favourite wife. The mountaineers of the Caucasus are said to number not quite two millions; but they would have been irresistible even against Russia if they had been united. They were, however, broken into countless clans, whose feuds were incessant, and whose hatreds were inextinguishable; and though they had for the most part the bond of a common religion, Mahometanism, they had not the bond of a common language, nearly every clan speaking a dialect of its own. For a time the Russians made rapid way against the brave, but turbulent and disunited clans. In 1823 a prophet, Kasi Mullah, arose, preaching a regenerated Mahometan doctrine known as Müridism. This creed speedily rallied round it all the clans of the Eastern Caucasus. The conflict was renewed with the strength bestowed by concord, and with the fury inspired by fanaticism. Marked out by courage, by skill, by patriotism, by religious enthusiasm and devotedness, by opulence of resource, Schamyl took, under Kasi Mullah, the place which was due to him. Driven ignominiously back, the Russians after a while brought vaster forces and better generalship to resist the victorious mountaineers. Kasi Mullah and his followers were forced to take refuge in the fortress Himry. The fortress was, on the 30th October, 1832, taken by storm; Kasi Mullah was slain, and scarcely one of the mountaineers escaped. Wounded by a bayonet thrust, Schamyl killed his assailant, and fought his way to the camp of Hamsat Beg, who succeeded Kasi Mullah in the leadership. Hamsat Beg proved a most incompetent captain, and in 1834 he was assassinated. Schamyl was elected to the dangerous office, which had been so tragically rendered vacant. He at once began to reorganize the dispirited mountaineers, and took, as basis of his operations, the fortress Achulgo, which he strove to render inaccessible and impregnable. But in June, 1839, General Grabbe had overcome every hindrance, and with an immense body of troops appeared before the fortress. Two assaults were repulsed; but at the third assault the Russians crushed in through sheer numerical superiority. Fierce was the slaughter, and the Russians left behind them smoking ruins, under which it was thought that Schamyl had been buried. But at the very instant that the Russians were celebrating their triumph, the voice of Schamyl was heard anew preaching the Holy War. He now chose Dargo as his centre of action; nor did he rest on the defensive. He swept with his warriors to the very shores of the Caspian sea, and so effectually as to cut off all communication of Derbent by land with the north. The pinnacle of his power Schamyl attained in 1844, and he had the leisure to complete, in its minutest, most various details, the theocratical constitution of his government, wherein he manifested much wisdom and energy. In 1845 the Russians under Woronzoff were able to resume the defensive, and to take Dargo. The sacrifices of the Russians were incredible; but over Schamyl they had several obvious advantages. They could act with pertinacious unity; they could dispose of the newest military appliances; and though their battalions might be thinned by disease, by fatigue, by the weapons of a watchful and unsparing foe, hosts of fresh recruits were always at the disposal of the czar. On the other hand, spite of Schamyl's incomparable tact and vigour, the ancient quarrels and divisions of the mountaineers revived; in regard to military improvements Schamyl had not the wealth, the needful facilities to avail himself thereof; and when his bravest soldiers perished year after year he had only the skeleton of an army wherewith to meet the Muscovite swarms. Hence when the oriental war began, Schamyl, from the fortress of Weden, to which on the destruction of Dargo he had retreated, could give little aid to the allies, to whom a powerful diversion in the Russian rear would have been of incalculable benefit. Nevertheless, what it was possible for Schamyl to do he eagerly did, sending consternation into the Russian garrisons, and hampering the Russian movements. The peace of Paris disappointed many, irritated more; but it was to Schamyl the knell of despair. Freed from the overwhelming onset of a coalition against which it would have been vain to contend much longer, the Russians flung their whole weight and wrath on their only remaining opponent. In 1852 Barjatinski, a man of promptitude and pith, was intrusted with the command of the Eastern Caucasus. Barjatinski pursued his task with iron persistency. The campaign of 1857 was disastrous for Schamyl—much more disastrous that of 1858. Pass after pass was forced; fortress after fortress was destroyed. In 1859 the grand drama ended. On the 12th April the