employed after his journey as a political agent in Khaf, a Persian town in the west of Herat, and possessing the best information on the debatable country, was, therefore a good acquisition for the said Commission. Another officer was Lieut.Colonel J. West Ridgway, Foreign Under Secretary to the Government of India. He was entrusted with the lead of the Indian section of the Delimitating Commission, and his march from Nushkhi, across the desert, to the Hilmend, proves him a sagacious and circumspect officer. I must mention, besides, Major Napier, an officer famous for his instructive report on the northern frontiers of Persia, and Mr. Condie Stephen, second secretary to the legation at Teheran, whom I had occasion personally to meet, and whose versatility in the Russian and Persian languages, really surprised me. I ought to say, too, a few words about the native Indian and Afghan members of the commission, but we cannot dwell on such details at any length. Suffice it that the whole commission, having to be protected against unex

pected attacks on the Turkoman frontier, was furnished with an escort composed of 200 cavalry of the 11th Bengal Lancers, but known as Probyn's Horse, and of 250 infantry, the entire commission making altogether 35 Europeans, and 1,300 natives. Starting from different points, the Indian section,

under Ridgway, reached Herat on the 17th of November, after having traversed over 767 miles from Quettah to Kuhsan; whilst the smaller portion, consisting of Sir Peter Lumsden and the leading officers of his staff, arrived on the 19th of November, after a journey of 1,000 miles from Resht, on the Caspian, through Khorassan, and met their countrymen at Kuhsan.

The English Delimitating Commission, on arriving on the spot, was no little surprised at finding no trace of their Russian colleagues-namely, of General Zelenoy, the Russian Commissioner-in-Chief, to whom were subordinated Major Alikhanoff, M. Lessar, and other Russian officers familiar with the frontier. Instead of their colleagues, they found, however, at Pul-i-Khatun, forty miles south of Sarakhs, a Russian picket of Cossacks gazing at the English comers, as if to ask of them, “ What have you got to look for in Russian territory?" Now we can readily imagine that this first rebuff was sufficient to convince Sir Peter Lumsden of the utter futility of the task before him, and that the English gentlemen had rather a bad foretaste of the work entrusted to them. It must be borne in mind that it was upon the Sarakhs KhodjaSalih line that the frontier rectification was to take place. For we read in the Blue Book ("Central Asia, No. 1," 1884), that M. de Giers, with a view to

preventing disturbances on the borders of Afghanistan, considered it to be of great importance that the boundary of that country from Khodja-Salih to the Persian frontier, in the neighbourhood of Sarakhs, should be formally and definitely laid down, and that he had instructed Prince Lobanoff to endeavour to induce her Majesty's Government to agree to the adoption of measures for that purpose. If such were Russian measures in 1882, we may well ask what were the reasons of that sudden change, and why was the frontier line pushed down southwards forty miles to Pul-i-Khatun, and subsequently another forty miles southward to the Zulfikar Pass on the Heri-Rud? The answer will be very easily found if we consider that, during the last two years, the English having entered upon the venturesome undertaking in Egypt, and having become thoroughly immersed in troubles in the Soudan, were deemed by the politicians on the Neva as really incapable of resistance, and easily to be tampered with according to Russia's heart's desire. It is certainly one of the worst tricks that has ever been played by diplomacy, when we consider that Russia, availing herself of the embarrassments of the Liberal Government on the Thames, was unconscionable enough to pitch into that very Mr. Gladstone who was the author and upholder of Russian sympathies in England, who swore by the sincerity of the

Czar, and who was fated now to bitterly expiate his Russian proclivities. Of course sentimentality, unknown in politics, had never a home in St. Petersburg, and Russia, disregarding all previous promises relating to the frontier points, thought proper to annex as much as she could, and by using the device of Prince Bismarck, namely, “Beati possidentes," to fix a line wherever favourable circumstances afforded the best opportunity.

Apart from this move to the south, on the banks of the Heri-Rud, Russia had begun simultaneously to push on towards that portion of the Murghab river which was the indisputable possession of the Afghans, namely, to Penjdeh, in order to secure a firm footing in the cultivable regions of the Paropamisus outskirts, after having crossed the desert from Merv to the last-named place. The plan as to this portion of Afghanistan had already become ripe in 1884, for, after the successful termination of the comedy of voluntary submission at Merv, vague rumours were spread about concerning an equally voluntary submission of the Sarik Turkomans living in and around Penjdeh, and, in fact, certain elders of the said tribes presented themselves at Ashkabad, and, after having obtained presents from General Komaroff, deposited their oaths of fidelity to the Czar, without the slightest right, however, of representing their own nation, as

we afterwards learned. To Russia this farce was sufficient to make her come forward with claims upon Penjdeh. Major Alikhanoff, entrusted with the occupation of Penjdeh, tried several times to get possession of the place, and having found there in June, 1884, a strong Afghan garrison, and seeing that the Sarik had not the slightest notion of the so-called voluntary submission to the Czar, for they were ready to attack the Cossacks in company with the Afghans, he saw himself compelled to retire upon Merv, without giving up, however, the hope of a future successful annexation.

Sir Peter Lumsden, together with the members of the Delimitating Commission, on seeing how totally different the state of things on the spot was from what he had reason to expect in London, and finding how difficult it was to carry out the instructions given to him by the Liberal ministry, at once entered upon a lively exchange of despatches with his superiors, and pointed out that there must be something wrong about the whole question of frontier rectification. We, the distant lookers-on, felt from the beginning a distrust of the whole concern. The writer of these lines was one of the first who ridiculed the whole affair of future delimitation, in a paper published in the National Review of November, 1884. He styled the whole thing one of the most ridiculous farces