CHAPTER XXII. IMAR'S TALE—WAR
"That which I have always admired in your nation, and that which has made you what you are, under the guidance of the Lord, is your natural gift of self-command. The race to which I belong has always been very scant of that great quality; and this fault has been from age to age the cause of misery and conflict. Not that we are by any means so turbulent and vindictive as other tribes around us; for we almost alone are guided, when in our proper state of mind, by any sense of Christianity; most of the others who call themselves of that creed, such as the Ossets, Imeritians, and barbarous Suans, have made a strange jumble of the true faith with Mohammedanism, paganism, and even stark idolatry. But the Lesghians, with whom we have most to do, and who claim us a
