. 
 
 
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 3ti)aca, 2Jcn> $ork 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 COLLECTION 
 
 CHINA AND THE CHINESE 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 
 CLASS OF 1876 
 
 1918 
 
Cornell University Library 
 D 378.R26 
 
 3 1924 023 001 039 
 
RU 
 
ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023001039 
 
ENGLAND AND BUSSIA 
 IN THE EAST. 
 
 A SERIES OF PAPERS ON 
 
 THE POLITICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITION 
 OF CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 MAJOR-GEN. SIE HENRY RAWLINSON, 
 
 K.C.B., F.B.S., 
 
 FBESIDENT OF THE EOYAL GEOGEAPHICAL SOCIETY, 
 AHD HEMIJEK OF THE COUNCIL OB IKDIA. 
 
 (Formerly Envoy and Minister at the Court of Persia.) 
 
 WITH MAP. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1875. 
 

 '/ 
 
 1 
 
 LOHDOS : 
 BBAEBUKY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WH1TEFBIAKS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This little volume, which is intended as a sort of Manual for 
 students of the Eastern question, comprises five papers on the 
 recent history and political condition of Central Asia, and one 
 on its Geography, three of these papers being reprints from 
 Periodical Eeviews, and three being original. 
 
 To justify the reproduction of the three papers to which I 
 have alluded and which relate both to the affairs of Persia 
 and of Central Asia, it might be sufficient to point out that 
 "the events of the last few years, and the giant strides which 
 Russia is now making in the East, have revived public interest 
 in the subject, imparting indeed fresh importance to the history 
 of the earlier period, and to the facts and opinions which were 
 formerly put on record regarding it. But these are not the 
 only arguments that have induced me to issue this volume in 
 its present form. I have further considered : firstly, that the 
 " Calcutta Eeview " of 1849, which contains the article on 
 Persia — the only corrected summary that has ever been drawn 
 up of our political relations with that country — has been long 
 out of print ; and secondly, that the late Lord Strangford, who, 
 as it is well known, had made a special study of the affairs of 
 Central Asia, strongly recommended the " Quarterly Review " 
 articles of 1865 and 1866 for republication, shortly after their 
 appearance, as the most convenient method of informing the 
 public upon a difficult subject and drawing their attention to 
 the encroachments of Russia in the East.* I believe then, that I 
 am only meeting a real and pressing requirement in adding to 
 * See "Pall Mall Gazette" of January 7th, 1868. 
 
vi PEEFACE. 
 
 the new essays which are contained in this volume, a few of my 
 earlier papers upon Persia and Central Asia, appending at the 
 same time to such papers a series of notes, the object of which 
 is to show in how far former speculation has been verified by 
 events, and generally to bring up to the present day our in- 
 formation on the various subjects that are discussed. 
 
 It may now be convenient to state briefly of what materials 
 the volume is composed. Chapter I., which was published in 
 India in 1849, contains a review of our relations with Persia 
 from the commencement of the century to the accession of the 
 ■reigning Shah. It shows how we sought at first to employ 
 Persia in scourging the AfgMns ; how we afterwards, in defence 
 of Indian interests, wrestled with France for the Persian 
 alliance ; and how the country subsequently, being neglected 
 by England, yielded to the sustained pressure of Kussia, till it 
 became, so to speak, a mere instrument in that power's hands. 
 In Chapter II., which has been written for this work, the political 
 history of Persia is continued to the present time, recent events 
 of interest, such as the settlement by arbitration of her Eastern 
 frontier, and the establishment of the Indo-European tele- 
 graph, together with the Eeuter concession and the Shah's 
 visit to Europe, being duly recorded and .explained. The 
 political affairs of a second-rate Oriental power like Persia, which 
 are discussed in these opening chapters in considerable detail, 
 cannot be expected, under existing circumstances, to prove of 
 an engrossing interest to English readers ; but it may be well 
 to remember that the country is so placed geographically, 
 midway between Europe and India, that it can hardly fail to 
 play an important part in the future history of the East ; and 
 that the condition of its people, therefore, and the temper of 
 its Government are entitled to the attention of thoughtful 
 inquirers, in a degree altogether disproportioned to the space 
 which the dominions of the Shah occupy on the map of the 
 world, or the rank which Persia holds in the scale of nations. 
 The Persia of to-day is not, it is true, the Persia of Darius, 
 
PBEFAOE. Vii 
 
 nor even is it the Persia of Shah Abbas the Great ; but it is a 
 country, which, for good or for ill, may powerfully affect the 
 fortunes of Great Britain's Empire in the East, and which re-* 
 quires, therefore, to be studied by our Statesmen with care, 
 with patience, and, above all, with indulgent consideration. 
 
 The third chapter, which is reprinted from the " Quarterly 
 Eeview " of October, 1865, contains a fair statement, taken 
 from the most authentic sources, of Eussia's progress in the 
 East, from the time of her first crossing the Kirghiz Steppe to 
 her establishment in Tashkend, which has ever since been the 
 head-quarters of her power in Central Asia.. When this article 
 first appeared the Eussian Press complained of its being written 
 in a hostile spirit, but did not attempt to impugn the accuracy 
 of the facts recorded, which, nevertheless, were of so startling a 
 nature when duly brought before the public, as to raise serious 
 doubts amongst us of the intentions of Eussia, and to awaken 
 us, at any rate, to a sense of the impending gravity of the 
 position. I take some credit to myself that at so early a period 
 as 1865 I forecasted the development of Eussian power in 
 Central Asia very much as it has since occurred, and that I then 
 suggested the policy, to which I now recur, of proceeding, on the 
 approach of real danger,- to man the outposts of our Indian 
 Empire at Herat and Candahar, in order to prevent their 
 falling into the hands of the enemy. 
 
 Chapter IV., which is principally devoted to the geography 
 of Central Asia, and to a record of English and Eussian 
 discovery in that region, also carries on the political narrative 
 to the capture of Khojend. This article appeared in the 
 " Quarterly Eeview " of October, 1866. 
 
 The next paper, forming Chapter V., is of a more confi- 
 dential character. It is an amplified version of a speech on 
 Central Asian affairs, which I had intended to address to the 
 House of Commons in the summer of 1868, but which I was 
 prevented by an accident from delivering. It embodies a sur- 
 vey of the. political position, which was held at that time 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 respectively by Russia and England in the East ; and it points 
 to the necessity of replacing the old policy of "masterly 
 inaction " by creating, without loss of time, a direct barrier in 
 Afghanistan against further Eussian encroachment. This 
 paper has never been published, though it was communicated 
 at the time to the authorities in India, and may have thus had 
 some share in influencing their decision to support Shir All 
 Khan at Cabul. 
 
 And the series is closed with Chapter VI., which deals with 
 the later phases of the Central Asian question, and brings up 
 the outline narrative of events to the present day. Many very 
 important subjects, bearing on the future relations between 
 England and Eussia in the East, are here discussed ; but the 
 essential feature of the chapter, and indeed of the whole 
 volume, is the principle which it inculcates at the close of the 
 argument, that if Eussia should overstep certain limits in her 
 approach to India, she must be checked by an armed resistance, 
 even at the risk of producing war between the two countries. 
 Herat, which has been justly named "the key of India," must, 
 in my view, be secured against Eussian occupation at all 
 hazards, even though it should be necessary to march a force 
 from India for its protection. But it must not be supposed 
 that such a programme, bold as it may seem in these halcyon 
 days of general repose, is really of a warlike tendency. On the 
 contrary, it is put forward essentially in the interests of peace. 
 It may be remembered that we drifted into the Crimean war be- 
 cause the nation uttered an "uncertain sound" when appealed to 
 on behalf of Turkey, and Russia thus thought she might press 
 forward with impunity. On the present occasion, it is hoped 
 that the sound will not be uncertain, but that the public voice 
 will declare our resolution to fight for the safety of Her£t, in 
 which case, to use her own expressive language, Eussia " will 
 think seven times "* before she prosecutes her enterprise against 
 the Turcomans of Merv. 
 
 * See Extract from Grigorief 's letters," p. 271 of this volume. 
 
PEEEAOE. ix 
 
 A few additional words seem to be required in explanation 
 of the two serious questions of responsibility and authority 
 involved in this publication. Occupying as I do at present a 
 seat in the Council of India, I may be supposed by some to 
 speak on Eastern matters with official authority, and in fact 
 to represent the views of the Government ; but this would be 
 entirely an erroneous assumption. The Council of India has 
 no executive powers. It is a purely consultative body, in 
 which every man has his own opinion, and communicates it, 
 when asked, to the Secretary of State, who is alone respon- 
 sible for administrative action. In my own case, for instance, — 
 as the result of forty years' continuous observation of the course 
 of political affairs in Central Asia, fortified by a large personal 
 experience in Persia, in Afghanistan, and in India, — I have 
 formed a very decided opinion, which I have repeatedly 
 brought before the public, and in which I am supported by the 
 judgment of late Sir Justin Sheil,* who was for ten years our 
 Minister at Teheran, that in the event of Russia's approach 
 to Herat, it will be indispensable to the safety of India that 
 we should resume our military occupation of Western 
 Afghanistan; but I have no reason whatever for believing 
 that such views are shared by the responsible officers of the 
 Crown, either in India or in England. The arguments in favour 
 of such a course are put forward on my individual responsi- 
 bility, and with a view of eliciting discussion, not as fore- 
 shadowing the policy of the Government. 
 
 Again, in regard to my narrative of passing events, and 
 the criticism I have sometimes expressed on the proceedings 
 of Government as well as of individuals, it should be clearly 
 understood that I do not speak in my official capacity, nor do 
 I rely upon official records ; but on the contrary, that I 
 have formed independent opinions from personal communica- 
 tion with the actors in the scenes described, as well as from 
 information obtained through the press in Russia and in India, 
 * See Appendix to Lady Shell's " Life in Persia." 
 
x PEJiPACE. 
 
 and especially through an extensive correspondence which I 
 maintain with gentlemen, both European and native, in India, 
 in Persia, and at St. Petersburg. The feeling of the age is 
 against all secrecy as tending to mislead and to confuse ; and 
 in ordinary affairs, perhaps, it may be admitted that publicity 
 and an appeal to the common sense of mankind, are the safest 
 guides to follow : but on the other hand there can be no doubt 
 that in dealing with suspicious and half-instructed orientals, 
 indiscreet revelations, or even premature discussion, may cause 
 an infinity of mischief; and in noticing, therefore, certain 
 "current topics of high interest, such as the Afghan succession, 
 the arrest of Yacub Khan, and our future relations with 
 Cabul, if I have thought it necessary to employ a certain re- 
 serve, and to refrain from passing any definite opinion, I trust 
 my motives will not be misunderstood. 
 
 It only remains to explain why I venture to think that my 
 views regarding the occupation of Her&t are more appropriately 
 addressed to the British public than to the Indian. Notwith- 
 standing, then, that the expenses of the last Afghan war, which 
 was brought on mainly through Eussian intrigue, were, as in 
 the case of all other Indian wars, except those beyond sea, 
 defrayed exclusively from Indian revenues, I submit that 
 the defence of India against Russia is a question of Im- 
 perial rather than of local policy, and that if it should be 
 necessary, therefore, to arrest the progress of Russia towards 
 the Indus by marching a British force to the extreme Afghan 
 frontier, the Home Government must, at the very least, share 
 the expense with the Indian Government. I will not go the 
 length of saying that India, whose public debt does not 
 amount to two years' revenue, is too poor to defend herself 
 but the principle seems to me undoubted, and should, I think 
 be acknowledged from the outset, — adding as it would a very 
 important element of strength to our Indian Empire — that in 
 any contest between India and a European enemy, whether 
 involving actual war or mere preliminary field operations, the 
 
PKEEACE. x i 
 
 Imperial Treasury must be liable at least in the same degree 
 as the Indian Treasury. If this view meets with general 
 approval, it will not only give additional security to India, but 
 will obtain from Indian economists a more attentive considera- 
 tion than has been hitherto vouchsafed, for those active 
 measures of defence beyond the frontier, which I conceive, 
 under certain circumstances, a sound policy would require. 
 
 London, January, 1875. 
 
 P.S. — The map of Central Asia which I have been fortu- 
 nately able to obtain for the illustration of this volume, was 
 compiled by the late Mr. Arrowsmith, the first of British 
 geographers, and occupied the greater part of his time during 
 his declining years. It has been rendered more complete by 
 recent additions from English and Eussian surveys, and is 
 probably the most accurate delineation, on a small scale, of the 
 vast regions of Central Asia that is now to be obtained. For 
 the political coloured boundaries, which do not profess to be 
 throughout rigidly correct, I am myself responsible. 
 
 H. C. E. 
 
THE MAP OF CENTRAL ASIA WILL BE FOUND AT THE 
 END OF THE VOLUME. 
 
 Coloured 
 
 Russian Empire with her new acquisitions Green 
 
 British India ... Med 
 
 Persia . . Yellow 
 
 Afghanistan ... Buff 
 
 Smaller Independent States Uncoloured 
 
CONTENTS. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OUE POLITICAL BELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 
 (Reprinted, with Notes, from " Calcutta Review," Vol. XII., Art. I., 3849.) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Opening of relations with Persia at the close of the last century. — 2. Cap- 
 tain Malcolm's mission and treaty, 1800. — 3. War between Eussia and 
 Persia, 1802—1806 ; and opening of relations with France, General Gar- 
 danne being appointed minister in 1807. — 4. Appointment of Sir Harford 
 Jones by the Crown and of General Malcolm by the Government of India 
 to be Minister in Persia. Malcolm's retirement and Sir H. Jones's treaty, 
 1807-1811. — 5. Our interests in Persia and the policy adopted in support 
 of them. — 6. Sir Gore Ouseley's embassy, 1811, and definitive treaty, 
 1813. — 7. Treaty of Teheran, concluded by Messrs. Morier and Ellis, 
 1814. — 8. Summary of our relations with Persia, from 1814 to Russian 
 treaty of Turcoman-chai in 1828. — 9. Modification of the treaty of 
 Teheran, by Sir J. Macdonald, 1829. — 10. Origin and explanation of 
 Persian designs upon Her£t.— 11. State of affairs in Persia, to the death 
 of Futteh Ali Shah in 1834.— 12. Our relations with Court of Teheran 
 from accession of Mahomed Shah to the raising of the siege of Herat, 
 June 23, 1838. — 13. Suspension of our relations with Persia, and Sir J. 
 McNeill's return to England. Expedition to the Persian Gulf and Afghan 
 war, 1838-1841. — 14. .Reconciliation with Persia, and retirement from 
 Afghanistan, 1842. — 15. English and Russian relations with Persia, and 
 state of the country to the death of Mahomed Shah, in 1848. — 16. General 
 view of the question in 1849 . . . 1—79 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA continued. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. 1848-1852. — State of Persia from the accession of Nassir-ed-din Shah to the 
 death of the Amir Nizam. — 2. Affairs of Herat. Death of Yar Mahomed 
 Khan. Our Convention with Persia regarding Herat, 1853. — 3. Persia 
 during the Crimean War, 1854-1856. — 4. Herat affairs during the same 
 period. Occupation of Herat by Persia, Oct. 1856.— 5. 1856-1858. — 
 Persian War. Treaty of Peshawer, Jan. 1857. Treaty of Paris, March, 
 1857. Its provisions and their effect.— 6. 1858-1863. Teheran Mission 
 transferred to India Office, 1859, and re-transfened to Foreign Office, 1860. 
 The question examined. Our policy in Persia. Affairs of Herat to the 
 death of Dost Mahomed Khan, May, 1863. — 7. Disputes between the 
 Persians and Afghans in regard to Seistan. — 8. History of the Persian 
 Telegraph. Convention of 1863, &c. — 9. Affairs of the Persian Gulf and 
 Bahrein up to 1868. — 10. Affairs of Mekran, and frontier delimitation 
 between Persia and Kelat, 1862-1872.— 11. The Seistan arbitration, 1870- 
 1872.. — 12. Present state of our relations with Persia. The Atrek frontier 
 and proposed expedition against the Turcomans. The Grand Vizier. — 
 13. The Reuter Concession and the Shah's visit to Europe, 1873. — 14. 
 Prospects of Persia and policy of England towards her, 1874 . . 80—135 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 {Reprinted, with Notes, from the "Quarterly Review " for October, 1 865. 
 No. 236, p. 529.) 
 
