On the same subject, Sir Charles Macgregor wrote in 1875" There is no doubt in my mind that the real danger lies in our permitting the Russians to concentrate unopposed at Merv, which is quite within coup de main distance of Herát; and it is in this fact, and in this alone, that the value of Merv to the Russians lies. Once place Herát beyond the possibility of a coup de main, and I cannot imagine the astute statesmen of Russia persisting in the occupation of an isolated spot in the desert, the maintenance of which must cost a great deal." The forecast has been already proved true!

It will be observed that Sir Edward Hamley speaks of the new frontier as one "which, presumably, we cannot allow her (Russia) to overstep." But six months had not elapsed since the delivery of the lecture when Russia did take another step forward—a step, in my opinion, the most important of all subsequent to the victory of Geok Tepé. In the autumn of last year Russia advanced her outposts along the Persian frontier from Askabad to Sarakhs !

Russia would not have been Russia had she not accompanied this most important move onward by the usual attempt to deceive the gullible British public, and their worse than gullible representatives in the House of Commons. I shall show more clearly further on why the plea was that there was an old Sarakhs and a new Sarakhs, was of all pleas the most disingenuous. Russia gained the position on the bank of the Tejend most convenient to her for an operation against Herát, and the value of that position was, as I shall show, in no way affected by the fact that she did not occupy the fort as well! Yet the excuse, lame as it was, went down : it was accepted; and Russia was allowed to remain at old Sarakhs without even a remonstrance!

The enormous importance of this step has never been sufficiently appreciated. With all humility and with all earnestness I would beg my countrymen to turn for a moment from the selfish strife of parties, and devote a few minutes' consideration to a subject which affects, and vitally affects, the future position of the British Empire. The position occupied by old Sarakhs ought never to have been allowed to fall into the hands of Russia. That she was allowed to take it is a proof of the state of vassalage to which Persia has been reduced, for new and old Sarakhs constituted a frontier post of that country. Let us, for a moment, examine their position.

Placed

Fortunately, we are able, on this subject, to write "from the book." In 1875, one of the ablest and most accomplished officers who wear the British uniform, the present Quartermaster-General of Her Majesty's army in India, Major-General Sir Charles MacGregor, visited Sarakhs. There is no uncertainty in the opinion he gave regarding its value. "A glance at the map will show," he wrote, "that in the complication which must arise ere the RussoIndian question can be deemed settled, its future-'the future of Sarakhs '-is likely to be a stirring one. at the junction of roads from Herát and Meshed, by the Heri-rúd and Ab-i-Meshed valleys respectively, and at the best entrance to the province of Khorásán from the north, it cannot fail to exercise a very serious influence on the momentous issue of the above question, This must happen, whether it fall into the hands of the friends of England or into those of her foes. Whether Russia use Sarakhs as a base for offensive measures against Herát, or England use her as a defensive outpost to defeat any such operations, that position will be heard of again. And if my feeble voice can effect a warning, ere it is too late let it

here be raised in these words :-If England does not use Sarakhs for defence Russia will use it for offence.”*

I am no alarmist. The words I have quoted are the words of a very able man who has spent his life on the Indian frontier, who can speak the language of the Afgháns and the Khorásánis, a man who has ever kept his eyes and his ears well open. The journal of his travels teems with evidence that even in those days Persia was being Russianized. There is not a soldier living who knows MacGregor who would not accept as an absolute truth his warning words about Sarakhs. And yet, the English Government allowed Russia to take quietly and without remonstrance the plains commanding that most important place-a place which is an eye to see and an arm to strike. When a faint voice was raised in Parliament upon the question it was silenced by the disingenuous plea, already referred to, that there were two such places known as Sarakhs, and that the Sarakhs occupied was not the fortress but the old town!

Is there an old town of Sarakhs? There was indeed in earlier days an old Sarakhs, but there is but one fortified town now. Let the reader follow the description of Sir Charles MacGregor :-" The scene that met my eye" he writes, describing his survey of the country from the north tower of the only existing Sarakhs, "is easily described. To the north stretched one vast plain, which, except for a few mounds and a ruined mosque marking the site of one of the former towns of Sarakhs, was unbroken by tree, bush, mound, or undulations as far as the eye. could reach. The Tejend, it is true, winds round to the

* The italics are Sir Charles MacGregor's. Vide "Narrative of a Journey through the Province of Khorassan and the N.W. Frontier of Afghanistan in 1875." London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1879.

north-west, but its bed is low, below the level of the plain, and so nothing can be seen of it. It was a strange feeling to look out on this wild interminable expanse, and think that for an arc of 80°, there was not for 300 miles perhaps one single drop of water, or one human being. To the north-east lay the road to Merv stretched out beyond the dark tamarisk foliage in the bed of the Tejend. To the east all was clear: to the south-east were undulating rounded ridges (covered with little black dots which they told me were "pista" bushes)* extending towards the Murgháb. To the south was the Múzduran ridge we had come through, and a little way north of west was a confused mass of rugged ridges, among which I was informed lay the famed stronghold of the great Nadir."

This plain on the Tejend, then, is really the position of Sarakhs? That position Russia has taken and Russia holds. It is idle to argue that the position is valueless because she does not hold also the fort of Sarakhs. The fort of Sarakhs "has a garrison" (I quote again from MacGregor) "of one battalion of infantry, numbering some seven hundred men, eleven guns, good, bad, and indifferent, and a few horsemen ; but the dimensions of the fort are such that it would take ten times this number to man the walls, even in the most inefficient manner." In a word, the Russians can walk into it whenever they may choose to do so!

MacGregor gives us, likewise, a plan and description of the fortress. He then adds:- "Were the Turkoman question for ever at rest "—Russia has settled it since he penned those words "I see no reason why Sarakhs should not become a place of considerable importance as a large

*The Pistachio nut.

population could easily be supported by agriculture alone, and its convenient position with reference to Meshed and Herát on the south, and Khiva and Bokhára on the north, marks it out a future probable entrepôt of commerce." Further on, he adds: "Commercially, it is admirably situated for drawing to it all the trade between Turkistán on the north and Khorasán on the south; and it has every advantage of soil and water and climate that would be necessary for these purposes."

On the same subject-the position of Sarakhs-let us study the description of the position as given by the correspondent of the Illustrated London News, in the issue of that paper of the 14th March :—

Sarakhs, which the Russians were permitted to occupy soon after their conquest of Merv, and from which the understood line of Afghan boundary was to have been drawn eastward to the Oxus by the Joint Commission, consists of old and new Sarakhs, three miles and a half apart, situated on opposite sides of the Heri-rud, the bed of which, at that particular place, was dry at the season when the British Commission arrived there. This place belonged to Persia, but old Sarakhs, on the eastern side, was handed over to the Russians by the Persian Governor. When our Special Artist visited old Sarakhs, the Russian Governor-General of the Transcaspian Provinces, General Komaroff, was there, but only a few Russian troops, who were Akhal Turkomans recently enlisted in the Russian army. The sketch now given shows the remains of the old city, which is entirely deserted; to the east and north there are a number of reed huts with a few people living in them. Old Sarakhs, as the sketch will show, is merely a square mound, rising high above the present level of the desert, and this mound is no doubt an accumulation of