tion of a fort, and to proceed thence to Khiva.

Escorted by a few friendly Turkomans Mouravieff reached Khiva in safety. There, however, he was seized by order of the Khán, imprisoned, and detained for nearly seven weeks before he was allowed to return. It would seem that his presence in Khiva excited the strong suspicions of the Khán and his advisers, for, subsequently to his return, the Turkomans of the desert inaugurated a system of pillage with respect to the Russian caravans such as they had never dreamt of before. Possibly their action was stimulated by the unwonted appearance of Russian soldiers at various points in the steppe, avowedly with the purpose of affording protection to their trading countrymen. There is little reason to doubt that even these nomads suspected that armed parties who occupied military forts on the steppe, nominally to protect Russian caravans, might gradually take root there, and even advance further.

The system of plunder inaugurated by the Khivans became at last so unbearable that, in 1839, General Perovski was despatched from Orenburg, with 5,235 men and twenty-two guns, to punish the Khán. The intense cold of the winter, the difficulties and inhospitalities of the steppe, fought hard, however, for Khiva. After losing one third of his force before accomplishing half the distance between Orenburg and the threatened city, Perovski was compelled to retrace his steps. The sufferings of his force during the retreat were extreme.

With the exception of the despatch of two minor missions in 1841 and 1842, both abortive in their results, no further serious move with respect to Khiva was made by Russia for nineteen years. In the meanwhile however two English officers, one Captain (now General) James Abbott, who has written a most interesting account of his mission; the other, the late Sir Richmond Shakespeare,

had penetrated to Khiva from Herát, and had persuaded the Khán to release the Russian prisoners still languishing in captivity. After that there followed the lull of nineteen years. But, in 1858, at the very time, be it remembered, when, after the Crimean war, the barrier of Caucasus was being assailed, General Ignatieff, subsequently the wellknown ambassador at Constantinople, was despatched on a special mission to Khiva and Bokhára. The mission of Ignatieff was outwardly one merely of compliment, and it led to no result. It may in fact be pronounced a failure, for, notwithstanding his great persuasive powers, the astute Russian neither succeeded in persuading the Khán of Khiva to sign the treaty which he had prepared and brought with him, nor in inducing him to put a stop to the raid on the Russian caravans.

Russia determined at length to put a final stop to these outrages. In 1869 she completed a strong fort and naval station at Krasnovodsk on the Caspian. She supplemented these the year following by erecting another fort and another naval station at Tchikislar, the point where the Atrek flows into the sea. Able now to despatch expeditions from a new base resting on the Caspian, she prepared in 1871 and 1872 to take decisive action.

The rumour of these preparations reached the Khán of Khiva and frightened him not a little. As he still refused, however, to accept the terms offered by Russia, or to receive a Russian envoy in his capital, dreading them et dona ferentes, Russia resolved to strike the blow she had been preparing. In July 1872, then, she fitted out and despatched an expedition under the command of General Markazoff. That officer, setting out from Tchikislar, easily reached Igly, on the old bed of the Oxus, and just within the borders of the Kara Kúm desert. At this point began the natural difficulties of his route. The Turkomans came to augment

them. These daring horsemen surrounded Markazoff, cut off his baggage camels, and finally forced him (September 1872) to an ignominious retreat. >

Russia could not allow such a defeat to pass unavenged. She organised a new and more powerful expedition, and placed at the head of it the general whose conquest of Samarkhand had made him the best known European in Central Asia-the famous General Kaufman. At the same time, to still the apprehensions of England, already roused by the magnitude of the preparations, the Czar instructed his ambassador at the Court of St. James's to declare that though an expedition would be despatched, it would be "a very little one"; that it would consist of but four and a half battalions; and that its purpose was simply and solely to punish acts of brigandage. “Far from it being the intention of the Czar," added the ambassador, "to take possession of Khiva, positive orders had been issued to prevent it.”—

I pause here for a moment to call attention to this principle of Russian policy, now renewed on the borders of Afghánistán-the principle of protesting moderation at St. Petersburg whilst the agents on the spot are spurred on to action which shall be decisive. How that action works is well described in the following letter written by Lord Palmerston to Lord Clarendon, and which has recently been republished in the Times, March 23:

"The policy and practice of the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when it was met with decided resistance, and then to wait for the next favourable opportunity to make another spring on its intended victim. In furtherance of this policy, the Russian Government has always had two strings to its bow-moderate language and disinterested professions

at St. Petersburg and at London; active aggression by its agents on the scene of operations. If the aggressions. succeed locally, the St. Petersburg Government adopts them as a fait accompli which it did not intend, but cannot in honour recede from. If the local agents fail they are disavowed and recalled, and the language previously held is appealed to as a proof that the agents have overstepped their instructions. This was exemplified in the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, and in the exploits of Simonivitch and Viktevitch in Persia. Orloff succeeded in extorting the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi from the Turks, and it was represented as a sudden thought, suggested by the circumstances of the time and place, and not the result of any previous instructions; but having been done, it could not be undone. On the other hand, Simonivitch and Viktevitch failed in getting possession of Herát, in consequence of our vigorous measures of resistance; and as they failed, and when they had failed, they were disavowed and recalled, and the language previously held at Petersburg was appealed to as a proof of the sincerity of the disavowal, although no human being with two ideas in his head could for a moment doubt that they had acted under specific instructions.-July 31, 1853." (Vide Lord Palmerston's Life, Vol. II., 273, 12mo. ed.)

I now return to the date whence I digressed to deal with the earlier dealings of Russia with Khiva to the close of the period of the two years which followed Lord Clarendon's unfortunate proposition that Afghánistán should be regarded as a neutral zone, and the reception of the reply of Russia that she looked upon Afghánistán as completely cutside the sphere within which Russia might be called to exercise her influence. That lull of two years had been spent by Russia in preparing an expedition which should deal finally, "once and for ever," with Khiva. Reports

from their agents at Persia and elsewhere that such an expedition was preparing had, during that period, reached the British Government, and that Government had instructed its ambassador at St. Petersburg to ascertain the exact state of the case. The Russian Chancellor always denied that any expedition was in preparation, and his words on this point were so forcible, so explicit, and so absolute that the British Ambassador could not but accept them. The scales, at last, fell from his eyes.. Towards the close of 1872, Lord A. Loftus informed his Government that he had gained the conviction that such an expedition had been decided upon, and would take place as soon as weather and circumstances would permit. Still the Government of the Czar and the Russian Ambassador in London continued to evade and to deny. Forced at last to admit that there was to be an expedition, they pleaded pathetically that it was to be on a very small scale, that it would consist of but four and a half battalions, and that it was designed merely to punish acts of brigandage. Then followed the memorable declaration which I cited in a preceding paragraph, and which I here repeat-a declaration typical of the value which it is always necessary to place on the words of Russian Czars, Russian Chancellors, and Russian ambassadors; "Far from it being the intention of the Czar to take possession of Khiva, positive orders have been issued to prevent it."

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What followed? The echo of the words I have italicised had scarce died away, when not a mere I four and a half battalions," but five columns, numbering upwards of 12,000 men in all, started under the command in chief of General Kaufman, severally from Orenburg, from Tchikishlar, from Alexandrovsky, from Kazala, and from Jazakh, to converge on, and assault, Khiva. Yet, so great still were the natural difficulties of the route that the bulk