 1. Apathy of the English public in 1865, in regard to affairs in Central Asia, 
 contrasted with the Eussophobia of 1838. — 2. Retrospect of Russian policy 
 in Central Asia from the period of the Afghan war. Khivan expedition 
 of 1839-40, and negociations with Bokhara up to 1842. — 3. Operatibns 
 of Russia in the Steppe and on the Jaxartes from 1847 to period of the 
 Crimean war, 1854. — 4. Simultaneous advances in the Trans-Hi region to 
 the Eastward. — 5. Invasion of Kokand territory in 1863 ; capture of 
 Turkestan and Chemkend, and Gortchakoff's circular of 1864. — 6. Re- 
 sumption of hostilities. Capture of Tashkand, and creation of Govern- 
 ment of Turkestan, 1865. — 7. 'British policy in Central Asia after the 
 Afghan war. Convention with Persia regarding Herat, 1852. Treaty of 
 
CONTENTS. xv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Paris, 1857 ; and. our general relations with the Afghans.— 8. Our un- 
 official eommunicatipns with Turkestan from 1842 to 1865.— 9. Prospective 
 relations of Eussia with Kokand, Bokhara, and Khiva, and their probable 
 effect on British Indian interests. — 10. Brief review of the Central-Asian 
 commercial question. — 11. Consideration of our future policy . 136 — 204 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 (Reprinted, with Notes, from the " Quarterly Revievi" for October, 1866. 
 No. 240, p. 461.) 
 
 1. Authorities for Central Asian Geography — German and Russian. — 2. English 
 and other travellers in the same region. — 3. Apocryphal travels, Col. 
 
 Gardiner, and Baron George Ludwig von .—4. Native explorers.— 
 
 5. General description of Central Asia. — 6. Evidence of its early civiliza- 
 tion. — 7. Ethnological sketch. — 8. Eeview of the present political con- 
 dition of its four divisions, S.E. Cashmere and Thibet, 1T.E. Eastern 
 Turkestan, S.W. Afghanistan, and N.W. Bussian Turkestan, with 
 sketch of events there to autumn of 1866. — 9. General political 
 considerations 205—262 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MEMORANDUM ON THE CENTRAL ASIAN QUESTION, 
 DATED JULY, 1868. 
 
 . Abstract review of Russian progress in Central Asia up to 1868. — 2. Rela- 
 tions of Russian military commanders with the Central Government. — 
 3. Russian view of her present state and prospects in Central Asia, as 
 denned by Grigorief and Romanofski. — 4. Probable position of Russia in 
 Central Asia in 1878, if unchecked by England.— 5. Effect of that position 
 upon India considered : (a) in reference to Russian relations with Cabul ; 
 (b) in regard to restlessness of frontier states ; (c) in respect to elements of 
 weakness in our own position in India. — 6. Arguments for our immediate 
 interference in Afghan politics.— 7. More extended view of the Central 
 Asian question in regard to Russia's means in the future of offence 
 against India.— 8. Measures required to meet the danger— (a) reform of 
 our political relations with Persia ; (b) various subsidiary arrangements 
 for strengthening our position on the North-west frontier of India . 263—292 
 
x-vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE LATER PHASES OV THE CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Lord Mayo's Afghan policy : u,. the Amballa conference ; b. the proposed 
 Neutral zone. — 2. Negotiations with Russia with regard to the Afghan 
 frontier. — 3. The expedition to Khiva, considered politically ; its origin 
 and results. — 4. The Turcoman question and Merv. — 5. A few words on 
 Eastern Turkestan. — 6. Present position of Eussiain Central Asia. — 7. 
 The present relations of England with Afghanistan. — 8. Review of the 
 general question and our future policy considered .... 293 —365 
 
 AITENDIX . . ... 366— 3S8 
 
 INDEX . .... . 389—393 
 
ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 OUR POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PERSIA.* 
 
 1. Opening of relations with Persia at the close of the last century. — 2. Captain 
 Malcolm's mission and treaty, 1800. — 3. War between Russia and Persia, 
 1802 — 1806 ; and opening of relations with France, General Gardanne heing 
 appointed minister in 1807. — 4. Appointment of Sir Harford Jones by tho 
 Crown and of General Malcolm by the Government of India to be Minister in 
 Persia. Malcolm's retirement and Sir H. Jones's treaty, 1807-1811. — 5. 
 Our interests in Persia and the policy adopted in support of them. — 6. Sir 
 Gore Ouseley's embassy, 1811, and definitive treaty, 1813. — 7. Treaty of 
 Teheran, concluded by Messrs. Morier and Ellis, 1814. — 8. Summary of our 
 relations with Persia, from 1814 to Russian treaty of Turcoman- chai in 
 1828.— 9. Modification of the treaty of Teheran, by Sir J. Macdonald, 
 1829. — 10. Origin and explanation of Persian designs upon Herat. — 11. 
 State of affairs in Persia, to the death of Futteh Ali Shah in 1834. — 12. Our 
 relations with Court of Teheran from accession of Mahomed Shah to the 
 Taising of the siege of Herat, June 23, 1838. — 13. Suspension of our relations 
 with Persia, and Sir J. McNeill's return to England. Expedition to the 
 Persian Gulf and Afghan war, 1838-1841. — 14. Reconciliation with Persia, 
 and retirement from Afghanistan, 1842. — 15. English and Russian relations 
 with Persia, and state of the country to the death of Mahomed Shah, in 
 1848. — 16. General view of the question in 1849. 
 
 1. Persia, which has almost disappeared from the political 
 horizon since the Afghan war, is now again looming in the 
 field of sight. The country is undergoing that shock which it 
 periodically sustains, when the occupancy of the throne is 
 changed; and although, upon the present occasion, neither 
 
 * Calcutta Review, voL xii., art. 1 : Persia and Afghanistan, presented 
 — 1. Progress of Russia in the East. to both houses of Parliament by Her 
 2nd edition. 1838.— 2. Quarterly Re- Majesty's Command. 1839.— 4. Re- 
 view, No. cxxvii., art. 7. — 3. Foreign cords of the Indian Government. 5. 
 Office Correspondence relating to The Bombay Times, &c., &c. 
 
2 ENGLAND AND ETJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. I. 
 
 does the immediate paroxysm threaten to be internally of a 
 very violent character, nor is it accompanied for the moment 
 with any morbid symptoms from without, still the crisis is not 
 undeserving of our attention. 
 
 There is probably no political question, connected with our 
 Indian Empire, which has been treated more frequently, or with 
 greater discrepancy of result, than that which pretends to fix 
 the nature, the limits, and the value of the true interests that 
 we possess in Persia. 
 
 Party-writers and economists, historians and pamphleteers, 
 statesmen and journalists, have, at different periods, and 
 under different phases of the subject, examined it with 
 more or less of competency and care; and, if the acts of 
 Government may be taken as an index of the pressure of the 
 times, the effect of these varied agencies upon the public mind 
 must have been to invest our relations with Persia, in popular 
 opinion, with every possible degree of consideration, from that 
 of absolute vitality to one of comparative worthlessness. We 
 commenced with a magnificent embassy, which was followed 
 by complete isolation. We descended in our next essay like 
 Jupiter in an avalanche of gold ; but ere long we took advan- 
 tage of poor Danae's distress to drive a bargain with her of 
 extraordinary rigour, and even of doubtful honesty. A third 
 time we beheld our Syren transformed into a Hydra, and we 
 plunged into a contest on her account, as momentous as any 
 that figures in the page of Indian History ; and yet, although 
 the issue of that war must have increased tenfold our danger 
 — if such danger ever had existed — we have since its con- 
 clusion held on our way with an inert complacency, that would 
 hardly have been justified in our palmiest days of security and 
 strength. 
 
 " Nil fuit unquam 
 " Sic impar sibi." 
 
 The most remarkable circumstance, however, is, that while 
 we have exhibited this strange inconsistency, — while we have 
 belied, in respect to Persia, the otherwise traditional character 
 of our Eastern policy, — if there has been one branch of 
 our Indian interests, which, from its nature, has been not 
 
<Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL BELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 3 
 
 only less than any other altered, hut has been less susceptible 
 -of alteration, it has been that which relates to the value (be it 
 for good or ill) of our connection with the Court of Teheran. 
 •Oragnic changes are as difficult in nations as they are in indi- 
 viduals. Eastern society above all, immovable alike in its 
 predilections and its prejudices, sustains the action of half a 
 ■century without any sensible effect ; and the picture therefore 
 •of Persia, as it appeared to Captain Malcolm on his first visit 
 "to the Court of the Shah, conveys, as far as all essentials are 
 ■concerned, a faithful representation of the country at the present 
 ■day * Considered also politically, since Zizianoff crossed the 
 Caucasus, and Lord Lake entered Delhi, the substantive rela- 
 tions of Persia to the European powers (we exclude party 
 intrigues, personal feelings, ephemeral interests, as of no con- 
 sequence to the general question) can never by possibility have 
 varied. Shut in between her colossal neighbours, the country 
 Jias been held together by their opposing pressure. She has 
 received influences, hut has never imparted them : her condition 
 has been strictly passive, and the tendencies to which she has 
 been exposed have been constant and uniform. If it be wise 
 at the present time to fold our arms in dignified composure, 
 and look on Persia with indifference, then our lavish subsidies 
 have been a folly, and our wars, costly as they have been in 
 blood, in honour, and in treasure, have been a crime. If, on 
 -the other hand, our past policy has been sound, then our 
 present supineness may well excite surprise. 
 
 Notwithstanding all that has been published on the subject 
 ■of Persia, we still doubt if the question of her real abstract 
 value, in regard to India, has ever yet been fairly treated. We 
 enter our formal protest against fancy-pieces, party-articles, and 
 against all political papers written for a purpose, whether that 
 
 * Malcolm indeed, ventures to a greater contrast than that obtained 
 
 assert, that "the Persians, as far as by comparing the autobiographic re- 
 
 we have the means of judging, are not cords of Darius at Bisitun with the 
 
 at present a very different people from Firman issued by Mahommed Shah 
 
 -what they were in the time of Darius on his return from the siege of Herat ; 
 
 and of Noosheerwan;" but we cannot and, as we judge of Hercules by his 
 
 ■concede this dictum in all its latitude. foot,, so we may surely estimate a. 
 
 We think it would be difficult to find nation from the month of its ruler. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 ENGLAND AND BTJSSIA EST THE EAST. [Ch. L. 
 
 purpose be detraction or apology. "We will go even further,, 
 and assert autobiographic history to be in its nature liable- 
 to suspicion. The writer, however able and however honest, 
 who undertakes to describe and reason on the political events-- 
 amongst which he is moving, encounters the same difficulties 
 as a painter, who should seat himself at the library table to* 
 sketch the facade of the mansion he inhabits. The " quorum 
 pars magna fui " is a positive impediment. Preconceived im- 
 pressions, and personal associations, must inevitably disturb th& 
 natural current of inquiry, and divert it into stranger channels. 
 Still less, too, are mere programmes to be depended on. De- 
 signed to justify some particular line of policy, they explode, 
 if that policy should prove unsuccessful. We do not mean to- 
 say that they are useless, or that the utilitarian principle 
 can be applied generally to the science of politics. Doubt- 
 less, when an occasion arises, emergent and exceptional, 
 the available lights of the moment must be followed ; delay 
 would be fatal. There must be to a certain extent an adven- 
 turous movement — a leap in the dark ; and posterity can alone 
 benefit by the issue,, in obtaining another element for future 
 calculations ; but with regard to the " pieces justificatives," — 
 those specious, often convincing guides — they must still come- 
 before the tribunal of experience, and be judged by the result. 
 If their predictions are verified, the arguments on which they 
 rest will remain a proud memorial of human foresight and 
 sagacity. If, on the other hand, they do not stand the test of 
 time, whatever respect may be paid to their ingenuity, they 
 can have no permanent claim on consideration. 
 
 These remarks are particularly applicable to the principal 
 " brochures " that have issued from the press on the Persian 
 question. Undoubtedly the two ablest of these papers, which 
 have appeared in modern times, and which, from their oppor- 
 tuneness and ability, have exercised the most influence on 
 the public mind, are those that we have placed at the head 
 of the present article. Sir John McNeill, from whose pen 
 they are well known to have proceeded, was specially fitted to- 
 guide public opinion on such a matter, uniting as he did to 
 the most perfect familiarity with his subject, a sound and 
 
Cu. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 5 
 
 accurate judgment, together with the rare advantage of a 
 freedom both from political bias, and from local prejudice; 
 yet, after the ample interval of ten years' probation, do his 
 positions, we ask, sustain their reputation ? Can his argu- 
 ments, flowing as they invariably do, in a clear and continued 
 series of inductions, or his inferences, legitimate — nay im- 
 perative — as they seem, be now quoted as standard autho- 
 rities ? We think not, and for this simple reason, that, if 
 they prove anything, they prove too much. If " the progress 
 of Russia in the East" had been, indeed, as constant and 
 inevitable as the antecedents, which he grouped together, led 
 him to believe, ten years— and ten such years — could not have 
 passed over without a much more marked development than 
 .has, in reality, taken place. If it were indispensable in 1838 
 •to establish a strong British influence in Afghanistan, in order 
 to keep at a distance certain dangers with which India was 
 threatened, that influence could not have been annihilated as 
 it was in 1842, without the dangers becoming by this time so 
 imminent, as to be no longer matters of speculation. Acci- 
 dental circumstances, we admit, may at ..any time interpose to 
 check or divert the natural course of events ; but the possi- 
 bility of those very circumstances — the chapter of accidents 
 as it is called — should form an item of account in working 
 out every political problem. This item, indeed, is of the same 
 value in considerations of policy, as the doctrine of chances in 
 the calculations of the actuary ; and by its omission in argu- 
 ment is as essentially vitiated as by erroneous premises. 
 
 We propose then, although at a distance from the scene, 
 and without such full aids as we could desire, to re-open the 
 Persian question ; and we promise our readers that, if they 
 should discover no great novelty or merit in our views, they 
 will, at any rate, obtain a just idea of our general connection 
 with the country, and will, moreover, find those particular 
 points, on which opinion is so much divided, treated in a fair 
 and candid spirit of inquiry. 
 
 It was at the close of the last century, under the administra- 
 tion of the Marquis of Wellesley, that the Government of India 
 first thought of opening political relations with the Court of 
 
6 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [On. I. 
 
 Teheran. As we do not profess to be here writing a formal 
 history of the British connection with Persia, whilst at the 
 same time we are loth to leave entirely blank any portioni 
 of our outline sketch, we must throw into a mere abstract 
 narrative such information as we possess of our dealings with 
 the Court of Teheran prior to Captain Malcolm's mission- 
 Lord Wellesley's attention had been drawn to the North West 
 frontier of India shortly after his arrival in the country,, 
 not merely by the power and avowed hostility of Shah Zeman,. 
 and by the notorious fact of an ambassador having travelled 
 from Mysore to the Punjab, but by the discovery that Vizier 
 Ali of Oude had also appealed to the avarice of the Afghan 
 King, by offering a donation of three crores of rupees, in 
 the event of his own restoration to the "musnud" through 
 the Afghan arms, and by proposing in the mean time to» 
 assign, for the uses of the Shah, the fifty-five, lakhs payable 
 from Oude for the maintenance of the British Contingent. 
 
