"The reader will learn, in the course of this narrative, the reasons which induced the writer to take a voyage to Circassia. Warmly sympa-thizing with the patriotic mountaireers in their struggle against their oppressors, he was himself, during his twelvemonth's residence among them, too actively engaged and too deeply absorbed in it to find leisure for literary compositior It was only on his return to Constantinople tha at the recommendation of his friends, he undertook to draw up some account of what he had witnessed, while his recollections were fresh, and the interest now awakened at home on the subject might render it acceptable."