loaded, and being unable long to continue their extraordinary exertions, sunk down exhausted and dying on the road. Here and there, along the wayside, groups of old people, or very young children, implored the aid of those whose strength had not yet failed, with the most heart-rending cries and groans. At another moment the spectacle would have caused the most painful emotions, but it was now beheld with the utmost indifference. The idea of danger having swallowed up every other, they hurried by these miserable deserted creatures without pity or commiseration.
The castle in which they now took refuge belonged to a chief who had been a double renegade, having deserted Christianity for Mohammedanism, and Mohammedanism for Christianity; notwithstanding which, he was supposed to be a less atrocious brigand than his neighbours. He received the fugitives politely, and assigned them for their lodgings an apartment where they were somewhat less exposed to the weather than in the woods, though the rain found its way in on all sides. The castle, however, was already crowded with people, eight hundred persons, of whom the majority were women and children, having taken refuge in it, and others still more destitute and miserable arriving every moment.
Next day one of the missionaries returned to the monastery, for the purpose of bringing away, if possible, such plate and provisions as had been left behind: but he found that place in possession of the Turks, who beat him severely, and carried away whatever was portable in the house. The night following, a Mingrelian chief, more barbarous and destructive than the Turks, sacked the monastery a third time, and having no torches or flambeaux to light him in his depredations, made a bonfire of our traveller's books and papers, and reduced the whole to ashes. The chief in whose castle they had taken