 Mehdi Ali Khan, accordingly, a Persian nobleman natural- 
 ized in India, who was then acting as the Company's Resident 
 at, Bushire, was instructed "to take measures for inducing the 
 Court of Persia to keep Shah Zeman in perpetual check (so as. 
 to preclude him from returning to India), but without any 
 decided act of hostility ; " and two or three lakhs of rupees 
 were to be expended annually, at the Khan's discretion, for the 
 purposes above specified, — " the plan of subsidizing the whole- 
 army of Persia being (in Lord Wellesley's language) more ex- 
 tensive and expensive than circumstances seemed to require." 
 
 Agreeably to these instructions, Mehdi Ali Khan, early in 
 1798, opened a correspondence with Teheran, for the purpose 
 of persuading the Shah— who, however, needed no persuasion 
 — to send the two refugee princes, Mahmood and Firoz, with 
 a respectable force into Afghanistan. 
 
 Some court-intrigue was employed on the occasion, and the 
 expedition actually took place ; but there is every reason for 
 believing, that it would have equally taken place without the 
 interference of our agent ; for the project was in entire accor- 
 dance with the temper and policy of the Persian court, and had 
 been moreover actively discussed before the receipt of Mehdi 
 
Oh. L] OUE POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 7 
 
 Ali Khan's communication. This expedition, however, which 
 was hadly conceived and worse executed, turned out a com- 
 plete failure ; and so little disposed were we at the time to 
 take credit for having instigated the movement, that it was 
 eight years hefore the Indian Government could he persuaded 
 to reimburse to the Agent employed at Teheran the paltry 
 sum of 17,000 Eupees, expended on the personal outfit of the 
 princes. 
 
 Futteh Ali Shah took the field in person for the first time in 
 1799, for the avowed purpose of " conquering and reducing the 
 countries of Candahar and Herat," and without any further 
 communication with Mehdi Ali Khan. Letters had been 
 "written by that officer to the court of Teheran, which, by the 
 highly-coloured statements which they gave of the atrocities 
 committed by the Afghans on the Sheeahs and Syuds of 
 Lahore, were certainly calculated to excite the sectarian 
 animosity of the Persians ; * but it was not in consequence of 
 such letters that the expedition was organized. His Majesty, 
 indeed, received the inflammatory despatches on the borders 
 of Khorassan : and it is evident, therefore, we were indebted 
 for the withdrawal of Shah Zeman from Lahore to Peshawur, 
 which immediately followed his receiving intelligence of the 
 Persian movements, to the ambition of Futteh Ali Shah, 
 rather than to our own diplomacy : and upon this ground we 
 rejected a subsequent claim brought forward by the Persians 
 for indemnification. 
 
 The campaign of 1799 was of very short duration, and of no 
 great importance even in its local effects. His Majesty re- 
 turned to the capital in the autumn, and there received Mehdi 
 
 * Mehdi Ali Khan was an active specimen of 'his craft. "Lord Morn - 
 and faithful servant of the Company, rngtou," he says, " and Mr. Duncan, 
 and not an unskilful negociator j but and all the Sirdars in the Company's 
 his florid statements and thoroughly service, are indifferent as to the enter- 
 oriental colouring scandalised, on more ing or not of Shah Zeman into Hin- 
 occasions than one, the British autho- dustan, as the fame of the European 
 rities even of that age, when vera- Artillery is well known, a trifling 
 ciousness was certainly not the dis- instance of which is that 700 of their 
 tinguishing feature of our political brave troops not long ago defeated three 
 correspondence. He commences the lahhs of Suraj-ed-Dowlah's forces!" 
 letter in question with a very pretty 
 
8 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 Ali Khan, who had in the mean while wended his way from 
 Bushire to the capital, to endeavour by personal intercourse 
 with the Shah's Ministers more steadily and effectually to carry 
 out Lord Wellesley's policy. The Agent expended about two 
 '."o-ou o and a half lakhs of rupees upon this mission, thus giving the 
 Persians a foretaste of British prodigality : and it is possible — 
 __ although there is no sufficient evidence of the fact — that it may 
 have been partly owing to his advice and promise of pecuniary 
 aid, that the Shah again marched into Khorassan in the spring 
 of 1800. Mehdi Ali Khan in January of that year returned 
 from Teheran to Bushire, and joined Captain Malcolm very 
 shortly after the first British mission had set foot upon the soil 
 of Persia. 
 
 2. The immediate aim of Captain Malcolm's mission, in 1800, 
 was to push forward a Persian army on Herat, as a means of 
 diverting Shah Zeman from his long-threatened descent on 
 Hindustan ; and this was undoubtedly a legitimate object of 
 diplomacy. The invasion of India on the one hand, and the 
 defence of Khorassan on the other, had been the stimulant 
 and opiate which, ever since Shah Zeman's accession to the 
 throne, had alternately inflamed and paralyzed his ambition. 
 The Afghan king had, on two occasions, advanced in person 
 to Lahore, but had been compelled to retrace his steps 
 by troubles in his rear. He was still intent on conquest 
 beyond the Sutlej, when Captain Malcolm quitted India. 
 It is, however, erroneous to suppose that we were indebted 
 to the mission in question for our deliverance from the 
 danger which threatened us.* That the storm was dissi- 
 pated in the manner suggested by Lord Wellesley before it 
 
 i i * For a minute and honest detail of Afghans from their meditated iuva- 
 
 these events, see Elphinstone's Oabul, sion of India." On such authority, 
 
 Vol. II., p. 316. It is of the more Dr. Conder may be pardoned for 
 
 importance that historic truth should stating in the Modern Traveller 
 
 be vindicated in this matter, as the (Persia, p. 237,) that "the mission 
 
 error that we have noticed originated fulfilled all its objects. The Shah 
 
 •with Captain Malcolm himself, who gladly embraced the opportunity to 
 
 in his History of Persia, VoL II., p. invade Khorassan j and his conquest 
 
 215, had the assurance to write that had its anticipated effect of recalling 
 
 his "policy had the temporary success the Afghan chief from his Indian, 
 
 which was desired of diverting the expedition." 
 
Ch.L] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 9 
 
 reached our frontier, and that the clouds never again collected 
 in dark lowering masses, was creditable to His Lordship's 
 foresight, but was entirely independent of his measures. 
 The second expedition, indeed, of Futteh Ali Shah into 
 Khorassan in 1800, which drew Shah Zeman from Can- 
 dahar to Herat, took place almost simultaneously with 
 Captain Malcolm's journey from the south of Persia to the 
 Capital. His Majesty received the British mission at 
 Teheran in the autumn of the same year, after his return 
 from Subzewar; and the subsequent proceedings of Shah 
 Mahmood, which disconcerted Shah Zeman's arrangements 
 at Peshawur, and which led, in the sequel, to his dethrone- 
 ment, so far from originating in British instigation, or in 
 Persian support, were in reality indebted for their success to 
 their entire independence of all foreign aid. As the minion 
 of Persia, Shall Mahmood could never have prevailed against 
 his elder brother. As the popular Durani champion, he 
 was irresistible. 
 
 Captain Malcolm appears, however, to have had other in- 
 structions than those which related to our relief from the 
 positive danger of Affghan. invasion. At this time a Gallo- 
 phobia reigned rampant in India. Napoleon was the " bete 
 noire " of Lord Wellesley's dreams ; and thus, although there 
 seems, in reality, to have been no more reason for suspecting 
 the Directory to have entertained the design of injuring us 
 through Persia, than there was for apprehending danger to 
 British India from the inflated proclamation of a Mauritius 
 Governor, Captain Malcolm was nevertheless empowered to 
 contract engagements with the Shah, in regard to the French 
 nation, of so stringent — nay, of so vindictive — a nature, that 
 they have been characterized by one of our ablest, as well as 
 most impartial, political writers, as " an eternal disgrace to our 
 Indian diplomacy."* In those engagements it was provided, 
 that, " should an army of the French nation, actuated by 
 design and deceit, attempt to settle with a view of establish- 
 ing themselves on any of the Islands or shores of Persia, a 
 conjoint force shall be appointed by the two high contract- 
 * Sutherland's Sketches, p. 30. 
 
10 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I, 
 
 ing parties to act in co-operation, for their expulsion and! 
 extirpation, and to destroy and put an end to the foundation 
 of their treason ; and if any of the great men of the French 
 nation express a wish or desire to obtain a place of residence, 
 or dwelling, in any of the islands or shores of the kingdom of 
 Persia, that they may raise the standard of abode, or settle- 
 ment, leave for then* residing in such a place shall not be 
 granted." Captain Malcolm further persuaded the Shah to 
 issue a Firman to the provincial Governors, which, directed 
 that "you shall expel and extirpate the French, and never 
 allow them to obtain a footing in any place," and added that 
 " you are at full liberty to disgrace and slay the intruders." 
 
 Can we be surprised that Monsieur Langles, writing of these 
 engagements, after the passions of the hour had subsided, 
 termed them "ridiculous and even injurious ? " * Is it not, 
 indeed, a significant admission of their inability to stand the 
 test of public opinion at the present day, that the treaty which 
 embodied them was excluded from the State papers presented 
 to the House of Commons, on March 9th, 1839 ? t We confess 
 that we fully participate in the condemnation which Colonel 
 Sutherland has expressed of them on the score of their 
 morality ; but we go even farther, and affirm that they were 
 unnecessary in their nature, unsound in their policy, and preg- 
 nant with evil consequences ; — unnecessary, inasmuch as they 
 were aimed at an imaginary danger; — unsound in providing 
 for that danger a remedy too potent, or at any rate too violent, 
 to be efficacious ; — and of an almost suicidal tendency, in ex- 
 posing the vulnerability of our Indian Empire, and thus court- 
 
 * Voyage de Ckardin. Tom. X., of the treaty of 1801 were Dot to take: 
 
 p. 232. Captain Malcolm coolly replied place till after the arrival of Hadjee 
 
 to the Frenchman's statement that, Khaleel in Bengal, which never having 
 
 " it was exaetly opposed to the truth." occurred, the Supreme Government 
 
 f It is possible, however, that the could judge how far it might be allow- 
 
 exclusion of this document from the able to consider it as not now in force."' 
 
 Persian State Papers may have been We have never seen the validity of the 
 
 owing to certain doubts being enter- MalcolmTreatyquestionedinanyother- 
 
 tained, whether the treaty ever came quarter; but assuredly, if its ratifica- 
 
 into operation ; for we find Governor tionandinterchangeneverdidinreality 
 
 Duncan stating in 1806, that "there take place, it was diplomatically allow- 
 
 was an impression on his mind, that able to ignore the whole transaction, 
 the final ratification and interchange 
 
On. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS "WITH PERSIA. 11 
 
 ing, instead of averting, attack. It was an unhappy augury 
 for our future intercourse with Persia, that our political rela- 
 tions should have commenced under such auspices. It was. 
 ominous of the troubles we should have in the sequel to 
 encounter, that we originated the idea of "the road to the 
 English " lying through the Persian Empire; * and, if we have 
 since had occasion to complain of the insincerity of the Court 
 of Teheran, or of its desire to profit by the jealousy of the 
 European powers, we should do well to remember, that the 
 secret of the value which we placed on the country from its 
 geographical position was first revealed to the wily Persian by 
 ourselves. 
 
 But Captain Malcolm's Treaty was not, perhaps, the most 
 objectionable feature of his mission ; his prodigality left a 
 more lasting impression, and that impression, in the ratio of 
 its original force and effect, has operated ever since to our pre- 
 judice. So lavish was his expenditure, that he was popularly 
 believed to have been granted a premium of 5 per cent, on all 
 the sums he could disburse ; while the more intelligent, who 
 rejected an explanation suited rather to the world of romance,, 
 could only draw, from his profusion, an exaggerated estimate 
 of the wealth of England, or an inordinate appreciation of 
 the value which we placed upon the Persian alliance. Money, 
 we know, in the moral world, is not unlike opium in the 
 physical. The stomach, once drugged, is insensible to milder 
 stimulants ; and thus, ever .since we administered the first, 
 fatal close, in order to create an influence, or to persuade 
 the Persians of our really being in earnest in seeking for their 
 friendship, we have had to follow the same pernicious treat- 
 ment, with a merely temporary effect upon the patient, but to- 
 the serious depletion of our Indian store, from which the- 
 prescriptions have been drawn. 
 
 * This expression has ever since and we hardly understand, therefore,, 
 
 been a bye-word in Persia. Diplo- why our nerves should have been so. 
 
 matic etiquette, of course, did not greatly shocked, when Dost Mahom- 
 
 admit of its appearing "totidem med Khan was reminded by his agent 
 
 verbis" in our treaties with the Shah; at Teheran, that he held a turnpike 
 
 but the idea which it embodies forms lower down " the road." 
 the very basis of all these treaties ; 
 
12 ENGLAND AND ETJSSLA. IN THE EAST. [Oh. L 
 
 We cannot close our notice of Captain Malcolm's mission, 
 "without alluding to another project which occupied much of 
 his attention, and which, although it found little favour with 
 Lord Wellesley at the time, has since been much canvassed, 
 and sometimes even carried into partial execution. That India 
 ■was menaced with danger from the European powers, Capt. 
 Malcolm never doubted ; and with this position, taken in the 
 abstract, and dependent for its development on time and cir- 
 cumstances, we are hardly disposed to quarrel; but we can 
 only explain it as the effect of that sort of blindness, which, 
 on particular subjects, sometimes distorts the eyes of poli- 
 ticians, otherwise clear-sighted enough, that he should have 
 looked for the approach of the danger by sea, and that his line 
 of sight should have been still more strangely diverted, from 
 the Caspian, to the Persian Gulf. Such, however, was the 
 case. He seems to have had a sad misgiving that the French 
 — notwithstanding that they were subjected by his treaty to a 
 perpetual ostracism from the Persian soil — would still establish 
 "themselves on the shores of the Gulf, and would thence launch 
 their victorious navies against the coasts of India ; and he ac- 
 cordingly proposed seriously, that we should obtain the island 
 of Kishm from the Shah, and should there construct a fort, 
 which, if not " hewn out of a mountain " like Gibraltar, or 
 *' cradled in a crater "as at Aden, should at any rate, be so 
 strengthened by all the means and appliances of modern 
 science, as to present a formidable obstacle to any enemy. In 
 a military point of view, this fort was to be a " tete du pont " 
 to the Bombay Harbour. Commercially, it was to revive the 
 extinct glories of Siraf and Ormuz. Politically, it was to give 
 confidence to Asia, while it frowned, like " Castle Dangerous," 
 upon Europe. 
 
 It was in vain that Mr. Harford Jones, to whom Capt. Mal- 
 colm submitted his lucubrations, objected that France must 
 overrun Syria, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, before she could 
 approach the Persian Gulf ; that she must hold those countries 
 as a conqueror, before she could pretend to fit out an expedi- 
 tion against India ; that, if she did really contemplate so 
 gigantic an enterprise, she was in a better position for making 
 
Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 13 
 
 the attempt from the Red Sea, than if she were in possession 
 of Bushire and Bussorah ; inasmuch as the naval resources of 
 Egypt, which she then held, were fully equal to those of 
 Arabia and Persia, while Suez was much nearer than the 
 mouth of the Euphrates to her European base. It was in 
 vain that the fallacy was exposed of ever again forming a 
 great commercial emporium in the Persian Gulf, Vasco de 
 Gama, when he doubled the Cape, having given the death 
 blow to this once famous line of traffic between the East 
 and the West. It was in vain that the . resident at Bagdad, 
 with a sagacity that has never been acknowledged, and the 
 full value of which remains yet to be realised, pointed 
 out the true point of danger to our Indian Empire, at 
 Asterabad; "the line of least resistance " lying between the 
 Caspian and the Indus. Captain Malcolm was not to be dis- 
 abused of his crotchet ; he sturdily defended his thesis, and 
 sent in a report of one hundred and eleven paragraphs to Lord 
 Wellesley on the subject, supported by supplementary argu- 
 ments extending to some fifty paragraphs more. This porten- 
 tous document, however, happily miscarried : the minutes of 
 the Calcutta Council Chamber stifled the monster in its birth ; 
 and, although Malcolm again attempted to vitalize the embryo 
 in 1810, and certain abortive measures, such as the expeditions. 
 of 1817 and 1820, and the occupation of Karrack in 1838, may 
 be indirectly traced to the same germ, the only actual embodi- 
 ment at the present day — and that a mere faint shadow of the 
 original idea — is to be found in our naval station at Bassidore. 
 3. We must now take a rapid survey of that phase in our 
 Persian policy, which we have before mentioned, as one of 
 complete isolation. For several years succeeding Captain 
 Malcolm's mission, the affairs of Persia excited but little- 
 interest in India.* The violent effort we had made in opening. 
 
