until after the fall of Khiva. Here were quietly issued, with a cunning and crafty hand, threads reaching far and wide; for although General Khruleff had already said in 1856, It would be easy for us to march 30,000 men to Kandahar, and by inciting Afghan hostilities against the English to break down the power of the latter,' and General Krishanovski had spoken of the land of the Turkomans, in 1866, as the second Caucasus, yet Russian plans against the Hyrkanian steppe date only from the subjection of the Yomut Turkomans on the right bank of the Etrek, and the consolidation of the Russian power in the Bay of Krasnovodsk.

From this time forward, from 1874 to 1882, the Russians succeeded, after a series of almost uninterrupted struggles, in advancing by slow steps as far as the spurs of the Kubbet mountains. Much money and blood were wasted before the wild sons of the steppe were reduced and made to submit to the Russian sceptre. A circumstance to which attention has not been hitherto drawn, contributed largely to facilitate the exceedingly arduous task of the Russians: at their landing on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, both at Krasnovodsk and at Tchekishlar they most carefully avoided any encounter with larger masses of Yomut Turkomans, and selected for the startingpoint of their conquests the coast-land lying on the right bank of the Etrek between the Hyrkanian steppe and the Balkan mountains. In this part of the country, which is less grassy and only thinly populated, the Turkomans stay only during certain seasons of the year, for the bulk of the Yomuts, the tribes of Djafars and Atabais, live inland between the Etrek and the Görghen and beyond on the other side of the last-named river close up to Astrabad. It would have been anything but an easy task to engage in a struggle against these forty thousand tents, numbering about 200,000 souls, nomads inured to the hardships of war and practised in pillage; but Russia acted the magnanimous, and abandoned this restless element to the crown of Persia by acknowledging the Etrek as the boundary-line of Iran, thus, as we often have occasion to experience, conferring a very doubtful favour on the Court of Teheran with this Trojan horse, and saving herself a great deal of useless trouble. Lesser engagements have taken place from time to time between the Russians and the Yomuts, but the vicinity of the double-headed eagle did not fail to produce its disheartening effects upon the latter; for whilst to this day these Yomuts are always ready without the least fear to organise a pillaging raid into Persian territory, carrying away herds of cattle and prisoners, they never dare to show themselves on the other side of the Etrek, still less to attempt doing the least harm to a Russian. Unsolicited neighbourhood grew even, in course of time, into relations of amity, so that when the Russians, advancing from the coast towards the spurs of the Kubbet mountains, were about to engage in the arduous task of subjecting the Tekke Turkomans,

these very Yomuts, entirely oblivious of the interest they had in common with their brethren in the East, and animated by an ancient grudge against them, and no doubt allured by Russian roubles, entered the Russian service as volunteers, gratifying the rancour they had against their ancient enemy at the same time that they were advancing the cause of the foreign conquerors.

But the assistance thus gained was of comparatively little help to the Russians. The country extending from Tchekishlar to the Akhal territory, where for two centuries since the wars of the Khans of Khiva no foreign enemy has set his foot, is one of the most desolate and impassable parts of the Hyrkanian steppe to the south. The camels of the Yomuts, which had been either bought of them or impressed by force, perished in the deep sands by thousands along roads where there was no drop of water. The poor Russian soldier, as he marched on, caught a glimpse of the infernal regions here below; whole regiments were swept away by death, General Lazarew, one of the leading generals of the expedition, falling also a victim to this dreadful march. Surely in the annals of Russian warfare the tract of land, hardly 240 miles long, between Tchekishlar and Bami, will be marked with black letters.

