the south, had slowly but constantly worked her way through India, until out of the small trading Company had grown a mighty empire; an empire founded upon the heroism, patriotism, and lust of adventure of those islanders, who, feeling themselves somewhat cramped in their narrow insular home, had started to the distant East in order to satisfy their curiosity, to couple their names with some glorious deed in the cause of humanity, and to reflect honour upon their own mother-country.

At the outset nobody knew the ultimate border of the new acquisition. Conquests necessitated fresh and new conquests, and when the State supplanted the simple trading Company, the Indian acquisition was as extensive as any of the former Mogul or Hindoo Rajahs had ever been able to unite under his sceptre. The conquest of India was and is undoubtedly the glory of our western civilisation; it is the best mark of the superiority of our indomitable European spirit, and of the strength of young Europe compared with old and crumbling Asia.

As to Russia, the causes and the course of her conquests were of quite a different nature. The whole structure of the Russian empire rests exclusively upon conquests and annexation; for it must be borne in mind that Russia is not an ethnical but a political nation. The Russians were at the beginning only a

small number of Slavs, grafted upon Ugrian, TurkoTartar, and Finnic elements, but which in the course of time gradually enlarged, and would have had already a pre-eminent part in the historical events of the Middle Ages, if temporary revolutions and wars, produced by Asiatic conquerors, had not interfered, and delayed the growth of the national body. Among these drawbacks we reckon the irruption of the Mongols under Djenghis Khan, and the great war under Timur, both of them historical events which crippled and maimed the Grand-Duchy of Muscovy; but in the end Russian society, imbued with the spirit of Christian civilisation, nevertheless triumphed over the rude and barbarian representatives of Asia. The Golden Horde crumbled to pieces, the empire of Timur was scattered to the winds; and victorious Russia, by annexing one portion after another, not only found herself succeeding to the heritage of her Asiatic predecessors, but also possessing the best means of continuing in the path of ulterior conquests, and of consolidating her new acquisitions in a way quite superior to the means and modes at the disposal of Asiatic despots.

After having subdued the middle and lower Volga, Russia turned her attention partly to the East, partly to the West. In both directions she earned unexpected success. In the East she appeared as the

representative of Europe two centuries ago, and, armed with the superior arms of that time, she managed to conquer vast multitudes with a comparatively small number of men. Siberia was conquered in the sixteenth century, and when Kutchum Khan, after having been defeated by the daring troopers under the lead of Yermak, armed with firearms, and losing his crown and empire, was asked to surrender, the old blind man, discovered in the midst of the woods, said: "I am blind, deaf, poor and deserted, but I do not complain about the loss of my treasures, I only grieve that the Russians have taken captive my dear child, my son Asmanak. If I had him with me I should willingly renounce my crown, my riches, all my other wives and remaining children. Now I shall send my family to Bokhara, and I myself shall go to the Nogais. I did not go to the Czar in my more prosperous days, when I was rich and mighty; shall I go now in order to meet with a shameful death."

From the eastern Tartars in Siberia, Russia turned to the western Tartars in the Crimea, to those very Nogais with whom Kutchum Khan expected to find a shelter. Here the sway of the Sultan of Turkey had become loosened at that time, and the Empress Catherine plucked fresh laurels for her crown after a hard struggle, which sealed the fate of the Khans of Bagtche-Sarai for ever. From the Isker in Siberia

to the banks of the Pruth, all became Russian. The various populations had to undergo the process of Russification, and the newly annexed elements had hardly been incorporated into the body of Muscovitism, when the progress towards the south already began, and the subjugation of the Kirghis steppes was already initiated.

That is the real outset of the Russian conquests in Central Asia.

It was a hard nut Russia had to crack here, a task arduous beyond measure; for besides the struggle to be fought with men, she met with a serious. obstacle in nature, through the endless barren steppes, varying with hard clay, sand many feet deep, and wide waterless tracts of country. Any other Government would have been afraid to engage in that undertaking; but despotic Russia, unchecked in the waste of men and money, entered upon it with the determination of overcoming all obstacles. The steppes were attacked from two different sides, from the east and the west. As to the eastern route, Siberia formed the basis, and down glided the Russian Cossacks from the Altai, along the western border of China to the lake of Issyk Kul, as smoothly and quietly as the Russian outposts succeeded in skirting the western frontier of the Kirghis country from the Lesser Horde to the Aral lake and to the Yaxartes. It was the

work of two centuries, accomplished in a wonderful way, with that characteristic Muscovite tenacity, cunning, and recklessness, which have wrought so many wonders and surprises to the western world.

The Kirghises, numbering beyond three millions of souls, and representing the prototype of Turkish nomadic society, offered from the beginning that special mode of resistance we encounter in the case of the nomads of Asia and America. At first a few influential chieftains were enticed by bribes, presents, and imaginary distinctions, assisted as usual by the generously offered flask of vodki. Of course, the allegiance thus obtained was of no avail and no duration, for no sooner had the Russian tchinovnik disappeared from the scene of his action, than the Kirghis chief forgot his oath of fidelity, as well as the rich presents he had received from the White Padishah of the Neva. Russia had to resort to other means. She built on various points small forts, originally intended to harbour the merchants on their way to the steppe; for the Czar is a benignant ruler, who is anxious that his subjects should be provided with all the necessaries of life, and he even went so far as to build mosques and Mohammedan colleges for the pious Kirghises, an act which has been very frequently rebuked as impolitic and unwise. This paternal care, however, did not bear the expected fruit; the so-called