 * We must compress into a note a return mission, and to arrange for' 
 the leading features of the Persian the ratification and interchange of the 
 question in regard to India during this treaty. This individual, however, lost- 
 period. A certain Haji Khalil Khan his life at Bombay in 1802, in an affray 
 was dispatched from Persia to India, between his servants and the guard of 
 immediately on Captain Malcolm's sepoys who were acting as his escort, 
 jretirement, to pay the compliment of Much embarrassment ensued ; but 
 
14 
 
 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. I. 
 
 an alliance was followed, as usual, by the reaction of languor. 
 The Gallophobia' had been lulled for a time by the ill success 
 of the French in Egypt, and the dispersion of Perron's batta- 
 lions. Danger from beyond the Indus no longer scared us ; for 
 Afghanistan was torn asunder by civil war, and Kunjeet Singh 
 had founded a kingdom in the Punjab. Although, therefore, 
 we continued to receive intelligence from Teheran by the way 
 both of Bagdad and of Bushire, and although we thus learnt 
 that Persia was sinking gradually before the power of Russia, 
 and that France had offered assistance to the Shah, we made 
 no attempt whatever to preserve the influence that Capt. Mal- 
 colm had created, or even to require an observance of his treaty. 
 Persia in the meantime was suffering grievously. She lost 
 in succession to the indefatigable Zizianoff, Mingrelia and 
 Ganjeh, Shekee, Shirwan, and Karabagh. In 1804, she fought 
 her first pitched battle with a Russian army near Erivan, and, 
 of course, sustained a defeat. When overtures were made by 
 
 ultimately, liberal pensions having 
 been provided for the relatives of the 
 ■deceased, and full explanations having 
 been tendered on the part of the 
 Indian Government by Mr. Manesty, 
 -the Company's Resident at Bussorah, 
 who took upon himself in 1804 to 
 -proceed to the Persian Court for the 
 purpose, the event was passed over 
 .as the inevitable stroke of "fate." 
 We do not believe that any ill-feeling 
 -to us was awakened amongst the 
 Persians generally by so untoward an 
 affair : in fact a saying is on record of 
 the minister of Shiraz, that "the 
 English might kill ten ambassadors, 
 if they paid for them at the same 
 rate," in allusion to the princely pen- 
 sions settled on the family. There 
 was an individual, however, who 
 caused us considerable trouble in the 
 sequel : Mirza Nebi Khan, the brother- 
 in-law of the ambassador, having been 
 named administrator of the estate, 
 conceived the idea of turning the 
 accident to his private account. By 
 enormous bribes to the Persiau Court 
 
 he obtained the appointment of am- 
 bassador for himself, and after much 
 delay came down to India in 180o, not 
 exactly to fill his relative's place, but 
 to exercise the triple functions of 
 minister, merchant, and claimant of 
 blood-money, which he roundly as- 
 sessed at 20 lakhs of Rupees. It is 
 probable, nay almost certain, that his 
 political mission, which mainly re- 
 ferred to a requisition for aid against 
 Russia, would have failed under any 
 circumstances, for the question was 
 before the Home Government, and in 
 the meantime the Indian authorities 
 were powerless to act ; but it is also 
 certain, that his arrogant language, 
 his extraordinary pretensions, and the 
 anomaly of his triple character, con- 
 tributed in no small degree to bring 
 about the indifferent reception and 
 frigid replies, with which he was 
 greeted by Sir G. Barlow, on his 
 arrival at Calcutta in March 1806. 
 He returned to Persia " re infecta," 
 and found the French already estab- 
 lished "there. 
 
Ch. I.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PBESIA. 
 
 15 
 
 France in 1802, proposing the co-operation of a French and 
 Persian army against the Bussians in Georgia (all territorial 
 .acquisitions to be divided between the contracting parties, and 
 resident French Agents to be established immediately at 
 Teheran and Erivan), they were coldly received.* Mirza 
 Buzurg, indeed, emphatically wrote, that " if Buonaparte in 
 
 * These letters were delivered by a 
 •certain Shahrokh Khan, who had tra- 
 velled to Paris on his private affairs, 
 and had met with much attention 
 from the French authorities. They 
 ■were generally believed at the time to 
 be genuine documents ; but circum- 
 stances subsequently transpired which 
 led to a suspicion of their having 
 emanated from » certain clique of 
 •diplomatic subalterns, who, under the 
 name of "Consular Agents," remained 
 in Syria after the French evacuation 
 ■of the country, and who continued for 
 many years to pursue a restless course 
 of political adventure, spreading in the 
 sequel a perfect net- work of intrigue 
 over the whole face of Western Asia. 
 These parties, at any rate, led on by 
 those veterans of the Levant, the 
 Outreys, the Rousseaus, Pontecoulant, 
 and the Corances, were found pushing 
 their " antennae " into Persia, almost 
 immediately subsequent to the pre- 
 sentation of Shahrokk's letters ; and 
 it was in pursuance of their counsels 
 and through their agency, that, in the 
 autumn of 1804, when the Shah was 
 encamped near Erivan, a second com- 
 munication, formally authenticated, 
 was addressed by the Government of 
 France to the Court of Persia, which 
 claimed, in virtue of a certain treaty 
 concluded with Shah Abbas (a treaty, 
 however, that we do not remember to 
 bave seen otherwise noticed in history), 
 a prescriptive right of alliance between 
 the two countries, and which proposed 
 that the Shah and the Emperor should 
 act cordially together against Russia. 
 As France and Russia were at this 
 time ostensibly on terms of friendship, 
 
 the sincerity of the proposal seems 
 to have been suspected. The Shah, 
 moreover, had already applied to the 
 British Cabinet, through the Resident 
 at Bagdad, for support on the Euro- 
 pean side ; and he was about despatch- 
 ing an ambassador to India to solicit 
 an armed interference in his behalf. 
 The French overtures, therefore, 
 without being offensively or even 
 decidedly rejected, were, for the time 
 being, quietly laid upon the shelf. 
 
 In the summer of the following year 
 (1805), war having in the meantime 
 broken out between France and 
 Russia, Colonel Romieu appeared iu 
 person at Teheran, accredited under 
 the hand of the Emperor: he was 
 accompanied by a respectable suite, 
 and was the bearer of handsome, if 
 not of splendid, presents: his pro- 
 posals, too, were sufficiently explicit. 
 If Persia would repudiate the British 
 alliance, which could not avail her 
 against Russia, and would connect 
 herself with France, the Emperor 
 would at once send a Resident Minister 
 to Teheran, would subsidize the 
 Persian troops, and throw an auxiliary 
 army into Georgia. The Shah, who at 
 the first audience of the Colonel had 
 merely vouchsafed three questions : 
 "How are you?" "How is Buona- 
 parte ? " " What made you kill your 
 King ? " wavered, when he heard of a 
 subsidy and an auxiliary army in 
 Georgia. Would the English fulfil his 
 expectations ? Would they abide by 
 the stipulations of the Malcolm Treaty, 
 which was offensive and defensive, the 
 friends of one country being the friends 
 of the other, and the enemies of one 
 
1G 
 
 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 person came to Teheran, he would he debarred admission to 
 the centre of the universe," and, as the ink of the Malcolm 
 
 country the enemies of the other? 
 These were the questions which His 
 Majesty again referred to Bagdad, 
 and, pending an answer to which, he 
 was still resolved to avoid committing 
 himself with Franca In the mean- 
 time Colonel Romieudied at Teheran ; 
 and further negotiations being deferred 
 until the arrival of a Monr. Rubie, 
 whom it was intended to send out from 
 Paris in an ostensible diplomatic capa- 
 city, Sir Harford Jones availed himself 
 of the respite thus afforded, to write 
 soothing and hopeful letters to the 
 Shah, and ultimately proceeded in 
 person to Constantinople, for the 
 double purpose of awakening the 
 King's ambassador to a sense of the 
 critical state of affairs in Persia, and 
 of explaining the anomalous position 
 in which we were placed in regard to 
 that country, by the conflicting in- 
 terests and the independent engage- 
 ments of the Home and Indian 
 Governments. In the spring of 1806 
 the Shah must have received intelli- 
 gence of the expected result of Mirza 
 Nebi Khan's negociations in India. 
 The Governor-General had left the 
 question of protecting or supporting 
 Persia against Russia for the exclusive 
 consideration of Downing Street ; and 
 as his Majesty's ministers had been 
 now for full two years deliberating on 
 the question, without venturing to 
 come even to an approximate solution, 
 the Shah could not help regarding this 
 shifting of responsibility at the last 
 moment from the only quarter whence 
 substantive aid could be afforded, to 
 the same shadowy, silent oracles, as 
 equivalent to a determination to avoid 
 interference. In the first bitterness of 
 disappointment letters were addressed 
 to Napoleon, and confided to Monr. 
 Outrey, a French Dragoman, who had 
 remained at Teheran after Colonel 
 
 Eomieu's decease ; but as this gentle- 
 man travelled leisurely by the route of 
 Bagdad to Constantinople, he had 
 hardly reached the latter place when 
 he was overtaken by an ambassador 
 appointed by Futteh Ali Shah to repair 
 to the camp of the Emperor. This, 
 was the adventurous Mirza Reza, who 
 afterwards concluded the treaty of' 
 Fenkestein ; and the instructions with 
 which he proceeded on his mission 
 were dexterously conceived and not 
 unskilfully executed. In these instruc- 
 tions, so far from appearing as a sup- 
 pliant, the Shah adopted the tone of 
 an equal. No undue apprehension 
 was expressed of the power of Russia. 
 On the contrary she was spoken of as 
 an antagonist of ordinary calibre, 
 "equally an enemy of the Kings of 
 Persia and France, and whose destruc- 
 tion accordingly became the duty of 
 the two Kings. France would attack, 
 her from that quarter; Persia from 
 this. " Then followed a golden pill for 
 the Emperor, " If the French have an 
 intention of invading Khorassan, the 
 King will appoint an army to go down 
 by the road of Cabul and Candahar." 
 But the ambassador was thus warned 
 in conclusion, — " If the French require 
 a station or port in the province o£ 
 Fars for their passage to Hindustan, 
 do not consent ; but say that when a 
 respectable confidential person is estab- 
 lished at the royal residence for the- 
 consummation of friendship between 
 the States, the proposal will be con- 
 sidered." 
 
 Nothing could have been more op- 
 portune for Napoleon than this com- 
 munication : he had just fought the 
 doubtful battle of Eylau, and was. 
 casting about for new allies against 
 the only power which had yet been 
 able to arrest the march of his legions. 
 A preliminary treaty accordingly was. 
 
Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 
 
 17 
 
 Treaty was scarcely then dry, this was no very surprising trait 
 of constancy, even for a Persian. By degrees, however, the 
 Minister's coyness wore off. French agents were admitted in 
 1805 to reside in Persia, and were even treated with distinc- 
 tion ; and when the application, addressed from Teheran direct 
 to the Government of India in 1806, seeking for support against 
 Eussia, entirely failed — owing amongst other causes to Sir G. 
 Barlow's strict adherence to the principle of non-intervention 
 — the star of France rose rapidly in the ascendant. 
 
 It has been asserted, by one who might be supposed to be 
 competent to give an opinion on the question, that the 
 Governor-General's rejection 'of this application for assistance 
 was a clear " casus foederis ; " * but, in the received language 
 of history, the odium of broken faith rests altogether with the 
 Shah ; and Sir John McNeill, indeed, affords an apology, but 
 
 formed without delay, and almost at 
 Mirza Beza's dictation, and Mons. 
 Jaubert was at once sent off to Teheran 
 to announce the terms agreed on, and 
 to hold the Shah firm to his new 
 alliance. A few months subsequently, 
 when the convention of Tilsit had 
 entirely altered the relations between 
 Eussia, France, and England, General 
 Gardanne was accredited to Persia 
 with instructions very essentiaily 
 modified from those issued to the 
 Agent who preceded him, and far less 
 satisfactory to the Shah. The treaty 
 of Mirza Beza, who accompanied the 
 General, was barely noticed, or at any 
 rate it was only so far admitted to be 
 in force as it concerned the exclusion 
 of the English from Persia and the 
 hostile designs of the French against 
 British India. The armed opposition 
 to Eussia, which had been especially 
 provided for in Mirza Eeza's draft, was 
 rendered impossible by the peace of 
 Tilsit ; and the Shah, being now com- 
 mitted to the new alliance, was fain 
 to accept of mediation in its stead. 
 
 We have been thus particular in 
 describing the origin of the French 
 connexion with Persia, as all the his- 
 
 torical notices we have seen upon the 
 subject are deficient either in veracity 
 or fulness : and as Sir John McNeill 
 even, who ought to have known 
 better, has, in his Persian pamphlet 
 (Progress of Russia in the East, pp. 
 59-62), confounded the different mis- 
 sions in a manner which furnishes a 
 graphic picture, but which is correct 
 neither in outline nor detail. 
 
 * "Letter on the present state of 
 British interests and affairs in Persia, 
 1838, by Harford Jones Brydges," 
 p. 6. Sir H. Jones always main- 
 tained the principle, that, as our 
 alliance with Persia was offensive and 
 defensive, the Russian occupation of 
 Mingrelia, Karabagh, &c, was equi- 
 valent to an attack on our own do- 
 minions, and required to be resented 
 accordingly. It must be remembered, 
 however, that the offensive and defen- 
 sive article of the Malcolm Treaty 
 referred particularly to the French, 
 and was so understood and admitted 
 both by the Englishand Persian pleni- 
 potentiaries. The validity, moreover, 
 of the treaty in question was, as 
 has been before observed, open to 
 dispute,' 
 
 
 
18 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. I. 
 
 no defence, when he says, "that Persia, losing all hope of 
 support from her old ally, had no alternative hut to throw her- 
 self into the arms of France." Upon whichever party, however, 
 may fall the responsibility of those proceedings which led to 
 the mission of Mirza Eeza, the return mission of Mons. 
 Jaubert, and the conclusion of a treaty between France and 
 Persia at Fenkestein in 1807, — no sooner was it known that 
 General Gardanne had been appointed to Teheran, and that 
 French officers might be thus expected ere long to obtain a 
 control over the military resources of the country, than the 
 authorities in Downing Street and Calcutta appear to have 
 awoke almost simultaneously to a sense of danger. 
 
 It is currently believed that at the conference at Tilsit, the 
 Eastern question in its full extent was discussed between 
 Alexander and Napoleon, much in the same spirit as the Tur- 
 kish question had been previously treated by Catherine and the 
 Emperor Joseph.- There were formidable impediments, it is 
 true, to a partition of the East between two such powers as 
 France and Russia, not the least of which must have been the 
 difficulty of apportioning the rich prize to be acquired from 
 England ; but it may fairly be presumed, that when Napoleon 
 destined the most able and distinguished of his brothers* to 
 fill the post of Ambassador at Teheran, he not only really 
 entertained the idea of contesting, with more or less activity, 
 British supremacy in India, but expected the Emperor Alex- 
 ander to aid in the design. It seemed therefore to be time, 
 when Persia, sulky through disappointment, threatened to place 
 herself a passive instrument in the hands of France, that the 
 British Government should bestir itself; but supposing even 
 this result to have been as imminent as our fears led us to 
 imagine, whether the means employed were the best calculated 
 to avert the danger, is a distinct and much controverted 
 question. 
 
