PREFACE.

IN offering the following pages to the public, it is perhaps necessary to say a few words concerning the sources from which the information contained in them is derived.

My personal experience in those countries extends over a period of nearly twenty years, during which time I was attached to the various missions in Persia, having proceeded thither with Sir John Malcolm in 1810, and quitted it in 1829, soon after the arrival of Sir John M'Donald Kinneir. During the my residence in the country, I was in constant communication with the Persian officers who had served under Agha

earlier

part of

Mahomed Khan, and from them I received a considerable portion of the information I have given concerning the early wars, and which I have every reason to believe perfectly correct. I was on terms of great intimacy with Alexander Mirza, the only one of the sons of Heraklius who escaped being sent to Russia; and on the two occasions of his invasion of Georgia, I escorted him through the Russian territories. I saw him continually after his escape into Persia, and from his own lips heard the story of the dangers and difficulties he had had to encounter, as well as of the noble hospitality afforded him by the mountaineers.

By the treaty of Turcoman Chie, Russia levied a heavy contribution upon Persia, and the task of superintending its payment devolving upon me, I was brought into constant and immediate communication with General Paskiewitch. I followed him

to Tiflis shortly after the commencement of

the Turkish war, and much of the campaign of 1828 came under my personal observation. The dates and the order of events I have given from M. Fonton's work on Prince Paskiewitch's campaigns, but much of the information I received from Prince Paskiewitch himself, or from various officers of the Russian army.

The account of the invasion of Persia by Peter the Great is taken from Bell; and some Armenian works translated into French, and but little known, have furnished part of the narrative of Count Zuboff's expedition.

Some years have elapsed since the occurrence of the events narrated in these pages, but I have hitherto been deterred from publishing, by the supposition that some other members of the Persian Mission were engaged upon a similar work, an idea which must have been erroneous, as nothing of the kind has appeared. I have so freely

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allowed various persons access to my papers, that I think more information has probably been obtained from me than I have taken from others; as, however, I have sought for it wherever it has come within my reach, I must confess my inability always to specify exactly the persons to whom I am indebted, and must pray them to accept this general acknowledgment.

The population of the Caucasus and Georgia, and the Mahomedan population as far as the banks of the Arras, have, I think, been over-estimated at 3,000,000 of people. The number of recruits annually furnished to the army of the Caucasus, from the year 1800 to 1830, was returned at 22,000; up to that date, therefore, 660,000 men had been sacrificed by Russia to her worthless conquest. Since 1830 the invasion of the Northern tribes of the Caucasus has been more vigorously carried on, and a much greater number of men has been called