatched him. His colleague, Ismailoff, had a worse fate. Specially obnoxious to the inhabitants of So'ouk-Soo for the impudence of his profligacy, he was first mutilated and then hewn piecemeal, limb by limb. It is said that the dogs were already eating morsels of his flesh before life had left his body. Such atrocities are not uncommon in the East where female honour is concerned, rare else. At So'ouk-Soo Ismailoff was the only instance.

All was now in the hands of the insurgents, who sacked and burnt the houses of Russian tenants, killing all they found. Only twenty Cossacks escaped, and these owed their lives to the humane exertions of the wife of Alexander Shervashiji, who gave them refuge in her own apartments, and kept them there safe till the massacre was over. A few Georgians and Mingrelians, a Pole too, though wearing the Russian uniform, were also spared. "You are not Russians, our quarrel is not with you," said the Abkhasians, as they took the men's arms, and sent them off uninjured to Soukhoum.

On the same afternoon the insurgents attacked the nearest Russian post, that of the Cossacks stationed on coast-guard at Gouda'outa. Here, too, the assailants were successful, the Russians were killed to a man, and their abode was burnt. The Nemesis of Abkhasia had completed another stage of her work.

"To Soukhoum" was now the cry; and the whole mass of armed men, now about three thousand in number, were in movement southwards along the coast, through thickets and by-paths, to the Russian stronghold. Next morning, from two to three hundred had already crossed the Gumista, a broad mountain torrent north of Soukhoum, and were before, or rather behind the town.

A small crescent of low one-storied houses, mostly wood, SoukhoumKalé lies at the bottom of a deep bay with a southerly aspect. At its western extremity is the Old Fort, ascribed to the Genovese, but more probably of Turkish date, whence Soukhoum derives the adjunct of "Kela'at," or "Castle" (Kalé is erroneous, but we will retain it for custom's sake), a square building, with thick walls of rough masonry and a few flanking bastions; within is room for a mustered regiment or more. From the town crescent some straight lines, indications of roads, run perpendicularly

back across the plashy ground for about a quarter of a mile to the mountains; along these lines are ranged other small wooden houses, mostly tenanted by Russian officers. The garrison-camp, situated on the most unhealthy site of this unhealthy marsh, lies east. Behind is a table-land, whereon in August last there still stood the barracks of a Russian outpost, a hospital, a public vapour-bath, and a few houses. The coast strip is low and swampy, a nest of more fevers than there are men to catch them; the mountains behind, thickly wooded and fern-clad between the trees, are fairly healthy.

At the moment of the first Abkhasian onset, the 9th of August, three Russian vessels-a transport, a corvette, and a schooner, all three belonging to the long-shore fleet of Nicolaieff-were lying in the harbour. But the number of men in the camp was small, falling under a thousand, and of these not above one-half were fit for duty.

Had the Abkhasians been able at once to bring their whole force to bear on Soukhoum-Kalé, town and fort would probably have alike fallen into their hands. At the first approach of the enemy, the Russian garrison had abandoned the plateau and all the upper part of the town, confining themselves to the defensive in the lines along the shore, where they were in a measure covered by the fire of the ships, and in the Fort itself. Meanwhile all the "mixed multitude" of Soukhoum-small Greek and Armenian shop-keepers, Mingrelian and Georgian campfollowers, a few Jews and the like-had fled for refuge, some into the Fort, some on board the vessels in the harbour. But their best auxiliary on this occasion was a violent rain-storm, which at this very moment burst over the mountains, and in a few hours so swelled the Gumista torrent that the main body of Abkhasians mustered behind it were for the whole of the ensuing day unable to cross over to the help of their comrades, the assailants of Soukhoum.

These last had already occupied the plateau, burnt whatever was on it, and, descending into the plain, plundered and set fire to the dwellings of several Russian officers close below. They even advanced some way down the central street, ostentatiously called the "Boulevard" in honour of some little trees planted along it. But here they were checked by the fire of the Russian vessels, and by the few troops whom their officers could persuade to remain without the fort in the lower part of the town.

Two days, two anxious days, matters remained on this footing. But news had been despatched to Poti, and on the third morning arrived a battalion from that place, just as the main body of the Abkhasians, headed by the two sons of Hasan Ma'an, Mustapha and Temshook, crossed the now diminished Gumista and entered Soukhoum.

Fighting now began in good earnest. The numbers on either side were pretty fairly matched, but the Abkhasians, though inferior in arms, were superior in courage; and it required all the exertions of a Polish colonel and of two Greek officers to keep the Russian soldiers from even then abandoning the open ground. However, next morning brought tho

Russians fresh reinforcements; and being by this time fully double the force of their ill-armed, undisciplined enemy, they ventured on becoming assailants in their turn. By the end of the fifth day the insurgents had dispersed amid the woods. The Russian loss at Soukhoum-Kalé was reckoned at sixty or seventy men, that of the Abkhasians at somewhat less; but as they carried their dead and wounded away with them, the exact number has never been known. During the short period of their armed presence at Soukhoum they had killed no one except in fair fight, burnt or plundered no houses except Russian, committed no outrage, injured no neutral. Only the Botanical Garden, a pretty copse of exotic trees, the creation of Prince Woronzoff, and on this occasion the scene of some hard fighting, was much wasted, and a Polish chapel was burnt. Public rumour ascribed both these acts of needless destruction, the first probably, the latter certainly, to the Russian soldiery themselves.

The rest of the story is soon told. Accompanied by a large body of troops, the Russian Governor-General of the Western Caucasus went to So'ouk-Soo. He met with no resistance. Cognard and his fellow-victims were buried-we have seen their graves-and the house of Alexander Shervashiji, that in which Cognard had perished, with the palace of the Prince Michael, was gutted and burnt by a late act of Russian vindictiveness. The Nemesis of Abkhasia added these further trophies to her triumph at So'ouk-Soo.

Thus it was in November last. A few more months have passed, and that triumph is already complete. After entire submission, and granted pardon, the remnant of the old Abkhasian nation-first their chiefs and then the people-have at last, in time of full peace and quiet, been driven from the mountains and coast where Greek, Roman, Persian, and Turkish domination had left them unmolested for more than two thousand years, to seek under the more tolerant rule of the Ottoman Sultan a freedom which Russia often claims without her own limits, always denies within them. The Meidan of So'ouk-Soo is now empty. Russians and Abkhasians, Shervashijis and Cossacks, native and foreigner, have alike disappeared, and nothing remains but the fast crumbling memorials of a sad history of national folly rewarded by oppression, oppression by violence, violence by desolation.