 We have said advisedly that Napoleon entertained the idea 
 of contesting our supremacy in the East — such an idea indeed 
 was a necessary element in his design of universal empire — but 
 we are far from intending to commit ourselves to the popular 
 
 * Lucien Buonaparte. See "Progress of Kussia in the East," p. 60. 
 
<Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 19 
 
 opinion that India, either then or at any future time, was exposed 
 "to the actual danger of an armed European invasion. Among 
 the visions which the Emperor displayed to Alexander at 
 Tilsit, and for which he sacrificed so many substantial interests, 
 we have heard of one proposing the simultaneous march of a 
 Trench and Eussian army, which, combining in the plains of 
 Persia, should operate against our Indian frontier.* It is fur- 
 ther known, that Sebastiani endeavoured to obtain permission 
 from the Porte, that the French troops destined for the expe- 
 dition should pass by Constantinople, and we have little doubt 
 -that Gardanne's principal instructions in his Persian Embassy 
 referred to the same subject ; but it is also notorious, that hi 
 spite of Mirza Reza's engagements, the project from the com- 
 mencement found no favour with the Persian monarch, and that 
 ta. very short experience of the Persian character and of the 
 state of the relations of the Court with Russia, sufficed to con- 
 vince Gardanne, not only of the impossibility of a tripartita 
 alliance, but of the extreme difficulty of persuading the Shah 
 to admit the presence in Persia of an auxiliary army of any 
 European nation whatever. The utmost that the General 
 •could have achieved, — if he had fulfilled Napoleon's promise of 
 inducing Russia to relinquish to the Shah all her recent 
 acquisitions in Georgia, and if he had thus obtained a place, 
 dominant and permanent, in the Councils of Teheran, — would 
 have been the direction of a Persian expedition towards the 
 Indus led by European officers ; and we may safely venture to 
 predict what would have been the fate of such an army, when 
 brought, after its toilsome march, face to face with the veterans 
 of Deig and of Laswarrie, who then guarded our north-western 
 frontier. 
 
 4. Such, however, was not the light in which the Russo- 
 Erench coalition was viewed at the time. An alarm, exaggerated 
 
 * We find the project thus described Frangaise qui devait passer par Con- 
 in an official document of the period, stantinople et l'Asie Mineure, et de la, 
 •drawn up at Vienna, and circulated traversant la Perse, organiser les 
 
 "by authority:" — " Buonaparte saisit troupes que la Cour d'Ispahan devait 
 
 •adroitement l'occasion de la paix de donner pour sa part, et commencer 
 
 Tilsit pour engager Alexandre d'en- quelque acte hostile contre les posses- 
 
 "voyer une armee le printeraps prochain sions de la Compagnie des Indes." 
 
 «n Perse, qui s'uniriot avec une armee 
 
 c 2 
 
20 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 by the vagueness of the danger, was suddenly called into exist- 
 ence, and measures of defence were taken, which, with the usual 
 ttntowardness of sudden impulses — an untowardness, indeed, 
 that in regard to Persia seems to operate with a sort of fatality — 
 almost brought the Home and Indian Governments into colli- 
 sion. The British ministry, judging Persia, at war with Eussia 
 and courted by France, to come within the immediate range of 
 European diplomacy, appointed Sir Harford Jones, who had. 
 lately returned from Bagdad, to be Envoy Extraordinary from 
 the Crown, and sent him out in October, 1807, with a commis- 
 sion which placed him in subordination to the Governor- 
 General, but still granted him full powers to conclude a direct 
 treaty between the Shah of Persia and the King of England : 
 while Lord Minto, either mistrustful of the Agent, or deeming 
 affairs too critical to await his tardy arrival by way of the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and dissatisfied also with the inter- 
 ference of the Crown in arrangements which had hitherto 
 been under the exclusive direction of the Indian Government, 
 and the expenses of which moreover required to be defrayed 
 from the Indian Treasury, nominated his own officer, Brigadier- 
 General Malcolm, to the same duties that had been confided in 
 London to His Majesty's Envoy. We will not follow the 
 details of the unseemly contest that ensued, although an in- 
 structive lesson might be drawn from them. "We must confine 
 ourselves to results, and to the general questions of policy 
 involved in them. General Malcolm, who was allowed the 
 initiative in this singular diplomatic combat, had no sooner 
 arrived in the Persian Gulf in May, 1808, than, agreeably 
 to his instructions, he opened trenches against the French 
 position at Teheran. But Gardanne was then basking in the 
 full sunshine of Court favour : he had given something, pro- 
 mised much, and led the Shah to hope for more; he was- 
 pleading earnestly to Eussia for forbearance : his engineers 
 were constructing fortifications : his officers were disciplining 
 the Persian troops : and, although the British Envoy resorted 
 freely to his old strategy of a golden influence, and fairly 
 offered to buy the French out of Persia, he found it impos- 
 sible to make any way. A discomfiture, so signal and so 
 
Ch. I.] OUK POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PEKSIA. 21 
 
 "unexpected, seems to have obscured the General's judgment, 
 as much as it shocked his amour propre. Without considering 
 the causes of his failure, or duly weighing its probable effects, 
 ■or even seizing upon an eligible remedy, he indignantly 
 quitted the shores of Persia, " breathing reproach, defiance, 
 and invasion." 
 
 We doubt if General Malcolm was guilty of greater blunders 
 in his dealings with the Peishwa in 1817-18, than he committed 
 in his abortive mission to Persia in 1808. It required no 
 extraordinary penetration, one would think, to have perceived 
 that at the period in question money could possess for Persia 
 but a secondary attraction. Self-preservation was her leading 
 instinct ; and whichever power, France or England, could offer 
 her the best chance of protection against her gigantic adver- 
 sary, Russia, must, of necessity, have had a preference in her 
 Councils. Undoubtedly the " auri sacra fames " was the pre- 
 vailing vice of Futteh Ali Shah's character, and he had been 
 taught, moreover, to make the jealousy of the European 
 powers subservient to the gratification of his avarice; but 
 what to him was " all the wealth of Ind," if at the same 
 time a Russian army occupied his capital? As the over- 
 tures made by Persia to Napoleon were mainly owing to the 
 ^unwillingness or inability of the Governor- General of India 
 to adopt any measures for placing a check upon Russian 
 aggression, so did Gardanne maintain his ground against 
 English gold by persuading the Shah, that in French media- 
 tion lay his only safeguard against absorption by his northern 
 neighbour. 
 
 The more extended also the view that may be taken of the 
 Persian question, the less favourable will be the light in which 
 General Malcolm's proceedings must appear. If it be admitted 
 ■(and there can be few dissentients, we think, at the present 
 day) that a tripartite alliance between Russia, France, and 
 Persia, for purposes hostile to British India, was beyond, and 
 that the march of a Russo-French army to the Indus, in 
 defiance of Persia, or without her assistance, was barely within 
 the range of possibility, the alarm excited by Gardanne's 
 -establishment at Teheran must appear quite extravagant. To 
 
22 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch.I. 
 
 an ordinary observer it would seem that if the French had 
 really strengthened Persia against further encroachment on 
 the part of Eussia, either by treaty, or by placing her in art 
 improved state of military defence, they would have rendered 
 us a service of far more real consequence to our Indian 
 Empire than any dangers arising' from their own hostility 
 or intrigues : while, if they failed in that object, which had 
 alone given, and could alone give them, consideration at the- 
 Court of the Shah, they were powerless to injure us. But if 
 the rejection by Persia of the British alliance is thus shown, 
 under the circumstances to have been not only natural but- 
 necessary, and if the consequences of that rejection are also- 
 shown to have been altogether misunderstood, what are we to- 
 say to General Malcolm's proposed remedy of invasion ? It 
 is affirmed, we know, of 
 
 " A spaniel, a wife, and a walnut tree, 
 The more you beat them, the better they be : " 
 
 but really we never remember (except perhaps at Navarino) 
 to have heard the proverb applied to international friendships- 
 To have expected to regain the lost affections of the Shah 
 by force of arms seems to have been very like fatuity. To- 
 have actually carried that design into execution would have 
 been of positive injury to our ulterior interests. If, indeed, 
 General Malcolm had landed a British force on the shores of 
 the Gulf, and had succeeded, by a diversion in the south of 
 Persia, in driving the French from Teheran, he would have 
 aggravated, instead of alleviating, the only real danger that 
 threatened us. That danger was, as it ever had been, and 
 ever will be, the gradual extension of the Russian power and 
 the Russian territory, and it would have been augmented 
 precisely in the same proportion as Persia was weakened or 
 divided. 
 
 The proverbial " Ikbal," however, of the Honorable Com- 
 pany at this time stood us in good stead. Sir Harford Jones, 
 who had been impatiently watching the progress of General 
 Malcolm's negociations, no sooner leamt their unfortunate and 
 «ven dangerous issue, than he stepped forward witlr too much 
 
Oh. I.] OTTE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 23 
 
 perhaps of ostentation, but with undeniable boldness and 
 address, " to throw the 2Egis of the British Crown over the 
 imperilled destinies of India." Without entering on the 
 vexed question, whether the affairs of Persia came properly 
 and naturally under the political jurisdiction of Great Britain 
 or of India, we may observe that, as Sir Harford had been 
 placed by the letter of his commission in subordination to the 
 Governor- General of India, and as all arrangements to which 
 he might pledge the Government that he immediately repre- 
 sented must have depended for their execution on the same 
 authority, it evidently required strong and exceptional circum- 
 stances to justify his pursuing in any degree an independent 
 course of action. His proceedings, however, were not merely 
 independent, — they were in direct antagonism to the declared 
 policy of his predecessor, which had already received Lord 
 Minto's approval ; and it may be suspected therefore that 
 success, even in the general object of his mission, would not 
 have carried him scathless through his perilous adventure, 
 had not the situation appeared to those who were ultimately 
 called on to decide upon his conduct to have been otherwise 
 desperate. 
 
 We will now give a brief sketch of his really remarkable 
 career. Arriving at Bushire in October, 1808, he found that 
 General Gardanne had overplayed his game, and that a "reac- 
 tionary " tendency was setting in against the French. The 
 idea therefore occurred to him to propose England, instead of 
 France, as the power which should protect Persia against the 
 great Northern Leviathan, and time and circumstance both 
 favoured the substitution : for as the French, in their early 
 efforts to undermine British influence at Teheran, had been 
 careful to instil into the minds of the Shah's ministers that 
 the enemy of Russia could be the only natural ally of Persia, 
 and as by force of iteration this doctrine had now come to be 
 received almost as a maxin of international policy ; so when 
 Sir Harford revived the argument (" fas est et ab hoste 
 doceri ") he obtained a ready — almost an anxious — hearing ; 
 and when he further urged its practical application, he had the 
 satisfaction of finding that not only did the precept recoil upon 
 
24 ENGLAND AND KTJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 the French, but that the recoil was doubled in effect by 
 experience having proved in the interim the folly of trusting to 
 the feeble powers of mediation and good offices in dealing with 
 such an enemy as the inexorable Czar. So effective indeed 
 was the "coup," that little more remained for diplomatic 
 handling, and that little was accomplished by the Envoy's 
 personal friendship with the Persian ministers, and by the 
 " prestige " which he enjoyed as the direct representative of 
 the British King. He advanced in a sort of ovation to the 
 capital, General Gardanne retiring on his approach, and Mon- 
 sieur Jouannin, the Secretary, who still clung with a leech-like 
 tenacity to the court, being fairly eclipsed by the rising lumi- 
 nary. A "pourparler" then ensued, not less remarkable for 
 its brevity than for the importance of the matters discussed; 
 and in March, 1809, was concluded the Preliminary Treaty, 
 which, in spite of much Procrustean manipulation sustained 
 during an interval of forty years, continues in force to the 
 present day as the basis of our Persian alliance. 
 
 With the tone and spirit of this treaty little fault has been 
 ever found, but its particular engagements, distasteful in many 
 quarters at the time of their conclusion, ha*e provoked criti- 
 cism ever since. Approbation could never have been withheld 
 when the temperate language of a treaty, which secured the full 
 advantages at which it aimed without a single offensive, or even 
 invidious, allusion to a foreign power, was compared either with 
 those requisitions of 1801, that we have already blazoned in their 
 true Chinese colours, or with certain subsequent stipulations of 
 Mr. Elphinstone's at Cabul, still more preposterous inasmuch 
 as they were founded on a preamble absolutely fictitious ;* 
 
 * In the 3rd article of Sir H. Jones's — Yet three months subsequently 
 
 treaty, it was expressly provided that (June 17th, 1809) Mr. Elphinstone 
 
 "from the date of the preliminary assumed that "the French and 
 
 articles (March 12th, 1809) every treaty Persians have entered into a confede- 
 
 or agreement which the King of Persia racy against the state of Cabul," and 
 
 might have made with any one of the then went on to engage, that " if the 
 
 powers of Europe became null and French and Persians, in pursuance of 
 
 void, and that he would not permit their confederation, should advance 
 
 any European force whatever to pass towards the King of Cabul's country 
 
 through Persia either towards India, in a hostile manner," such and such 
 
 or towards the ports of that country." measures should have effect. 
 
Oh. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 25 
 
 but in spite of the contrast thus presented — in spite of 
 the testimony afforded by it to the favourable character of 
 Sir Harford Jones's general diplomacy — when the expulsion 
 ■of the French from Persia has come to be weighed against 
 the heavy liability of a permanent subsidy, and the incon- 
 venience of being committed indefinitely to a state of quasi- 
 hostility with Russia, a question has arisen whether the 
 Brtish Envoy did not over-estimate the value of the Shah's 
 alliance, — whether in fact he did not make us " pay too dear 
 for our whistle." 
 
 Having already recorded our opinions on the real nature and 
 tendency of the French connexion with Persia, we may leave 
 our sentiments to be inferred on the particular question of the 
 penalty thus gratuitously incurred for its disruption ; but it is 
 important to observe that a verdict, however unfavourable on 
 the score of expediency, does not by any means reflect on Sir 
 H. Jones's individual judgment or discretion. That Gardanne 
 should be expelled from Persia was a settled thing beforehand, 
 and the agents employed in the transaction had merely there- 
 fore to decide whether the end in view was to be attained by 
 force of arms or by persuasion. If by persuasion, it was indis- 
 pensable to find some means of supporting Persia against 
 Russia ; and really under the circumstances we doubt whether 
 any could have been devised less onerous to England, or more 
 likely, on a "prima facie " view of the case, to advantage the 
 Shah, and to contribute to our own strength, than those which 
 imposed upon the Indian Government the obligation of furnish- 
 ing a subsidy, with arms, ammunition, officers, and artificers, 
 to be employed against the common enemy. The best reply 
 indeed to the charges which have been brought against Sir 
 Harford Jones — that " he ignominiously purchased the protec- 
 tion of Persia for England ; " that, " he saddled the Indian 
 Government with a useless and extravagant debt," &c, — * is 
 
 * See Taylor's "History of British but the boldness to avow, and the 
 
 India," p. 227. Sir Harford Jones sense to act upon — namely, that the 
 
 las been mercilessly treated by the Governor-General was incompetent to 
 
 majority of writers upon Indian conduct political relations on a footing 
 
 History. A certain doctrine, which of equality at the court of an indepen- 
 
 he had not only the merit to discover, dent monarch already closely con- 
 
26 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 to be found in the fact that Lord Minto, who regarded his- 
 personal proceedings as actually mutinous, who by anticipation, 
 repudiated his possible negociations with the Shah, disavowed 
 his diplomatic character, and ordered him summarily to leave 
 the country, who went the length even of dishonouring the 
 bills drawn by him on the public service — still did not hesitate, 
 when furnished with a draft of the treaty, and while yet in 
 ignorance of the feelings of the Home authorities, to accept all 
 the pecuniary and military engagements which had been con- 
 tracted in the name of His Britannic Majesty, with the sole 
 proviso that their execution should be entrusted to an officer 
 honoured with His Lordship's confidence, and prepared tc- 
 uphold the dignity of the Indian Government. 
 
