of future plans, when they became involved in a quarrel with the nomads of the Kirghis desert, and profited so well by it that they managed to enrich the State by annexations in the south-east.

There has been no standstill in the Russian State from its infancy to this day. We have seen that whilst processes of crystallisation were going on in one part of the gigantic empire, there were already springing up new formations in other parts of it caused by the accession of new and fresh elements.

The influence of ancient Rome in revolutionising the ethnical relations of Europe can alone be compared to a certain degree with the russianising influence of the Russian State on Europe, with this difference, however, that the results attending the process of transformation under Russian agencies, whilst they are not more rapid in developing than in the case of Rome, are far more intense in their effect.

We have no authentic statistics at our disposal concerning the progress of population in Russia during the last century. But if we consider that there were, at the most, thirty millions of Russians in the beginning of this century, and that their number has risen up to within recent times to eighty millions, it will not be difficult to guess where the Voguls, Ostyaks, Tchermisses, and other nations, about whose large numbers travellers of the last century have given us information, have got to. We neither wish to, nor speak here of all the particulars of the process of amalgamation; the process remains for ever the old one.

can we,

First appear on the stage the merchant and the Cossack, they are followed by the Popa with his superstition and worship of images, and the rear is brought up by the Vodki and the Tchinovnik (officials) with their train of Russian peculiarities, and they all manage very soon, with due regard to local circumstances, to insinuate themselves into the good graces of the natives, an achievement which but seldom meets with any resistance, owing to the prevailing Asiatic characteristics of Russian society. In due course of time the natives, continually imposed upon in their dealings with the crafty Russian merchant, fall victims to pauperism, the holywater sprinkle and the brandy-flask inaugurate the process of denationalisation, a process which is hastened by the cleverly inserted wedges of Cossack colonies, and half a century of Russian reign has proved sufficient to turn Ural-Altaians of the purest Asiatic stock into Aryan Russians. The physical characteristics alone survive for a while, like ruins of the former ethnical structure; but even these last mementos become obliterated by the crossing of races which results from intermarriage, and we meet to-day genuine Russians in countries where in the last century no traces of them could have been found. It is not our intention to shed any tears over the russianising of Asiatic barbarians, for Russiandom is decidedly a step forward on the road of civilisation. All we wish to do here is to put on record the

fact that the Russian State has, within historic memory, absorbed, and is still going on absorbing, the most diverse ethnic elements in its vicinity. The process of amalgamation is of course considerably accelerated in our age by the superior facilities of communication and the vast improvements which have taken place in the art of war.

The most recent state of affairs in the Kirghis steppe furnishes an eloquent proof of this. The complete subjection of this people, the most numerous nomadic population on earth, dates only from the beginning of our century, although several civilising experiments had been started already in Catherine's time. To-day, after the Khanates have been subjected by the Russians, the desert is entering on an era of pauperism. The spirit of Moslem cosmology which formerly drew its nourishment from the Zerefshan is being gradually crowded out by the efforts, although timid as yet, of the Greek Church. Young Kirghisians are taught Russian in the State schools of Tashkend, Vyernoi, Aulia-Ata, &c., and trained to labour afterwards as zealous apostles at home. The number of Djighits, a species of RussoKirghis militia, and of Russian servants has astonishingly increased; the Volosts (native Kirghis chiefs) are highly esteemed if they are familiar with the language of the rulers; and as it belongs to the bon ton of the budding culture to ape the Russians in everything, we find a respectable number of genuine Russian words in the Kirghis dialect of to-day, and Russian usages and customs domesticated in the tents of the nomads lately so rigidly conservative. The railtrack which is to connect Orenburg with Tashkend is the only thing wanted to facilitate a greater influx of Russian colonists into the land, and then the work of russianising these children of nature, devoid of all culture, will rapidly draw to its completion.

We may see an additional proof of these suppositions of ours in the changes which have taken place in the Khanates of Central Asia during the last two decades of Russian occupation. In spite of the tight reins of Moslem religious teaching and a cosmology purely Asiatic and thousands of years old, we encounter at the present day already in the cities on the middle Yaxartes, the Zerefshan, and the Amu-Darya, such features of Russian culture as may well provoke our just surprise. In some regions the number of Russian colonists has strikingly increased, the element supposed hitherto to be most intolerant of change has shown a growing susceptibility to the impressions of foreign culture, and not thirty years will pass over the land before we may see these ancient seats of Asiatic Moslem culture wear the same general impress which is noticeable in the Caucasus of to-day, where Russia, even before the introduction of railways and the telegraph, had succeeded, by means of the interjection of a Russian population, in disintegrating the Georgian-Abkhazian, Tartar, Mingrelian, and Circassian elements.

In Khiva and the Turkoman desert we have before our eyes

the most remarkable proofs of the capacity of the Russians for assimilation. The Russian State has proceeded here, in the strictest sense of the word, by steam. The impassable sand regions were traversed by steam, as we have mentioned before; the conquest was accomplished with the rapidity of lightning, and was followed quite as quickly by the era of pauperism. The Turkoman, never an ardent follower of the Koran, but at all times zealously devoted to his horse and arms, now quietly indulges in spirituous liquors, wears epaulettes, adorns his breast with Russian crosses of honour, and only the settlement of a few Russian colonies on the arable soil of the northern edge of Iran is needed to metamorphise the but lately dauntless sons of the desert into adepts in Russian culture.

