village beyond the strong position of Kizil Arvat. The results of those investigations have not been made known, but we can judge of the importance of the latter by the fact that General Lomakine has recently advanced to Kizil Arvat and Kizil Tchesme, still further on, at the head of a considerable army, and that he is supposed to be meditating a coup against Merv from those posts of vantage. Notwithstanding these results, which have however been obtained entirely within the Russian frontier, it may be said that Russia has not done much towards exploring the country held by the Turcomans, and that the great sandy expanse of Kara Kum, with its oasis of Merv, and the fertile strip of country from Sarakhs to Abiverd is still a terra incognita to Russia as well as to ourselves. Of course it is just possible that great diligence may have been shown by the Russian officials in collecting information concerning these places from native sources in Khiva and at Charjui; but if there has been this diligence it has apparently borne little fruit. The Russian official map of Central Asia, which is to be obtained only with great difficulty outside Russia, and which the author has been so far privileged as to have secured for these volumes, throws no more light on the Kara Kum desert than Petermann's or Walker's Turkestan. Russia, with great opportunities, has done scarcely anything for the advancement of geographical knowledge in this quarter, and this apathy has been the more surprising because political and military advantages were here the sure rewards of success. It should, however, be remembered by those who may

reckon upon a prolonged continuance of apathy in this direction, that the advantages of action are so obvious that sooner or later they must induce Russian governors to sanction operations upon a large scale, and that once they are sanctioned the results must be certain and immediate. Elsewhere in Central Asia the result of geographical research, and of individual courage and labour, can only be reaped after years of patient and persistent toil; but here the prize can be secured in a few months.

And what has been said with regard to Kara Kum applies with equal force to Kizil Kum. Although the latter desert is mostly within the Russian frontier, it is so barren that the Russian Government has never been at any pains to explore it, nor has it made any attempts at improving it. The few routes which are marked across it, or which skirt its edges, are traversed by few travellers or caravans; and so long as Russians strain the resources of their country in efforts to press forward in all directions towards India, so long must the Kizil Kum expanse remain the waste which it has been since the alteration in the course of the Jaxartes. It is within the strict limits of accuracy to assert that, since the annexation of the Amou Darya district, nothing has been done in the way of exploring Kizil Kum, and that, with the securing of a waterway from Kazala to Khiva and the Oxus, even the old caravan route through Kalenderhana has been to some extent neglected by the Russian authorities. In olden days the highly prosperous and thickly popu lated kingdom of Khwaresm stretched on both sides

of the Oxus far into Kizil Kum and Kara Kum. The aqueducts and canals can still be traced in the sand, which were constructed by beneficent khans of the Chaghtai and other dynasties; but the civilised rule of Russia has not conceived it to be necessary to imitate those laudable and prudent measures.

During the campaigns which resulted in the capture of Samarcand and the virtual subjection of Bokhara, the Russians acquired copious information concerning the roads leading to Charjui and Kerkhi from Bokhara. Charjui is exactly one hundred and ten miles distant from Bokhara. The road passes through Bugudjan, Kara Kul, and Ardan to Ustik, on the Oxus, whence the route lies south-east to Charjui, which is on the left bank of the Oxus one hundred and fifty miles from Merv. From Bokhara to Kerkhi there is a road through the desert for a portion of the journey, passing through Hosh Robat and Shaha to Karalindai, which is opposite to Kerkhi. The distance is one hundred and thirty miles, but there is a want of water and an absence of cultivation that greatly increase the difficulties an army would have to encounter. Recent explorations along the Karshi-Kilif road tend to show that there are practicable roads to Kerkhi from the east. But after all, the Kerkhi road, and Kerkhi itself, are of far less importance than Charjui. But Charjui itself is only the half-way house to Merv, and recently events have moved so fast that if Russia should now if ever resolve to play the bigger of the two games which always lie ready to her choice, Merv, important as it is and must ever be, sinks for the

moment into a secondary place. The Russians in Tashkent have never ceased to hope and to believe that they could advance upon India through Balkh and from the Pamir; and they have indulged in those hopes and beliefs chiefly for the reason that if they are not founded on fact they must give up all claim to the foremost part in any proposed invasion of Hindostan. Given the requisite number of troops, and the due amount of roubles, and Russia can always advance against India from Khorasan and the Atrek; but that would be an expedition under the immediate control of the authorities at Tiflis and St. Petersburg. Neither in its dangers nor its glory could the Tashkent army or Governor General claim the first place. It is unnecessary to point out that to such a deprivation the Tashkent army, which has conquered "Central Asia," will not willingly submit. Therefore it is that during the past few summers explorations have been so persistently carried on in Kulab, Hissar, Karategin, and on the Pamir, and it is of those investigations that we must now speak.

When Russia annexed Samarcand, Bokhara was in a state of disunion, and its vassals, the Beks of Kulab and Hissar, were in reality independent princes in the close vicinity of the new Russian frontier. Russia at once interested herself in this domestic quarrel, and General Kaufmann had the satisfaction of settling the matter on the basis that these Beks were to be the vassals of Bokhara. Still more to the content of Mozaffur Eddin, a Bokharan garrison was placed in possession of Shahr-i-sebz, and thus the nominal

dominions of the Ameer of Bokhara were carried to the foot of the Pamir. Karategin passed at the same time under the influence of Khudayar Khan of Khokand, and when that potentate was deposed, partly by his own people and partly by Russia, in 1875, it is to be conjectured, although nothing definite has been said upon the subject, that Karategin passed under the controlling influence of Russia. In the summer of 1875 a Russian mission visited Hissar, and proceeded through that province to Kulab on the borders of Badakshan and Darwaz. That mission was composed of Messrs. Vishniefski, Maieff, and Captain Schwartz, and their object was to throw light on the little-known province of Hissar and the country lying east of that district in the direction of the Pamir. Our chief information of those places was derived from the Chinese, and to a great extent we are in a no better position. now, as the results of the Russian explorations have been only partially divulged.* The journey of the Indian explorer, Faiz Baksh, which will be referred to in a later chapter, alone to some degree makes us independent of Russian sources of knowledge. It is known, in a general way, that this mission acquired some very useful and important information concerning Hissar and Kulab, and more especially of the Guzar and Shirabad oases. At the place called Baisun, close to the road to Shirabad, there is a range of mountains through which there passes a gorge that these Russian explorers pronounced to be impregnable. The importance of Baisun is to be found in the fact that it is on

See "Geographical Magazine," November, 1875.