 It is needless to pursue this subject further. Sir Harford's 
 importance on the page of Persian political history expires 
 with his treaty. His singular personal fate, — the condemned 
 and persecuted of Calcutta, the approved and honoured of 
 Windsor — may be of interest to our Indian annals, in exempli- 
 fying one of the anomalies which impede the working of our 
 Empire in the East ; but it is otherwise devoid of consequence. 
 Let it suffice that the preliminary treaty was conveyed to 
 England by the author of " Haji Baba," accompanied by the 
 Persian Ambassador, broadly drawn, we can hardly say cari- 
 catured, in that inimitable story ; that it was duly ratified and 
 exchanged, and that it came into operation with all convenient 
 dispatch. We must pass over with equal rapidity General 
 Malcolm's resumption of his functions in 1810 ; for however 
 rich in scientific results may have been the labours of the 
 General and his suite,* and however willingly we may concede 
 
 nected with the two chief powers of prove the injury and inconvenience 
 
 continental Europe— appeared so mon- which would accrue to the national 
 
 strous and unintelligible to Indian interests from conniving at a crime of 
 
 officials, that unworthy motives were Use-majesU against the Governors of 
 
 sought for to account for its proposi- India. We could have afforded to 
 
 tion. Personal vanity and private laugh at His Lordship's sensibility, 
 
 pique were currently imputed to Sir had it not cost us, in General Malcolm's 
 
 Harford at the time (we believe un- supplementary mission, a useless outlay 
 
 justly) as having mainly influenced his of between fifteen and twenty lakhs of 
 
 conduct, and Lord Minto penned some rupees, 
 
 of his most elaborate despatches to * It must be remembered that to 
 
Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 2T 
 
 to such results a value superior to the most brilliant diplomatic- 
 services, we are fain to confess that, as far as regards the 
 question of our political relations with Persia, we have failed ta 
 discover a single vestige of effect, proceeding from so expensive 
 and well-appointed a Mission. A limited supply of military 
 stores, in fulfilment of Sir Harford Jones's promise, and the 
 transfer of a few officers who accompanied the Escort, to the 
 service of the Heir Apparent, then sedulously occupied with 
 the formation of a regular army, give a certain " eclat " to the 
 General's visit, and furnished a not ungraceful epilogue to- the 
 previous drama ; hut we cannot persuade ourselves to believe 
 that Lord Minto's object in sending the Mission to Persia was- 
 in any way realized. This object, which was nothing less than 
 "to restore and secure the injured credit and insulted dignity 
 of the Indian Government,"* (or, in other words, to teach the 
 Shah that, in all matters which regarded the Persian con- 
 nexion, the Governor- General was the equal of the King of 
 England) we consider to have been neither practicable nor 
 desirable. We believe, indeed, that if the Shah had been really 
 mystified by General Malcolm's pretensions, and if he had been 
 thus again led to confound vice-regal and imperial responsibility, 
 a confusion which involved a positive error in political ethics, 
 and which was constantly liable to bring on embarrassments 
 of the gravest character, would have required, sooner or later, 
 to have been set right by an explanation still more disparaging 
 to the Indian Government. Fortunately the unambiguous 
 language and the consistent measures adopted by His Majesty's 
 Ministers left no room for misapprehension. While General 
 Malcolm's mission was ignored, or at best regarded as a mere 
 
 this Mission we are indebted for * This is quoted from Lord Minto's 
 
 Pottinger's "Travels in Beluchistan;" despatch to General Malcolm of 
 
 for the journals of Grant and Christie ; October 26th, 1809 — a despatch of 
 
 for Macdonald Kinnier's "Geographi- which the stroDg expressions and un- 
 
 cal Memoirs;" for the "Sketches of compromising tone could hardly have 
 
 Persia ; " and for Sir John Malcolm's been exceeded by Lord Ellenborough 
 
 elaborate History,— a series of works, in the plenitude of his independence, 
 
 which not only filled up an important Sir Harford Jones's appointment from 
 
 blank in our knowledge of the East, the Crown is termed nothing less than 
 
 but which materially helped to fix the "a solecism in the system of diplo- 
 
 literary character of the Indian ser- matic delegation." 
 vices. 
 
28 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 •complimentary pageant, Sir Harford Jones, after the ratifi- 
 cation of his Treaty, was confirmed in the post of Eesident 
 Minister at Teheran ; and on his voluntary retirement in 
 1811, an officer of even higher rank — of the highest rank in 
 fact in the diplomatic service — was a second time accredited 
 from the Court of Saint James's to watch over our interests in 
 Persia.* 
 
 5. At this point of our narrative it is important that we 
 ■should understand what those interests really were, and how 
 we were disposed to view them. Hitherto we have seen our 
 Persian relations based on two principal objects, the establish- 
 ment of a counterpoise to the power of the Afghans, and the 
 neutralization of French ambition, both the one and the other 
 of these objects referring immediately to" the defence of India. 
 The Russian element has hardly entered into the question. 
 Although in fact it was known that, as early as 1791, the 
 invasion of India by a Russian army marching from Oren- 
 burg upon Bokhara and Cabul had been planned by Mons. 
 de St. Genie, and had actually occupied the attention of 
 ■Catherine; — although the Government were acquainted with 
 various memoirs (among which may be noticed those of Mons. 
 Brutet and Mons. Pavilion, French emigrants of Petersburg 
 and Moscow, and especially a really clever " brochure," drawn 
 up by Le Marquis Beaupoil St. Aulaire, Private Secretary 
 to the Hospodar Ispilanthi,) which had been addressed to 
 Alexander about the period of the peace of Tilsit, and which 
 foreshadowed much of that policy that has since been prac- 
 tically carried out in Central Asia, no one seems, up to the 
 period of Sir Harford Jones's treaty, to have had any 
 clear conception of danger from the vicinage of Russia, or 
 
 * The opening chapters of Kaye's that Kaye takes perhaps a more 
 ■"Afghan War," published in 1851, favourable view of Malcolm's career 
 •contained a masterly review of this in Persia. There can be no doubt 
 jjortion of our early Indian history, indeed but that he made a great im- 
 the subject being treated in far greater pression on the country, which is not 
 detail, and with more extensive means yet effaced, and predisposed the Per- 
 ot reference than in our own rapid sians in favour of a British alliance, 
 sketch. The conclusions arrived at —1873. 
 are, however, very similar, except 
 
Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS "WITH PERSIA. 29 
 
 any strong desire to keep her at a distance. We had looked 
 on the war in Georgia as a mere local derangement ; and the 
 question of supporting Persia in that war had been debated and 
 recommended on the exclusive ground of the superior influence 
 we should thereby secure ourselves at the Court of the Shah. 
 There was a disposition at the outset to estimate Sir Harford 
 Jones's engagements by the same limited standard of value, 
 rather than in reference to their possible efficacy in resisting 
 Russian encroachment. It was not indeed until our officers at 
 the head of the Persian battalions were actually brought into 
 contact with Eussian commanders in the field, that we began 
 to notice the formidable power that was growing up in our 
 neighbourhood, and to speculate on its further development.. 
 A cursory survey then exhibited to us upon one side the appear- 
 ance of immense military strength, the lusty energy of awakened 
 civilization, and a certain consistency of movement, which 
 seemed to point to geographical extension as a necessary law 
 of existence. On the other we beheld, or we thought that we 
 beheld, a nation in the last stage of decrepitude, subject to- 
 convulsive throes which gave for the moment an unnatural 
 vigour, but bereft of moral confidence, and verging on that 
 state which precedes dissolution. That Eussia had been 
 formerly desirous of obtaining a position in Central Asia, 
 which would have brought her into inconvenient proximity 
 with India, was attested by her expedition against Khiva in 
 1717 ; by her occupation of Ghilan in 1724, and again in 
 1796 ; and by her attempted settlement at Asterabad in 1781. 
 That she was still bent on the same object — substituting, how- 
 ever, for isolated conquest the surer process of gradual terri- 
 torial absorption — was inferred from the pertinacity with which 
 she had now for twelve years prosecuted a war with Persia, 
 that could not by possibility secure for her any immediate 
 advantage at all commensurate with its expense. Such being 
 her power, and such being her purpose, it was judged that 
 unless we interposed to check her progress, many years could 
 not elapse before, in the natural course of events, Eussian 
 troops would garrison cities in Khorassan, within 700 or 800 
 miles of the Indus ; and this prospect, once opened to our 
 
30 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [On. I. 
 
 view, was sufficient to arrest and fix our attention. The pro- 
 bable consequences of such a dislocation of the map of Asia 
 were differently contemplated by men of different temperaments. 
 Visions of invasion floated before the eyes of the excitable ; 
 while practical statesmen were content to weigh the amount of 
 disturbing influence which the neighbourhood of a new mass 
 might be expected to exercise on the still oscillating bodies of 
 the Indian system. This problem was undoubtedly a difficult 
 one to solve, for it depended altogether upon unknown 
 quantities ; but it nevertheless furnished the data upon which 
 the expediency was admitted, and the amount was calculated, 
 of the subsidy to be supplied to the Shah. The integrity of 
 Persia was declared to be worth just so much to us as it would 
 cost to counteract the disturbing influence of Russia, if im- 
 pinging on our frontier ; and from ten to fifteen lakhs of 
 Rupees of annual outlay being considered a moderate estimate 
 for the expenses which a mere state of preparation would entail 
 on us, it was determined to apply something like that amount 
 to the formation and support of a Persian army. It must be 
 seen, however, that in thus reducing to a tangible form the value 
 of our interests in Persia, and in proceeding to realize that 
 value, there was a begging of the question upon two points. 
 We jumped, in the first instance, to a conclusion of the immi- 
 nency of a Russian occupation of Persia, and we arbitrarily 
 assumed in the second that certain means would produce 
 certain ends ; that is, that the integrity of the country might 
 be preserved through the instrumentality of a native army. It 
 is now tolerably certain that we were wrong both in the one 
 assumption and in the other. It can be proved, we think, that 
 whatever benefit Persia may have derived, as far as regards the 
 centralization of the power of her monarch, from the introduc- 
 tion into her armies of European discipline, she has been, as 
 a substantive power, progressively weakened .by the change, 
 and rendered less capable of sustaining a pressure from with- 
 out ; and it follows therefore that if she had been in danger of 
 absorption by Russia under the old system, she must long ere 
 this have ceased to exist under the new. 
 
 It would detain us too long to explain in detail the seeming 
 
Oh. I.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 31 
 
 paradox of discipline engendering weakness. If it be reinem- 
 "bered, however, that when the system is affected with chronic 
 paralysis, the attempt is vain to restore any particular member 
 to a healthy action, it will be understood that to a nation 
 devoid of organization in every other department of Govern- 
 ment, a regular army was impossible. It thus happened that, 
 notwithstanding the admirable material for soldiery which were 
 offered by the hardy peasantry of Azerbijan and the still 
 hardier mountaineers of Kermanshah — notwithstanding the 
 aptitude of the officers to receive instruction — notwithstanding 
 that a due portion of physical courage appertained generally 
 to the men — the disciplined forces of Persia, considered as an 
 army, and for the purpose of national defence, were from the 
 «poch of their first creation contemptible. Beyond drill and 
 •exercise, they never had anything in common with the regular 
 armies of Europe and India. System was entirely wanted, 
 whether in regard to pay, clothing, food, carriage, equipage, 
 ■commissariat, promotion, or command ; and under a lath-and 
 plaster Government like that of Persia, such must have been 
 inevitably the case. At the same time, however, a false con- 
 fidence arose of a most exaggerated and dangerous character ; 
 the resources of the country were lavished on the army to an 
 extent which grievously impoverished it at the time, and which 
 has brought about at the present day a state of affairs that, 
 in any other quarter of the world, would be termed a national 
 bankruptcy ; above all, the tribes, — the chivalry of the Empire, 
 the forces with which Nadir over-ran the East from Bagdad 
 to Delhi, and which, ever yielding but ever present, surrounded, 
 under Aga Mahommed Khan, the Eussian armies with a desert 
 — were destroyed. Truly then may it be said that in present- 
 ing Persia with the boon of a so-called regular army, in order 
 to reclaim her from her unlawful loves with France, we clothed 
 her in the robe of Nessus. 
 
 Although it is thus certain that Persia was not saved from 
 the grasp of Eussia by any additional strength that we im- 
 parted to her, and that in supplying her, accordingly, with a 
 subsidy, our treasures were unprofitably wasted, it is not to be 
 supposed that we were under a delusion, either in judging of 
 
32 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 her feebleness as a nation, or in assuming an aggressive ten- 
 dency as an inherent element in her antagonist's policy. Our 
 error lay in giving an undue extension to the operation of that 
 tendency — in over-estimating, in fact, the offensive power of 
 Eussia. We were wrong in including the East and West in 
 the same category ; in believing that Persia might be annexed 
 with the same facility as Courland and Finland — that she could 
 be suddenly dismembered and occupied like Poland, or cajoled 
 out of her independence like the Crimea — that she might be 
 over-run like Bessarabia, or even subdued like Georgia. 
 
 At that time, it is true, the opportunity had not occurred for 
 verifying to its full extent a certain remarkable analogy 
 between the natural and moral laws of the Eussian Empire — 
 an analogy which has been casually touched upon in the saying 
 that "her slope is to the East," but which will admit of still 
 happier and more forcible illustration : for it may be added 
 with equal truth that, as her rivers — torrents at the fountain- 
 head — slacken in their onward course, until at length they roll 
 lazily through endless steppes, and stagnate in the Caspian 
 marshes, so do her means and forces, although tending 
 naturally to the East, become attenuated at the extremities of 
 the Empire till their effects are barely sensible. 
 
 We had not then seen the striking spectacle of a few isolated 
 mountain bands — powerful because remote — setting for a long 
 series of years her battalions at defiance, nor had we beheld 
 an army of veteran soldiers, like that conducted by Petrowski 
 against Khiva in 1840, annihilated by the mere passive resist- 
 ance of a distant enemy ; but still from the slow progress and 
 inadequate results of the Persian war — the conquests of Eussia 
 «/vw upon this side the Caucasus in 1813, after twelve years of un- 
 interrupted hostility, being actually of less extent than those 
 achieved by Zuboff in the brief but brilliant campaign of 1796 
 — we might have fairly suspected either her earnestness, or 
 her ability. To have anticipated, at any rate, for Persia the 
 catastrophe of a sudden extinction, was to violate all proba- 
 bility. To have supposed her even in such danger as to justify 
 any considerable outlay in her defence was to show that we 
 followed the impulse of our fears, rather than the limited, 
 
Ch. I.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 33 
 
 though perhaps sufficient, lights of our experience. We now 
 resume the thread of our narrative. 
 