In order to avoid the tremendous hardships of the communication between the Akhal territory and the eastern coast, the Russians conceived the undoubtedly bold idea of building a railway there, the first on the bottomless sand steppes of Central Asia. It was first planned as a tramway, and afterwards changed into a narrow-gauge railway 217 wersts in length, and was constructed at a cost of 648,000l. sterling. On a territory where formerly even the wing-footed Turkoman steed would hardly have dared to tread, there now rushes on the snorting and puffing steam-horse. It is almost incredible what tremendous exertions had to be made, not to mention the enormous cost, in order to build the substructure of the road, to lay down the sleepers in the drift sand, to bring the rolling stock piecemeal to the shore, and finally to open the road for the traffic; but Muscovite tenacity overcame all obstacles. It was a question of bringing into the field a well-equipped army with a corresponding park of artillery against the brave and warlike Akhal Tekkes, and neither General Skobeleff who was at the head of the expedition, nor General Annenkow who had planned and constructed the short railway, were the men to shrink back from any sacrifices.

Abundantly supplied with water, provisions, and ammunition, Skobeleff struck the blow against the Akhal Tekkes near the famous fort of Gök-Tepe, called also Yenghi Shehir (New Town). The touching heroism with which the almost defenceless Akhal Tekkes opposed their bare breasts to an army boasting of the best training and equipment which the advanced military science of our century could afford, is still too fresh in the memory of most of us to dwell

upon it here at any great length. The aged, the sick, and the very children took part in the defence; unarmed women fixed their scissors on the points of long poles and thrust with them at the storming Russians. But these superhuman efforts were of no avail. The fort thronging with human beings was blown up, and those who attempted to save their lives by flight were cut down by thousands. About 30,000 Turkomans paid the penalty of death for having ventured to cope with the might of the white Czar.

The power of the tameless and confessedly indomitable sons of the desert was destroyed, the dauntless spirit which set death at defiance was broken, and it was reserved for the military art and science of the nineteenth century to achieve, not without some trouble to be sure, an object which Rome in her time had fruitlessly striven to attain against the Parthians, the daring and wonderful expedition of the Arabs under Kuteibe had but partially accomplished, and which had baffled the efforts of the Seldjukides, Ghaznevides, Timurides, Sefides, and Kadjarides. The protecting barrier to the south of Central Asia was broken down, and the foolhardy adventurers who had deemed themselves invincible, and had never been humbled by anybody until then, cowered in the dust, bruised and crushed before the northern conqueror.

The triumphant spirit of occidental civilisation made its entry into the northern edge of Iran, which had been locked up for a thousand years, and although only in the sorry garb of Muscovite culture, yet withal powerful enough to effect the most astonishing changes. There, where the panting camel used to painfully toil on, the railway train glides smooth and swift. Russian postilions, carolling gay songs, pass along the Kizil-Arvat route, about 136 miles in length, without being molested; and solitary merchants traverse with their wares regions where formerly even the shadow of a Western man would not dare to show itself. At the very time I am writing this, plans are maturing in Russian circles, not only to continue the railway line between Kizil-Arvat and Ashkabad, but to extend it from the former place to Sarakhs, and in due time to lay down the rails between Sarakhs and Herat.

The road thus contemplated is about 520 miles long, and would involve, taking the cost of similar former constructions for a basis, according to Marvin's estimates, an expenditure of about two million pounds sterling. Decidedly the most difficult portion of the road is the one lying between Michailovsk and Kizil-Arvat; but it is known that the obstacles in this direction have by now been all overcome. The remaining part of the line passes through a region well adapted for railway building; the northern spurs of the Iranian plateau, which stretch into the desert, passing alternately through valleys and hills well watered and capable of cultivation as far as Sarakhs, present no difficulties worth speaking of. It was thought at one

