Here he felt freer and freer every day and more and more of a man.

The Caucasus now appeared entirely different to what his imagination had painted it.

He had found nothing at all like his dreams, nor like the descriptions of the Caucasus he had heard and read.

'There are none of all those chestnut steeds, precipices, Amalet Beks, heroes or villains,' thought he.

'The people live as nature lives: they die, are born, unite, and more are born--they fight, eat and drink, rejoice and die, without any restrictions but those that nature imposes on sun and grass, on animal and tree.