 6. Sir Gore Ouseley, who reached Teheran as Ambassador 
 Extraordinary from the King of England in the summer of 
 1811, found Persia still engaged in hostilities with Eussia. 
 The officers supplied from India — Christie, Lindsay, and their 
 gallant comrades — had already, under great disadvantages, 
 formed the nucleus of a regular army, which on more than one 
 occasion had beaten the Eussians in action : but these suc- 
 cesses were transient and illusory. The Persians owed more 
 to the lukewarmness — if not the misconduct — of their enemies, 
 than to their own prowess. In 1812 the reconciliation of 
 England and Eussia, which followed on Napoleon's rupture 
 with the Czar, necessitated the withdrawal of the British 
 officers from the battlefield, and the inferiority of the Persian 
 troops became at once apparent. It was evident, that to give 
 the experiment of discipline a fair chance of success, a respite 
 from war was indispensable ; and as Eussia had occasion for 
 her full resources and undivided attention to shake off the 
 gigantic foe with whom she was now grappling in the death- 
 struggle, the good offices of England, which had been promised 
 to Persia in the preliminary treaty, in the event of our making 
 peace with her antagonist, were accordingly exerted with such 
 effect, that in October, 1813, the treaty of Grulistan was at 
 length signed between the belligerents. This treaty was no 
 doubt sufficiently humiliating to Persia. All the acquisitions 
 of Eussia, south of the Caucasus, were confirmed to her. It 
 was further provided, in the same jealous spirit which dictated 
 the secret article of the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi regarding the 
 closing of the Dardanelles against nations at war with Eussia 
 — and perhaps also with a view of especially alarming England 
 (for really, as far as Persia was concerned, a power whose mari- 
 time inaptitude was proverbial, the condition was not merely 
 superfluous, but absurd) — that " no ships of war, except 
 Eussian, should be allowed on the Caspian Sea." * A want of 
 
 * A similar condition of exclusion the allies after the taking of Sebas- 
 from the Black Sea was imposed, it topol, and -was subsequently repu- 
 may be remembered, upon Eussia by diated by her as an infringement of 
 
34 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 preciseness also, either culpable or wilful, in the. .demarcation 
 of the frontier at a most important point, left Russia at ]ibertj r , 
 whenever it might suit her convenience, to force "on a renewal 
 of hostilities by occupying the disputed territory.. "V^e believe, 
 indeed, that the peace of 1813 was regarded neither By the one 
 party nor the other m any other light than as an Armistice. 
 Russia had no idea of accepting permanently any frontier short 
 of the Aras (Araxes)v but she was unable at* the' moment, to 
 push her conquests. Persia was equally insincere in affecting 
 to have abandoned Karabagh ; but she required an'intfiryal of 
 repose to recruit her energies, and above all to&improye .^her 
 discipline, and gain some knowledge of European tactics. 
 
 Simultaneously with the convention of Gulistan, or iniifie- 
 diately following it, Sir Gore Ouseley concluded with Persia, 
 on the basis of Sir Harford Jones's preliminary arrangements, 
 "the definitive treaty -which he had been espe<3ialty appdintecMio 
 negociate';^ and shortly afterwards; he' returned -with it to 
 England, leaving his secretary, Mr.: Morier,- in .chargfe, of * the 
 Mission. This treaty, however, was not accepted in its original 
 form. The British Ministry, with the honest and honourable 
 intention of doing the very best for Persia of which her situa- 
 tion would admit, resolved on more liberal terms of subsidy 
 than those which the, Shah's Government had already thank- 
 fully accepted ; and accordingly, a special Commissioner,,.]!^.. 
 Henry Ellis, was sent out in 1814 'to. modify Sir' ".Gore 
 Ouseley's stipulations w - * > .;. ' <■'•'*** 
 
 • 7. It is unnecessary that we should examirie in detail, and 
 throughout its eleven articles, the treaty of Teheran, which was ; 
 concluded by Messrs. Morier and Ellis, November 25th, 1814.? 
 A brief notice of its more prominent features will suffice fear 
 our .purpose, and is all, moreover, of which our space -admits'. 
 In many points of view it was undoubtedly faulty. .-* To ha.ve^-.\ 
 supposed that . Persia could interfere to prevent, or "even td '•*. 
 check, the movements of a Russian army marching upon India 
 by the route of Khiva, or Bokhara, or Kokan; and^to have 
 
 the law of nations, a precedent .being time" should ever place her in a ,- 
 thus afforded of -which"' Persia may; position to assert her rights. — 1873i ' 
 avail herself if the "whirligig of > , . 
 
Ch. I.] OUE POLITICAI. RELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 35 
 
 ... ■: .- ■? 
 
 provided accordingly, betrayed an inexcusable ignorance of 
 political geography.*, ThWe was an equal . impropriety in 
 -engaging that '*■ the -limits of the two states of r- Russia and 
 Persia should be determined according to the admission .of 
 <jrreat Britain, , Persia, and Russia; "for, if considerations of 
 the public weal* -patent - and emergent, be alone held to justify 
 Mnderany circumstances, the infusion of mediatory offices, and 
 if an engagement to .proffer such- offices be thus rarely inserted 
 in' .treaties between States, — to pledge a third party to accept 
 •of them does seem the very acme of diplomatic hardihood. We 
 wnl say nothing^ or the momeilt, of the -subsidy itself; but the 
 7th article, which- stipulated for the payment of" the money in 
 as early instalment* as might be convenient, " since it loas the 
 ■Ctiistpm in Persia to, pay tfie troops six months., in advance," 
 might really be very well taken for a burlesque. The obliga- 
 tion, again, which we contracted in the 9th article, to abstain 
 from interference in the event of a possible contest between the 
 Persians and Afghans, is hardly intelligible. Such a proposal 
 ■could not have proceeded from Great Britain ; and, if proceed- 
 ing from Persia, it indicated that desire of territorial extension 
 ' which was more fuHy developed in the sequel, and which, when 
 •deVe;lop&d,;Compelled us upon general grounds ,to repudiate the 
 treaty altogether, t Lastly, the extradition of refugees, which 
 we also" blindly conceded, was a most humiliating (and under 
 the circumstances a most gratuitous) engagement; — an engage- 
 ment, indeed, so repugnant to Eastern ideas of honour and 
 . hospitality, that, although the occasion has frequently arisen 
 ; itfr bringing it into operation, we believe- that means have been 
 
 '.„.* As the first article provides that force. But it is the. faGt .that the 
 
 Persia shall not allow any European Morier and Ellis Treaty expired "in 
 
 .army to proceed towards India, but toto " with our declaration of war 
 
 shall induce the -rulers of Kharism against Persia 'in 1856, " though ho 
 
 (Khiva), . .Tataristaii:-(Kashgar), Bok- specific declaration to th.ateffect was 
 
 hara, and Samarkand to offer all the entered in the Treaty made at Paris 
 
 opposition 'm their power, a curious iu 1857 on the termination of hostili- . 
 
 complication might have arisen in re- ties. — 1878. ,- ■'* 
 
 ference to- the recent Russian con- + See Lord Palmerston's despatch to 
 
 quests, if*, as has been sometimes Mr. McNeill, dated July- 27th, 1838, 
 
 "'.-supposed, the ^unrepealed articles" of ' Correspondence relating to> the affairs! 
 
 the Treaty' hi J814 fiad been still in of Persia and Afghanistan, p. 89. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. I. 
 
 sought and found in every instance, if not for rejecting the 
 terms entered in the bond, at any rate for modifying their 
 rigour, and thus saving our credit on one side to expose it on 
 another. 
 
 The essential points of the treaty in regard to Persia were 
 the augmentation of the amount of the subsidy, and the defini- 
 tion of the conditions under which the liability of its payment 
 was imposed on us. The annual amount was raised from 
 160,000 to 200,000 Tomans (or from about 12 to 15 lakhs of 
 Rupees) ; and, in explanation of that article of the preliminary 
 treaty, which merely declared Persia to be entitled to our assist- 
 ance in the event of any European forces invading the terri- 
 tories of His Majesty the Shah, our exemption from the 
 pecuniary liability was specifically limited to the possible case 
 " of the war with such European nation being produced by an 
 aggression on the part of Persia." 
 
 Undoubtedly, however, the most important feature of the 
 treaty in question was the principle which it involved, that 
 Great Britain had a right to consider any spontaneous act of 
 Russian aggression upon Persia as a demonstration against 
 India. That we should really have propounded so important, 
 and at the same time so questionable, a doctrine may well excite 
 surprise ; yet the 6th article will admit, we think, of no other 
 construction ; for by that article it was provided, that although 
 Great Britain might be at peace with Russia, if Persia were 
 attacked by the latter power, and if our good offices failed in 
 bringing about an arrangement of differences, then we would 
 continue to pay the subsidy to support the army of the Shah,, 
 or, if it were preferred, we would send a force from India to 
 assist in repelling the enemy ,— neither the one nor the other 
 of these engagements being compatible with the duties of a 
 neutral State, nor indeed admitting of justification, according 
 to the Law of Nations, on any other grounds than those of 
 self-defence, which grounds of course must have pre-supposed 
 the fact of an attack on Persia being an indirect attack upon 
 India. We were in fact by the 6th article of the treaty pledged 
 to a possible war with Russia in defence of Persia, and, what 
 is of more consequence, the pledge remains registered against 
 
Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 37 
 
 us to the present day : for when we compounded in 1828 for 
 the expunging of certain articles from the treaty of Teheran, 
 by some inexplicable oversight the 6th article was not included 
 in the obnoxious category ; and it still therefore must be con- 
 sidered in force, as far as regards the principle involved in it, 
 and as far as its integrity may be unaffected by our release 
 from the other engagements.* 
 
 For a considerable period, subsequent to the treaty of 
 Teheran, our relations with Persia underwent no material 
 change. We were pursuing two objects : one was the improve- 
 ment of the military resources of the country, to which end we 
 ■supplied arms, founded a laboratory and arsenal, and furnished 
 officers for the drill and discipline of the army ; the other was 
 the creation and retention of such a commanding influence at 
 Court, as should not only guarantee us against the possible 
 intrigues or enmity of a foreign power, but should enable us in 
 some degree to sway the councils of the State. In the former 
 path, our success was hardly equal to our hopes, or even to our 
 ■expectations. Our officers, it is true, displayed a most credit- 
 able zeal, and no little address in contending with the difficul- 
 ties of their position : and, moreover, the Prince Royal, under 
 whose immediate orders they were acting, seconded their 
 efforts, — not exactly with the same ardour which had inspired 
 him, so long as a regular army added to its substantial advan- 
 tages the irresistible charm of novelty, but still with sufficient 
 steadiness to have ensured the fashioning, according to the end 
 in view, of any less intractable materials : yet it cannot be 
 denied, that when Persia again came into collision with Russia 
 in 1826, her means and power as a military nation were posi- 
 tively inferior to those which she possessed at the close of her 
 former struggle. During this long interval of thirteen years, 
 she was continually losing ground in that quarter where her 
 leal strength lay, while she advanced in a direction where 
 progress was exhaustive, as well as useless. If, however, in 
 the words of Persia's most impartial historian, " the attempt 
 
 * It must be remembered that this to which it led in 1857, cancelled all 
 uras written in 1848. The Persian previous arrangements. — 1873. 
 war of 1856, and the Treaty of Paris 
 
38 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [On. I. 
 
 to introduce an effective discipline, and to organize a regular- 
 force on European principles was a signal failure;"* and if, in 
 one branch of our policy, we were thus doomed to chew the cud of 
 disappointment, in our other object at any rate we were more than 
 successful. Nothing could have been more satisfactory or more- 
 honourable to the parties concerned, than the conduct at this, 
 period of our relations with the Court of Teheran, t Still more^ 
 commendable also was the character of those general measures; 
 by winch we conquered prejudice, disarmed jealousy, and finally 
 gained a complete ascendency in the public estimation of the- 
 nation. To the care, indeed, with which, after the retirement, 
 of Mr. Morier, Sir Henry Willock, ably assisted by Sir J_ 
 McNeill, then a young officer on the Bombay Medical Esta- 
 blishment, conciliated popular opinion, rather than to the- 
 wayward prodigality of Malcolm, or the lawyer-like dexterity 
 of Jones, must be attributed the impressions, which, surviving: 
 all party questions — surviving even the shock of wounded pride 
 — enable an Englishman at the present day in any part of 
 Persia, not merely to enjoy personal safety, but to command, 
 esteem and respect. 
 
 8. We shall not follow in any detail the relations of Eussia. 
 with Persia during the interval in question. The bearing of 
 the former power throughout was irritating and contemptuous- 
 Unwilling, or unable, to appear as a competitor against 
 England for the favours of the Shah, she rather sought to- 
 oppose our influence by acting on the fears of Persia — by 
 exhibiting in fact that disregard for rights and courtesies 
 which could be only supposed to arise from a consciousness of 
 complete superiority. The retention of Talish, the profound 
 indifference with which she received the repeated invitations of 
 
 * " Fraser's Persia," p. 301. during the period in question. When 
 f We have not forgotten that a per- our truant Minister, indeed, reported 
 sonal misunderstanding between Sir himself at the Foreign Office, Canning; 
 H. Willock and the Shah led to the is said to have observed "Henry- 
 temporary withdrawal of our Mission Willock ? I know a man of that, 
 from the Court ; but the occasion of name at Teheran, but certainly not in 
 the rupture was so entirely accidental, London," a remark which sufficiently 
 and the effects of it were so transient, expressed his opinion of the quarrel, 
 that it cannot be considered to affect and censured the undue importance 
 the general character of our relations that had been attached to it. 
 
Ch. I.] OUE POLITICAL KELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 39 
 
 Persia to treat for the adjustment of a disputed frontier, and 
 finally the violent occupation of Gokchah, must be imputed 
 as much to a desire to prevent Persia from deriving strength, 
 or even confidence, from British support, as to any real 
 thirst of conquest, or any wish to precipitate hostilities. 
 Bussia had doubtless always looked to the absorption of the 
 Persian territory, north of the Arras, as essential to the 
 geographical boundaries of her Empire ; and such an absorp- 
 tion could hardly be effected without engaging in a war : yet 
 war was not her principal object. That object was the general 
 depression of Persia, the riveting of chains around her which 
 should annihilate her powers of self-action : and it was valued 
 perhaps less for its immediate results — less even as a move- 
 ment in advance towards the final act of appropriation — than 
 as a means of exciting the alarm of England, and thus 
 creating a moral leverage against us in Europe. We have 
 not dwelt hitherto upon this occult element of the Bussian 
 policy; partly, from a disinclination to ascribe too much 
 astuteness to any plan of attack ; partly, from the difficulty of 
 tracing such a plan, where the batteries are masked, the 
 approaches are tortuous, and the sap often shifts its course 
 according to the nature of the ground. During the mission 
 of Prince Menzikoff however to Teheran, in 1826, there was 
 an overt attempt upon his part to commence that system of 
 demonstration which has since so much embarrassed us ; and 
 we shall be justified therefore throughout the sequel of our 
 sketch in assuming the probability of there being always two 
 distinct principles of action in the proceedings of Bussia 
 against Persia, — the one, real, immediate, and acquisitive; the 
 other, remote, artificial, and working merely by intimidation. 
 If indeed there were any object in the mission in question, it 
 was to give a different direction to the outpourings of the 
 national mind, then in a high state of fermentation ; to change 
 the theatre of contemplated war from the North-West to the 
 East : to bring about, through military complications in Kho- 
 rassan, a state of local politics which should entirely alter the 
 relative positions of Great Britain, Persia, and Bussia, and 
 which, whatever might be the result, would advance the 
 
40 ENGLAND AND KtJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 interests of the latter power. The project failed for the 
 moment, owing to the sagacity of Futteh Ali Shah, who saw 
 through so transparent a device ; * but it has never been 
 forgotten. On several later occasions indeed it has been 
 brought prominently forward, and at the present moment 
 perhaps it as fully occupies the attention of Eussia as any 
 direct scheme of territorial aggrandizement. 
 
 In glancing at the war, which broke out even before Menzi- 
 koff had quitted Persia, and which raged until the spring of 
 1828, it will be well to consider those points in it only which 
 immediately affected us. To ascribe this war, seriously and 
 in good faith, to the occupation of Grokchah, or to any isolated 
 accident whatever, is to ignore altogether the relative position 
 of the belligerent powers. In real truth it was the mere con- 
 summation of a long course of preparation and design. Russia, 
 if not deliberately provoking the contest, had been at any rate 
 for many years previously indifferent to the preservation of 
 peace; while Persia, brooding over her former losses, and 
 smarting under recently accumulated indignities, judged the 
 time to be favourable for resenting them. As, however, the 
 liability of England to assist Persia with a subsidy or an 
 auxiliary army depended upon the first act of aggression, the 
 question of the initiative nearly concerned us ; and a discussion 
 therefore immediately arose, as to whether the affair of Gokchah 
 did, or did not, constitute a " casus belli." Persia maintained 
 that she was forced into the war by an aggression on the part 
 of Eussia, and accordingly demanded the assistance to which 
 under such circumstances she was entitled by our engagements 
 with her ; whilst we replied — with more of casuistry, certainly, 
 than generosity — that " the occupation by Eussian troops of a 
 portion of uninhabited ground, which by right belonged to 
 Persia, even if admitted to have been the proximate cause of 
 hostilities, did not constitute the case of aggression contem- 
 
 * Menzikoff taunted the Shah with more, to open independent relations 
 
 the power and magnificence of his with him. The Shah's pride was 
 
 brother potentate in Khorassan, Esau severely wounded, but he had the sense 
 
 Khan, and observed that it might be to reply, that he preferred the rivalry 
 
 necessary for Eussia, in a few years of Esau Khan to the enmity of England. 
 