Russians, after a siege of seven or eight weeks, stormed Weden, which was defended by Schamyl's son, Kasi-Mahom, with a considerable garrison, Schamyl himself being absent. With the wreck of the garrison the valiant Kasi-Mahom tore a bloody path to a place of refuge. One asylum, one citadel remained to Schamyl—Ghunib, and this he resolved to defend to extremity. In the heart of an amphitheatre of mountains, soars sublime and defiant the Ghunib Dagh. It is a small tableland enriched and gladdened by wood and meadow, and abundant water. On every side were walls of rock, bulwarks of rock. It was a position to be held by an army, but not by the four hundred men who clung to the prophet in his hour of great trial. Pressed by Barjatinski to surrender, Schamyl replied—"The Ghunib Dagh is high; Allah is higher, and thou art below." On the morning of the 6th September, 1859, three Russian columns, favoured by a thick mist, climbed up the south, the west, and the north sides of the Ghunib Dagh; Schamyl had expected the attack on the east side, which was the weakest. The resistance was as heroic as it was useless. Schamyl rushed with the survivors to a point not easily approached; but the Russians turned his own cannon against him. He saw that it would be madness longer to defy inexorable destiny; with a calm as noble as his courage he submitted. Surrounded by his sons and about forty of his faithful followers Schamyl drew near to the Russian general. "Art thou Schamyl?" asked Barjatinski; "I am Schamyl," he answered. Then said Barjatinski—"Thy life is spared; thy wives and thy treasures thou canst keep. My friend Colonel Trompofsky will accompany thee to St. Petersburg. On the will of the emperor thy further fate depends." After having been received by the emperor and spent some days at St. Petersburg and Moscow, Schamyl was sent to the town of Kaluga. Schamyl was of lofty stature and imposing appearance. In that rugged mountain home which he was unable to shield from the grasp of Russia, he lived a simple patriarchal life; and there is not a more venerable figure in modern history. He died in 1871.—W. M—l.
SCHEDONE, Bartolomeo, a clever imitator of Coreggio, born at Modena about 1580. He is supposed to have studied in the school of the Carracci, and he was in some degree influenced by the works of Caravaggio; but his great model was Coreggio. The latter years of his life were spent in the service of Rannuccio, duke of Parma, where Schedone died in 1615, his early death being caused, it is said, by vexation at his losses at play. The Studj gallery at Naples contains some fine pictures by Schedone. He was an excellent portrait painter.—(Tiraboschi, Pittori, &c. di Modena.)—R. N. W.
SCHEELE, Karl Wilhelm, one of the most eminent chemists of the eighteenth century, was born December 19, 1742, at Stralsund in Pomerania, then a Swedish province. He was sent to a college in his native town, but showing no talent for languages, was pronounced a dunce, and sent to study pharmacy. For this purpose he was placed with an apothecary at Gothenborg, where he remained for six years as an apprentice, and for two years longer as assistant. The apothecaries of Sweden and Germany, like the pharmaciens of France, hold a position similar to that of the English druggists, or as they are now strangely called, "chemists." In this establishment Scheele devoted every spare moment to chemical science, reading the works of Stahl, Lemery, Kunkel, and Neumann, and experimenting secretly in the night-time. He served successively in the establishments of Kalstrom at Malmo, of Scharenberg at Stockholm, and of Loock at Upsala. Here an accident made him acquainted with Gahn, who was then studying at Upsala. Gahn and Loock, Scheele's employer, were conversing on the fact that saltpetre, after being heated to a certain temperature and allowed to cool, gives off red fumes on being mixed with vinegar, which has no effect on saltpetre which has not been thus heated. Gahn referred the question to Professor Bergmann, who was also unable to give an explanation. A few days after Gahn was informed that Scheele had explained the difficulty by pointing out that two acids had hitherto been confounded under the name "spirit of nitre," the nitric and nitrous acids, the latter of which is expelled by vinegar in the form of red fumes. Gahn was much pleased with the explanation, and introduced Scheele to Bergmann, who became his friend, and aided him in the prosecution of his researches. When the duke of Sodermannland and Prince Henry of Prussia visited Upsala, Scheele was selected by the university to perform some chemical experiments before them. The princes were much gratified, and requested that Scheele
