THE WOLF AND THE LAMB IN CAUCASUS.
THE" Wolf qiiarrelling with the' Lamb that stood further down the stream, for dirtying the water, is no fable. The wolf is alive and merry in Caucasus at this day.
Count Woronzoff, who with his Russian soldiery has crossed deserts and threaded mountain-passes to reach Daghestan, im-: plores the inhabitants not to force him to fight with them. He tells them that it is " neither with arms in their hands, nor by force of desperate hostility," that they can " conquer peace.' "If," he continues, "you close your ears to the salutary advice which I address you, in that case, being compelled to fight you, I shall invoke the vengeance of God on you, who prefer to shed blond." The inhabitants of Daghestan might reply, that the army which is at a distance from home, among a people with whom its countrymen have no dealings, is most likely to be the aggressor. But this is not wolf-logic. rlre Russian General promises the inhabitants of Datehestan, that if "they place full confidence" in him, their "religion, laws, customs, wives, children, property and lands, shall be faith- fully respected." This is an equivocal phrase : the Russians may respect all these into things so much, and their owners so little, as to take them into their own keeping. " The power and the good faith 'of Russia shall protect your property, and shall he the pledge of your happiness." The inhabitants of Daghestan may think that they neither need nor have asked such protection or such a pledge. The Russians enter Daghestan exactly after the fashion of the gallant described by Mercutio, who " when he enters the con- fines of a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table, and says God send me no need of thee,' and by the operation of the se- cond cup draws it on the drawer." All this ispalpable to the whole world. And yet the lamb must share the fate of all lambs with whom the wolf haspicked a quarrel since the days of .sop— for where or when has the lamb found a champion?
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