occupied, on the 16th of March, the Kalai-Khurshid Khan, erroneously called in Europe Koshut Khan, in one corner of which the Russians have since erected a fort called Nikolayeffsk.

Thus fell Merv, the "Queen of the World "—in a European prosaic translation, a heap of ruins-into the hands of Russia. Alikhanoff was raised to the rank of a major; Makhdum-Kuli Khan was rewarded by being appointed as the head of the Tedjend oasis; Komaroff got the order of the White Eagle, and was made Governor-General of Transcaspia. Other participators were likewise distinguished, and in order to cap the climax, Dondukoff Korsakoff, the Governor-General of the Caucasus, the man who denounced the Treaty of Berlin as a piece of music à la Offenbach, very soon afterwards appeared in Merv to proclaim to the "voluntarily submitting" Turkomans the great joy and satisfaction the White Padishah at the Neva had evinced at this spontaneous act of his beloved Turkoman children. Evidently knowing the gluttonous and greedy character of these new members of the large Russian family, the ex-Kalmuk Dondukoff was also the bearer of a large quantity of brandy, of robes of honour, etc., which were distributed amongst the leading Turkomans. The Court of St. Petersburg even took an active part in the so-called "voluntary submission "

E

of the Mervians, for we read in the correspondence of a Russian officer, published in the Turkestan Gazette of May, 1885, that the Empress sent a richly embroidered dress, said to be her own needlework, to the widow of the late Nurverdi Khan, named GulDjemal, i.e., "Beauty of the Rose," a lady of great influence amongst the Mervians, who had no little share in that "voluntary submission."

Summing up what we said in reference to the Russian acquisition of Merv, we may well conclude with the remark that it was a clever stroke on the part of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg to secure this outlying post of the Turkoman country, and that for the following reasons:

1. By the annexation of Merv, and by subduing the whole Tekke tribe, Russia has made nearly the whole Turkoman nation her subjects. The Turkoman possessions could now be rounded off into one compact body, and no further apprehension had to be entertained concerning the enmity of the people.

2. The situation of Merv, midway between Bokhara and Persia, offered the best means of communication between the newly laid down railway on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, and the trading route between the Zerefshan and eastern Persia. The news which has reached us lately referring to

the connection of a railroad from Bokhara to Merv, and to Sarakhs, must be looked upon as a natural consequence of this central position. It had been from immemorial times a highway between the khanates and Persia; and Russia having done away with the Turkoman nuisance, is almost sure to drain off the whole of the Central Asian trade to this newly-planned channel.

3. By rendering innocuous any future hostile movements of the Tekke-Turkomans in Merv, Russia has removed any obstacle possibly arising on her flanks at a time when she might intend to move on her main line of communication from Sarakhs towards Herat; and by doing so, she has successfully imitated all the Asiatic conquerors who burst forth from Central Asia with the open intention to attack and conquer India. Just as Alexander the Great secured the old Marghiana (Merv) before entering the Afghanistan of to-day, in the same way we find the army of Djenghis occupying and destroying Merv before it entered Herat. The same thing was done by Timur, the Uzbeg Sheibani Khan, and Nadir Shah. It was therefore quite in accordance with the principles of strategy, that Alexander III. possessed himself of Merv to further his ulterior plans upon India. Similar to these views of mine are the opinions of many other contemporary English

writers on that subject, and for the sake of endorsement I shall quote the following authorities:

General Sir Edward Hamley, undoubtedly one of the greatest living authorities on military topics, said amongst other things, "The The one advantage of the possession (of Merv) is that the caravan route passing Bokhara to Meshed and the interior,

and that from India by Herat to Central Asia, lie through Merv. But that it was once a centre of great prosperity, is proved by the fact that the remains of four great cities exist there, the inhabitants of the last of which were driven out by the semi-barbarians about a century ago. Under Russian rule that prosperity will revive, the lands will once more teem with the crops to which nothing is wanting but good husbandry, and, when once again become populous and fertile, it will form a secondary base against the Afghan frontier. In the meantime it closes the gap aforesaid, and as soon as Russia lays down her frontier line, the whole of that vast empire, from the Baltic to the Danube, thence along the Black Sea, across the Caucasus to the Caspian, along the Persian frontier to Merv and Turkestan, and so on to Siberia, will lie in a ring fence. This is the power which is now separated from a frontier which, presumably, we cannot allow her to overstep, by a border land which is a barrier

in no sense, and which I will endeavour briefly to describe."

Colonel Valentine Baker wrote on his return from the Perso-Turkoman frontier in 1873: "Merv, with its water communication nearly complete, lies only 240 miles from Herat, to which place it is the key. There can be no doubt that Merv is the natural outwork of Herat, with the advantage of water supply all the way between the two cities. Strategically, the Russian occupation of Merv would be, so to say, the formation of a lodgment on the glacis of Herat. It would place Herat completely at

her mercy."

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 Herat; and it is in this fact that the value of Merv to the Russians lies. Once place Herat 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.”

Finally, we may quote the words of Charles Marvin, written in February, 1884: "The conquest of Merv is something more than the annexation of a sand-desert oasis. It means the complete junction of