to take care of the friend in distress. An army was despatched to Khokand, the rebellion was quelled, and, as a natural consequence, the whole khanate incorporated into the dominions of the Czar. The Khokandians, especially one portion of them called the Kiptchaks, did not surrender so easily as their brethren in Bokhara and Khiva. The struggle between the conqueror and the native people was a bloody and protracted one; and the butchery at Namangan, an engagement in which the afterwards famous General Skobeleff won his spurs, surpasses all the accounts hitherto given of Russian cruelty. Similar scenes occurred in Endidjan and other places, until the power of the Kiptchaks, noted for their bravery all over Central Asia, was broken, and "peace," a pendant to the famous tableau of Vereshtchagin, "peace at Shipka," prevailed throughout the valleys of Ferghana, enabling the Russian eagle to spread his wings undisturbedly over the whole of Central Asia, beginning from the Caspian Sea in the west to the Issyk Kul in the east, and from Siberia to the Turkoman sands in the south. The conquest of Central Asia was thus literally accomplished, and we shall only dwell on the main reason which has facilitated the success, and enabled Russia to penetrate into the very nest of the hitherto inaccessible Mohammedan fanaticism.

By us in Europe the new feats of Russian arms were certainly looked upon with great surprise. Nations vain-glorious of military deeds partly envied and partly admired the modern successor of Djenghis and Timur, but it is only ignorance of facts and gross exaggeration which has led them astray. They had been accustomed from immemorial times to couple the names of Tartar, Kalmuk, Kirghis, etc., with all rudeness, strength, power, and all possibly imaginable qualities of savage warriors. I had the same opinion on the subject; but how different was my experience gathered on the spot, when I discovered in the roughest-looking Tartar a coward without example, and found that despite my lame leg I could, armed with a stick, put to flight five or six men. Of such a character was the predominant majority of the enemies Russia had to fight. The whistle of a single ball was enough to scare away dozens of warlikelooking Sarts, Tadjiks, and Uzbegs. In reality how could it be otherwise, considering the difference existing between the arms of the Russian conqueror and those of the native defenders? Take the gun, for instance. The Russian is armed with a good modern rifle, and his gunpowder is of the best, whilst the poor Tartar has nothing but an old and rusty gun which rests on a kind of wooden fork. Before attempting to shoot, he is looking out for a level spot

where to put down his wooden fork.

He has to place the coarse gunpowder in the pan, then strike fire with the flint to ignite the tinder, and proceeds to tap upon the powder for at least five minutes. The rusty gun bursts, the fork tumbles down, and where the ball has gone to God only knows.

Besides this dissimilarity in arms, we have to consider the utter want of union, which disabled the natives of Central Asia from a vigorous defence of an invading power. Bokhara may well be taken for the leading state in Central Asia; but her influence over the neighbouring khanates was never of such an extent as to rally the Khivans, the Khokandians, and Turkomans around her flag, nor was the Emir himself sufficiently penetrated by the necessity of such assistance. He was proud, haughty, and over selfconfident. His conceitedness vied with his stupidity, and when I met him in Samarkand he asked me, amongst other things, whether the Sultan of Turkey could boast of an army as formidable as his own, an army with which he might have conquered China if he were disposed to do so. As to his subjects, I noticed that they had not even the slightest foreboding of the approaching Russian danger, and when alluding to such an eventuality I generally got for an answer: "Hadji, do not speak about it; the soil of Samarkand and Bokhara is so full of the remains of

fell one after the other.

departed saints and pious Mohammedans that infidels will die as soon as they set foot upon it." Ludicrous, childish remarks, which certainly were forgotten when the armies of Bokhara, Khokand, and Khiva were defeated; and, strange to say, these very boasting, overweening men were the first to submit to Russian rule, and to look upon the new state of things as a matter long ago decreed by the will of Almighty God. To sum up briefly, Bokhara, Khiva, and Khokand Russia reached the left bank of the Oxus; she obtained what she had been long coveting. She now could have rounded off her possessions from Siberia to the very heart of Asia; for in reaching the Oxus, this old natural frontier between Iranians and Turanians, she then might have been satisfied with having brought nearly the whole of the Tartar race under her sway; the great work of civilisation which she wrote upon her banners could have been quietly begun. But the politicians at St. Petersburg had objects quite different in view. Humanitarian purposes are only the clever bait invented to catch the credulous statesmen of Europe. Russia cherished other far-reaching schemes, in the furtherance of which she crossed frontiers many a thousand years old, and, disregarding any eventual complications, merrily rushed into her adventures on the left bank of the Oxus.

CHAPTER III.

THE MATERIAL AND MORAL VICTORY AT GEOK-TEPE.

THE Russian move on the left bank of the Oxus might have been viewed from the very beginning as the unmistakable sign of her ulterior designs against India. In conquering the three khanates of Turkestan, we are disposed to conclude that Russian politicians made a failure of it, and that they only subsequently found out that the route leading from Orenburg towards the Oxus was a very difficult highway for an army intending to march from the interior of the mother country towards the Suleiman range. Judging from the attempt to build a railway from Orenburg to Tashkend, which afterwards failed, in spite of the exertions of M. Lesseps, who promised the world to run a train from Calais to Calcutta, 7,500 miles long, in nine days, we may assume that the Russians had really over-rated the possession of the khanates, and found out that Central Asia, which has ever since charged the exchequer with a deficit varying of from eight to