The steadiest and most sanguinely disposed thinker would be embarrassed to mark out, in a State possessing such eminent powers of absorption and such an insatiable greed for new lands, the exact boundary-line where the activity of the absorbing power is to cease. If the State of Russia, whilst raising itself from the modest position of the Grand Duchy of Moscow to the exalted one of the autocratic empire over more than half of Asia, was able to swallow and safely digest the most varied and heterogeneous ethnic elements, who will dare make the assertion that Russia will in future cease her activity in this direction, and will not add anew the Djemshidis, Hezares, Parsivans, Afghans, Behludjes, and Hindostanis to the already existing ethnic kaleidoscope? I rather think that an assertion to the contrary, based upon the assumption of Russia's moderation and abstemiousness and the already too large extent of her possessions, would, in the present case, be all the more unjustifiable, as, without referring to the law of nature and the elementary conditions of the Russian policy of state, of which I have spoken above, it is under the present circumstances a question of certain political schemes in which Russia is now too far embarked to be able either to stand still or to recede without having accomplished her object.

In scattering many millions of money over the sand steppes of Central Asia, the gentlemen in St. Petersburg had most assuredly larger views in their minds than the mere wish to bestow the blessings of culture upon the almond-eyed inhabitants of Turkestan, and proposed to themselves higher aims than the advancement of the problematical interests of commerce in the interior of Asia. The expedition to the large and rich peninsula on the other side of the Suleiman range may not have been premeditated centuries since, nor was it emblazoned as the ultimate object on the Russian standards; but the fact of Russia's having pushed forward to the south, and of her efforts to meet face to face with her only dangerous rival in the reign over Asia, stands out in clear and bold outlines before our eyes in the light of the events of the last two decades. If eighteen years ago we asserted that the Gordian knot of the Oriental question would be cut on the rocky

back of the Suleiman range, our suppositions of then have since been confirmed by similar enunciations coming from the hot-blooded Skobeleff. Russia is bent upon first reaching India, and then, as a necessary consequence, setting about the task of conquering her.

III.

Thus far we have been busy establishing the fact of Russia's desire to conquer India, a fact which will meet with but few doubters; and now we may take up the question of Russia's power to do so, and especially, first of all, examine the relations subsisting between the two notions of intention and power, as applied to the case before us, in order that I may be enabled to present to my readers, as the result of my investigation, as truthful a picture as possible of the future formations in the interior of Asia, and of the respective chances of the two rivals opposed to each other. In referring to those qualities of the Russian State and Russian society which have a special bearing on the question before us, we are bound to give prominence in the first place to the capacity for assimilation I have already spoken of as a quality in which Russia is far superior to her opponent, and which she is likely to employ also in the future as a powerful weapon, especially in Asia.

England only colonises and civilises, and succeeds in essentially transforming the national element of the natives, but she is not able to denationalise and absorb it, nor is she in the habit of doing so; whilst Russia, on the contrary, transforms and civilises only in the Russian sense of the word, in order to be able to russianise the natives the more easily and rapidly.

The second advantage Russia possesses for her operations in Asia is decidedly her autocratico-despotic form of government, which gives her the most absolute power in the disposing of the State treasury and the lives of her subjects, in the devising and carrying out of plans without any fear of interference or impediment from the sovereign will of the people or the influences of parliamentary party life in any designs she may entertain. In England the national will can, and generally does, support the ambitious ideas of the State, but in the fierce struggle of parties one administration will often pull down that which another administration has laboriously built up; every penny which is to be expended in wars of conquest is chaffered and higgled about; costs and profits are carefully weighed; and whilst these tedious transactions are going on, more than one favourable opportunity is slipping by, and the work of conquest is progressing more slowly than where at the words of command of the prince, I will it so, I command it,' the masses are bowing down in the dust and supporting with their last pennies the ambition of their despotic master.

The third advantage possessed by Russia consists in her large

army, which considerably exceeds the limit of a million, and enables her on any occasion, the least foreseen, to throw a contingent into India, against which England, which steadily refuses to be called a military state, could in no case array an army corresponding in numbers. In connection with an invasion of this kind must be considered, first and foremost, the Asiatic auxiliary troops, who, incited by hopes of pillage and plunder and feelings of revenge, would, under the Russian standard, join the expedition; and Russia might expect aid from the Central Asiatics, whilst England would be menaced by, and in danger of, her Hindustan allies and native army.

In the minds of Central Asiatics an expedition to India is identified with historical fame, and inseparable from the power and might of a great conqueror; and just as they are unable to picture to themselves a Djenghiz, a Timur, and a Nadir, except as the happy conqueror of wealthy India, they expect also from Russia, which is following in the footsteps of the mighty conquerors of Asia, the same postulate of heroic feats of war; and the number of nomad adventurers who, greedy of booty, would join the Russian expedition would be a very considerable one. The nomadic element has always furnished the largest contingent to the armies invading India from the north; and if these nomads up to the time of Nadir appeared in the field, drilled still in the spirit of the military organisation of ancient Asia, Russia will take good care that those marching with her shall answer in all respects the modern expectations as to a militia of this kind.

Russia has already set to work in this direction. At present, to be sure, there are only a few squadrons of Turkoman cavalry in the Russian service; but they are drilled under Lopatinski in the European manner, and astonish as much by their skill and precision in cavalry practice as they surprise their Russian teachers by their strictly soldierly spirit. In a short time these squadrons will grow into a few regiments, and the services which flying columns consisting of Turkoman material will render to an invading army cannot be overrated. The Turkoman is undoubtedly the best rider in the world; his horse is the swiftest and toughest in all Asia; his élan is incomparable; his hardened nature defies all fatigues and privations, and, once in the saddle, he must know neither father nor brother, according to a saying current with him, which still adds: If robbers attack thy father's tent, rush into it and pillage with them.' If the co-operation of such tender-souled freebooting knights in an eventual Russian march towards India, on the one hand, cannot be made light of, neither can, on the other hand, be underrated the feelings of bitter revenge which the Afghans entertain against England, feelings which have their origin in the conquest of the Punjab and in the two Anglo-Afghan wars, and which