l," he replied, evidently enjoying my look of mystification,
"you're no' far wrang. I'm a Circassian Scotsman!"

This extraordinary admission did not diminish my perplexity, so I
begged my new acquaintance to be a little more explicit, and he at once
complied with my request. His long story may be told in a few words:

In the first years of the present century a band of Scotch missionaries
came to Russia for the purpose of converting the Circassian tribes, and
received from the Emperor Alexander I. a large grant of land in this
place, which was then on the frontier of the Empire. Here they founded
a mission, and began the work; but they soon discovered that the
surrounding population were not idolaters, but Mussulmans, and
consequently impervious to Christianity. In this difficulty they fell
on the happy idea of buying Circassian children from their parents and
bringing them up as Christians. One of these children, purchased about
the year 1806, was a little boy called Teoona. As he had been purchased
with money subscribed by Dr. Abercrombie, he had received in baptism
that gentleman's name, and he considered himself the foster-son of his
benefactor. Here was the explanation of the mystery.

Teoona, alias Mr. Abercrombie, was a man of more than average
intelligence. Besides his native tongue, he spoke English, German,
and Russian perfectly; and he assured me that he knew several other
languages equally well. His life had been devoted to missionary work,
and especially to translating and printing the Scriptures. He had
laboured first in Astrakhan, then for four years and a half in
Persia--in the service of the Bale mission--and afterwards for six years
in Siberia.

The Scottish mission was suppressed by the Emperor Nicholas about the
year 1835, and all the missionaries except two returned home. The son of
one of these two (Galloway) was the only genuine Scotsman remaining at
the time of my visit. Of the "Circassian Scotsmen" there were several,
most of whom had married Germans. The other inhabitants were German
colonists from the province of Saratof, and German was the language
commonly spoken in the village.

After hearing so much about foreign colonists, Tartar invaders,
and Finnish aborigines, the reader may naturally desire to know the
numerical strength of this foreign element. Unfortunately we have no
accurate data on this subject, but from a careful examination of the
available statistics I am inclined to con