time that mountains from ten to fifteen thousand feet in height, lying between Sarakhs and Herat, would frustrate the plans of the railway engineers at least Englishmen fondly hoped so; but the imaginary Alpine regions dwindled into shabby little hills 900 feet high, and now the only interference with the Russian design of extending the line of Michailovsk-Kizil-Arvat as far as Herat might come in the shape of some protest from Great Britainprotests to which the Russians, from politeness, occasionally pay? some regard, but which in no wise shake them in their settled purposes, a matter to which we will advert later on. As to the flank movement of the Russians towards Merv and its subsequent seizure, it is an event the importance of which has been considerably exaggerated, and which did not by any means justify the noise that was made about it at the time in Europe. Merv, the Meru or Maru of the Zend-Avesta (the Turkomans call it Mar to this day, a proof that these nomads have lived here for thousands of years), represents to-day nothing but a miserable heap of historically celebrated ruins, and the only importance it possesses for the Russians strategically is that they can feel safe from this side in case of a movement on their part from the Caspian Sea towards Herat. Merv, left to itself, might, on the one hand, be exposed to external machinations, and, on the other hand, exercise a disturbing influence on the chain of Russian possessions in the north of Iran. In this manner the Turkomans are cut off from their last loophole, and should the oasis on the lower Tedjend be made to flourish again by means of the restoration of the ancient system of canalisation, Merv may easily grow to be what it was in the times of Djenghiz Khan-a commercial emporium between Iran and Bokhara, and, as a corollary, between India, Afghanistan, and Southern Russia-that is to say, Europe. About this economic future there can be no doubt whatever; but the Russians for the present are bent on other objects, and their attention now is chiefly engrossed by the communication to the south. This their desideratum they have already established in part, and its completion will be delayed but for a short time.

II.

Having described in the foregoing pages, as concisely as possible, the course of the Russian conquests in Central Asia, we may now address ourselves to the question whether the policy of Russia has already reached its final end, or whether, drawn on by circumstances, it will push further south, and not pause until it shall have reached the briny waters of the Indian Ocean and extended the gigantic possessions of the Russian Empire from the shores of the Arctic Ocean to Cape Komorin. If we reflect on the everlasting laws of VOL. XVII.-No. 95.

D

nature, resorting again to the metaphor of an avalanche breaking away from the mountain-top and rushing headlong downward, and take into consideration the ambition and appetite for new acquisitions of growing states, especially of a state like Russia, whose tendency to expansion knows no bounds, we are compelled to answer the latter alternative of the question with a decided 'Yes,' and must admit that the advance of Russia towards the south has become a logical necessity. History teaches that the device of Thus far and no further' has never been voluntarily adopted by conquering states, and that moderation and self-restraint with nations are virtues which had to be invariably inculcated by force. The question, therefore, we have propounded at the outset, whether Russia wants or is able to conquer India, is quite a legitimate one. To will and to be able are quite different notionsnotions the proper distinction of which falls heavily into the scales of historical events, and which I am all the more free to examine into, as, being neither Russian nor English, I am not amenable to the charge of either partiality or prejudice, and at most feel interested, as the spectator of a great and remarkable event from the standpoint of humanity and the spreading of European culture in Asia.

Nobody will entertain any doubt to-day that Russia intends to advance to the south and conquer India in spite of the fact that Russian statesmen deprecate such a design, and that European politicians, pointing out the enormous extent of the Russian territory in Asia, speak of such a diversion to the far south as an incredible and impossible matter. The conditions upon which the existence and life of states depend are almost always closely connected with the fundamental elements from which these states have sprung, and only by the continued pursuit and development of the processes of their primal formation can they secure their future.

The State of Russia, founded, according to its inherent nature, not upon the ethnical unity of a common population, but the amalgamation of smaller fragments of races of people surrounding it, employed the time from its infancy to its youth in the absorption of the Ugrian, Turkish, and Greek populations in its nearest vicinity, and began to extend its frontiers to the north-east and north-west as far back as eight centuries ago. The temporary revolutions brought about by Mongolian and Tartar wars of conquest acted no doubt as momentary checks upon this expansion; but the State, thoroughly imbued with northern tenacity and resting upon a Christian-Byzantine foundation, understood how to get rid of these checks. The difficulties raised by the wild Kumanians and the hosts of Djenghiz and Timur were after a severe struggle overcome, and hardly had Russia gained a firm foothold on the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, when her pioneers were already advancing into the heart of the virgin forests of Siberia and extending the authority of the Grand-Duke of Moscow as far as the Tobol and the Sosva. Here the Russians had barely commenced weaving the web