being with two ideas in his head could for a moment doubt that they had acted under specific instructions."

It is, therefore, beyond every doubt that in spite of outspoken anti-Russian feelings, and notwithstanding the Crimean war, a costly and quite objectless undertaking, the attitude of British statesmen in relation to Russian encroachments in Central Asia has had, from the first, that mark of leniency, indecision, and irresolution which has unfortunately prevailed up to the present time. Here and there we may have noticed an effervescence, a dubious rushing into action; but very soon abating, and always lame and without results in the end. Thus we find that during the whole conquest, from Tashkend to Bokhara, scarcely a voice was raised against advancing Russia. The public mind of England was swayed by her humanitarian swindling; and whenever the writer of these lines demonstrated the danger which was sure to arise out of the Russian advance to India, he was mostly pooh-poohed by the leading organs of both parties, nay, even rebuked for attempting to check the benignant work of civilisation, and the great blessing which Russia was to bestow upon barbarous and fanatic Central Asia.

It was only in 1869, when the outposts of the Czar had reached the Oxus, that a considerable

amount of uneasiness began to prevail in the optimistic circles of Great Britain. Prince Gortschakoff having been asked by Lord Clarendon about the ulterior plans of Russia, gave full assurance that his sovereign, the Czar, looked upon Afghanistan as completely outside the sphere within which Russia might be called upon to exercise her influence. For a certain time this restriction of the Muscovite sphere was faithfully observed; the Cabinet of St. Petersburg abstained from crossing the Oxus, in the north of Afghanistan; but four years later, nevertheless, she crossed the same river in the north of Khiva. After she declared war against the lastnamed country, England, alarmed at the magnitude of the preparations, again ventured to modestly ask what this meant. The answer of Russia was to the effect that the expedition dispatched against Khiva would be but a very little one; it would consist of simply four and a half battalions, with the purpose merely and solely to punish acts of brigandage, it being very far from the intentions of the Czar to take possession. of Khiva, and that positive orders had been issued to the contrary. This little army consisting of four and a half battalions, consisted in reality of 53 companies of infantry, 25 sotnias of Cossacks, 54 guns, 6 mortars, 2 mitrailleuses, 5 rccket divisions, and 19,200 camels, with a complement of about 14,000 men.

F

The British statesmen of the day, believing obstinately in the story of four and a half battalions, did not find the shadow of anything suspicious in Russia's doings, and when the ambassador of the Khan of Khiva appeared at Simla, where he was sent to implore the assistance of the British, he was told by the then Governor-General, Lord Northbrook, that the Queen was exceedingly sorry for the dispute which had arisen between the Khan and the Russian Czar, and that the best the Khivans could do was to make peace with the Russian Emperor and submit to his dictation.

Well, Khiva submitted; Russia got her foot on the left bank of the Oxus, and, in spite of all self-delusions, the uneasiness of England about Russian coterminousness with Afghanistan grew apace. The intention of safe-guarding the limits of the country intervening between England and Russia was in existence, but not the adequate will and power to obtain a desirable solution. Whilst walking in the avenues of Baden-Baden, Lord Clarendon and Prince Gortschakoff were quite happy to stumble over the new idea of a neutral zone to be made out of Afghanistan, a sort of buffer which was sure to prevent any future collisions; for his Majesty, the Czar, gave his sacred promises to fully respect the neutrality of the country of the Afghans; and English optimists, asking for

nothing better than a loophole to escape through, were quite happy at this arrangement.

But the Czar is at the far distance in the north; and his representative at Tashkend happened to have such notions of Afghan neutrality as were entirely different from those of his master. Whilst the English were enjoying the full beatitude of the peaceful arrangement made with their northern rival, this very representative of the Czar was indefatigable in sending secret missions and correspondences to the Emir of Kabul, in which the latter was told of the great interest the people of Russia took in his fate, and particularly how they pitied him for having become the victim of English despotism, treachery, and egotism. Of these Russian billets doux but very little has transpired in Europe; but their effect was clearly and unmistakably visible in the behaviour of the late Shir Ali Khan, a prince of tolerably good disposition, and certainly far superior to the present ruler of Afghanistan, but who, soured by the irresolute policy of the Viceroy of India at the time he was struggling hard for his throne against various competitors, just wanted the above-mentioned secret encouragement and this continual goading from Tashkend in order to become the declared enemy of Great Britain, as he afterwards proved.

We have no space here to dwell at any length

upon the main causes of the second Afghan war; nor shall we enter into the discussion of whether it was the short-sightedness of the Conservatives in England, or the rashness of Lord Lytton, which precipitated that bloody campaign. But we cannot abstain from remarking that Shir Ali was by no means the innocent lamb he is represented to be by the Liberal politicians of Great Britain. Left to his own fate through the principles of "masterly inactivity," and getting, through his own efforts, upon the musnud of Kabul, the subsidies he got in the shape of presents from Calcutta were utterly inefficient to make this man a staunch ally of England. He was always sulky and always hankering after an increase in the subsidies, for he was more greedy than the rest of the Afghans; and, having been secretly spurred and pushed from Tashkend, it was but quite natural that the good understanding between him and Great Britain should have turned out a failure, that the meetings at Amballah and Simla proved unsuccessful, and that the second Afghan war was an unavoidable consequence of this long tension.

The history of the arrival of the Russian mission under Stolyetoff at Kabul, and the refusal of the Emir to receive the British mission, are too fresh in memory to require any reiteration.