Oh. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 41 
 
 plated in the treaty of Teheran."* We shall not pretend to 
 pronounce " ex cathedra " upon a question so very nicely 
 balanced ; but, if the case had been argued in court, and if 
 counsel had quoted to a jury, Sir J. McNeill, as a pamphleteer, 
 against Sir J. McNeill, as a Minister, — comparing a passage 
 from " The progress of Russia in the East," which unequivo- 
 cally stated that " the war originated in the violation of the 
 Persian territory by the Governor-General of Georgia," + with 
 the article of the treaty of Teheran, which provided that we 
 should be excused from payment only " if the war might have 
 been produced by aggression on the part of Persia," — there can 
 be little doubt, we think, as to how a verdict would have been 
 given. That we did not, indeed, feel that confidence in our 
 immunity at the time, which we have since affected, may be 
 inferred from our anxiety to obtain a release from the subsidy 
 engagements immediately that the war was terminated, as 
 though we still trembled at the risk we had encountered, and 
 indulged a covert hope that to the release once obtained might 
 be conceded a retrospective effect. The actual bargain, however, 
 by which the Shah was persuaded to cancel our engagements, 
 forms, we think, the least creditable feature in the whole 
 " tableau " of our Persian policy. It is this bargain which we 
 have before characterized as one of extraordinary rigour, and 
 even of questionable honesty ; and to enable the reader to see 
 if we have judged harshly, we now present him with an outline 
 of the transaction. 
 
 9. At the close of the war, when defeat and treachery fol- 
 lowing closely one upon the other had left Persia, if not so 
 enfeebled, at any rate so disheartened, as to be ready to accept 
 of any terms that might be imposed on her without scrutinizing 
 their claim to moderation, Russia demanded, amongst other con- 
 ditions of peace, the payment of ten crores J of Tomans (about 
 three and a half millions sterling) as indemnification for the 
 expenses of the campaign. Of this enormous mulct the greater 
 portion was defrayed from the reluctant coffers of the Shah ; 
 
 * Correspondence relating to the f Page 98. 
 affairs of Persia and Afghanistan, % The crore here mentioned is only 
 
 p. 112. 500,000 Tomans. 
 
42 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. I. 
 
 but for the remainder the Prince Royal was rendered person- 
 ally responsible, and, as the province of Azerbijan had already 
 borne the chief burthen of the struggle^it may well be under- 
 stood that neither His Eoyal Highness's treasury, nor the 
 resources of his government, were in a condition to meet the 
 call. He had recourse to expedients — not of the most dignified 
 character — to obtain even a temporary relief. At his earnest 
 entreaty a small portion of the debt was remitted ; a further 
 portion, amounting to a crore, was suffered to he in suspense : 
 for another crore the rich district of Khoi was handed over to 
 Russia in pledge ; and a certain amount of ready money was 
 provided by anticipating the revenues of the province. A con- 
 siderable sum, however, was still wanting to satisfy the imme- 
 diate demand, and the prince found himself accordingly com- 
 pelled to accept of aid tendered by the British minister, 
 however limited in amount, and however severe the terms 
 upon which such aid might be afforded. "We are not cognizant 
 of the full details of the transaction which ensued ; * but we 
 believe that Sir John Macdonald in the first instance passed a 
 bond to the Prince Royal, pledging himself to furnish a sum 
 of 250,000 Tomans towards the liquidation of the indemnity, 
 provided H. R. H., acting as the plenipotentiary of the Shah, 
 would annul the subsidy engagements of the treaty of Teheran; ^ 
 and that subsequently, when the time for payment arrived, the 
 Envoy declared that he had exceeded his instructions, and that 
 he could only disburse at the moment 200,000 Tomans, in 
 consideration of which assistance a formal act of surrender 
 must be passed to him ; but that he would obtain theremaining 
 50,000 Tomans in the sequel, as a gratuity to Persia from the 
 British crown. Be this, however, as it may, the bond for 
 250,000 Tomans remained in the hands of the Prince Royal; 
 the act of annulment was passed and ratified on the payment 
 of the reduced amount of 200,000 Tomans ; and, when Persia 
 claimed the difference, she was told that " she could not 
 
 * There is a singular, aDd to say (Indian Papers, No. 2, p. 7.) In 
 
 the least of it, a most suspicious, want one paper, the English date is used ; 
 
 of uniformity in the dating of the in another, the Mahomedan ; and the 
 
 documents which refer to this trans- date of the third is altogether wanting., 
 action in the published "Treaties." 
 
Ch. L] oue political RELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 43 
 
 establish a right to the greater sum, as she had subsequently 
 agreed to accept, and acknowledged that she had accepted, the 
 less sum as the price of the sacrifice she made."* Now, if 
 nothing positively dishonest can be imputed to us in these 
 proceedings, they must be admitted at any rate to involve as. 
 close a practice as was ever followed by a civilized nation.. 
 That we had at the outset improvidently contracted the 
 subsidy engagements, and that we were at liberty to seek for a 
 release from them at any time by a fair negociation, may very 
 readily be conceded ; but to have obtained that release under 
 circumstances of such extraordinary difficulty for one of the 
 contracting parties was, we submit, to redeem our original 
 error almost at the expense of our good name. With regard 
 to the discrepancy also between the amount tendered in Sir 
 John Macdonald's bond and the sum actually paid, we suspect 
 that Persia has still a valid claim against us for 50,000 
 Tomans. 
 
 The most important consideration however to Persia, result- 
 ing from the transaction which we have noticed, was the 
 evidence it afforded of a complete change in our estimate of her 
 alliance. Sir J. McNeill has significantly said, that " the 
 alteration in the treaty was supposed to evince a desire on the 
 part of England to disencumber herself of a falling ally."t 
 Taken in connection indeed with the transfer- from the Crown 
 to the Indian Government of the direction of our relations at 
 Teheran, which occurred a short time previously, no other 
 inference could have been drawn from it. We had awoke, it 
 seemed, to a sense of the worthlessness of Persia. Our efforts 
 to make her strong had but contributed to her weakness. We 
 had been building on a quicksand. The country existed only 
 by the sufferance of her northern neighbour ; and it was useless 
 therefore to undergo further expense, or to encounter further 
 risk, on her behalf. 
 
 But here again we erred upon the side of despondency, as 
 much as we had been formerly too bold and sanguine. Persia 
 
 * Correspondence relating to the + "Progress of Russia in the East," 1 
 
 affairs of Persia and Afghanistan, p. 135. 
 p. 112. 
 
44 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. I. 
 
 was never in that extreme danger of extinction — not when the 
 Russian troops were in full march upon the capital, and when 
 defection spread rapidly among the higher classes, — which 
 in any way called for her abandonment, or even required an 
 essential modification of our relations with the Shah. The 
 prosecution of Paskevitch's march on Teheran, upon which the 
 fate of Persia was supposed to rest, would have been a still 
 more adventurous movement than Diebitch's advance on 
 Adrianople : and if strategists are agreed that the latter move- 
 ment was altogether false, and must have signally failed, had 
 not Turkey succumbed under the moral pressure, much more 
 certain must it appear — to those who know the contemptible 
 amount of force which was employed on the occasion, and the 
 power of resistance which is offered by the mere principle of 
 vitality in a nation like Persia — that the Russian enterprise in 
 Persia could have led to nothing but disaster and disgrace. 
 We hold it, indeed, to have been morally impossible that 
 Russia, who " during the whole course of the war with Persia 
 had never been able to collect more than 10,000 men in one 
 body, nor to keep together for a month more than half that 
 number,"* should have occupied a territory which contained 
 10,000,000 inhabitants, t bound together by the common tie of 
 religion, naturally warlike, and detesting the invaders : and, 
 unless the invasion had been followed by military occupation, 
 we conceive that there was no real danger for the country. 
 
 10. To proceed, however, with our sketch; no sooner had we 
 abandoned the idea of raising up in Persia an efficient bulwark 
 against Russian encroachments, and had thus limited the func- 
 tions of our Envoy to observation, or at most to expressions of 
 encouragement and sympathy, than we began to take an aug- 
 mented interest in the countries intermediate between Persia 
 and India. It cannot be said that we had been indifferent to 
 those countries at former periods. The journeys of Stirling 
 and Arthur Conolly had been undertaken at the instigation 
 
 * "Progress of Russia in the East," years ago, but 6,000,000 is the mini - 
 
 p. 134. ber now more commonly, and appa- 
 
 + This was the estimated amount rently with more justice, assigned to 
 
 of the population of Persia twenty the country.— 1873. 
 
Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 45 
 
 and under the auspices of the British Mission at Teheran ; 
 and it was owing merely to the services of Mr. McNeill being 
 indispensable to the conduct of affairs in Persia, that Sir J. 
 Macdonald was deterred from detaching him on a Mission to 
 the eastward, of an almost identical nature with that subse- 
 quently entrusted to Burnes. To the latter officer, however, 
 must our Afghan policy, we think, be properly ascribed. Others 
 recommended the cultivation of a position at Cabul and 
 Candahar, as an equipoise to the pressure of Russia upon 
 Persia — as a means of checking the disposition of the former 
 power to keep up a sustained attitude of attack, while it pro- 
 mised to render the latter more docile to our counsel from our 
 being in a measure independent of her friendship, as well as 
 more confident in herself from our increased facilities of afford- 
 ing her support. But Burnes grappled far more boldly with 
 the question. He would at once have left the Shah to his fate, 
 and have transferred all our solicitude to Dost Mahomed. 
 " Had circumstances," he wrote on returning from his memor- 
 able journey, " brought us into an alliance with Cabul instead 
 of Persia, we might have now possessed more trusty and 
 useful allies nearer home than we can boast of in that country; 
 and we should never have incurred a tenth of the expenditure 
 which has been so freely lavished in Persia." 
 
 To account for Burnes's prejudice against Persia and his- 
 predilection in favour of Cabul, it must be remembered that 
 on his first journey he saw the two countries under very 
 peculiar circumstances. Dost Mahomed at that time was in 
 the plenitude of his power. Uninfected as yet by western 
 propagandism, he was as friendly to the Indian Government as 
 his jealousy of the Sikhs, tempered by a natural circumspection, 
 could render him. His personal character, moreover, stood 
 out in bright relief among the sombre masses of his country- 
 men. In Persia, on the other hand, the actual state of affairs 
 was gloomy, and the prospect was still more threatening. 
 Groaning under misgovemment, and " broken up into a loose 
 confederation of petty principalities," the country appeared, to 
 those who looked on centralization as the essence of power, and 
 cared not to penetrate a nation's spirit, to be on the point of 
 
46 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. I. 
 
 dissolution. The Court, alarmed, even more than injured, by 
 the relaxation of interest which our altered language and 
 stinted expenditure betrayed, was prepared to conciliate 
 Eussia at any sacrifice. The Envoy, who had succeeded Sir 
 John Macdonald at Teheran, was personally obnoxious to the 
 Shah, and had quarrelled with all the Ministers. The Prince 
 Eoyal too, against the counsel of his father, who was perhaps 
 the steadiest friend to England, as well as the best politician 
 in his empire, had been at length prevailed on to send an army 
 into Khorassan, in order to reduce the refractory local chief- 
 tains, and, when Bumes passed through the province, H. B. H. 
 was concerting measures with a Eussian agent, Baron Ache, 
 for prosecuting hostilities bej r ond the frontier. Those hosti- 
 lities, which it was proposed in the first instance to direct 
 against Khiva, were suspended for the moment, owing to the 
 interference of the only British officer in camp, Captain Shee ; 
 but as that officer, with more zeal than prudence, went so far 
 as to pass his bond for a large sum of money in order to 
 dissuade the Prince from the enterprise, and as such a pro- 
 ceeding was, of course, disavowed by the Envoy at Teheran, 
 the circumstance indirectly tended still further to depress our 
 influence. In the following year, 1832, the project of aggression 
 was resumed ; but the Afghans were now pointed out as more 
 deserving of punishment than the Uzbegs ; and, after some 
 consideration, Herat was at length selected as the destined 
 object of attack. Again, however, did our counsel interpose to 
 prevent the intrusion of the arms of Persia into a territory 
 almost conterminous with India ; and again was the interposi- 
 tion successful. On this occasion, too, as Mr. McNeill was 
 the counsellor, it may be presumed that the true aim of the 
 Eussian policy was exposed, and that we lost nothing in Abbas 
 Mirza's estimation by warning him of the snare prepared for 
 him. 
 
 The Khorassan campaign, of which we are now treating, 
 was the germ from whence sprung our own Afghan war, and it 
 merits, therefore, more than a passing notice. That Eussia 
 had instigated the original movement, that she took a marked 
 interest in the progress of the war, that she ever pointed to 
 
Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 47 
 
 ulterior conquest, were all matters of notoriety ; but the objects 
 which she had in view in thus acting were by no means so 
 patent to observation, nor indeed have they ever perhaps been 
 submitted to a full and fair inquiry. The question has been 
 usually put as follows : — Did Eussia propose to push forward 
 Persia as her own pioneer towards India ? Or — was the whole 
 scheme a phantasmagoria, designed for the mere purpose of 
 frightening us out of our propriety ? Was it a scheme, in 
 short, with no substantial base — no real and tangible outline, 
 and of which it would have been prudent, as well as safe, to 
 have ignored the very existence ? Such have been the limits 
 generally assigned to the inquiry : but we have already hinted, 
 and we shall endeavour to prove in the sequel, on what we 
 consider unexceptionable evidence, that there was always a 
 ihird object, more immediate in its nature, and more certain in 
 its effect, which entered largely into the consideration of 
 Eussia. That object was to estrange England from Persia, to 
 create an antagonism of interests between the two countries, 
 and thus force the weaker power into a coalition with herself, 
 — the natural results of such a coalition being that the moral 
 power and influence of the Eussian Empire in the East would 
 be greatly strengthened, while there would be entailed on 
 British India either the anxiety and embarrassment of a sense 
 of danger, or the expense of a state of preparation. 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1833 that the expedition against 
 Herat, which the remonstrances of Mr. McNeill had caused to 
 be suspended for a full year, was at length put in execution ; 
 and unfortunately the command of it was entrusted to the 
 prince who, before another year had expired, was called upon 
 to fill the throne of Persia. We say unfortunately, for to this 
 accident may be proximately traced the events of 1838, and all 
 the evils which followed in their train. That Abbas Mirza was 
 actuated by feelings of hostility to England in sending an 
 army against the capital of Western Afghanistan, no one has 
 ever pretended to assert. That imputation has been reserved 
 for Mahomed Shah : yet if the lust of conquest, and the natural 
 ambition of a military chief, were sufficient to account for the 
 designs of the Prince Royal upon Herat — irrespective of the 
 
48 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [On. I. 
 
 advice of Eussia — at least the same allowance should be made 
 for the temptation which must have assailed a leader who, 
 having been worsted on the first occasion of independent com- 
 mand, found himself shortly afterwards enabled to employ the 
 resources of an empire to retrieve his failure. We have heard, 
 indeed, that when the death of Abbas Mirza at Meshed in the 
 autumn of 1833 compelled his eldest son to raise the siege of 
 Herat, and return into the Persian territory in order to attend 
 to the immediate duties of Government, he swore a solemn 
 oath, after the approved fashion of the knights of old, that he 
 would sooner or later retrace his steps to the eastward, and 
 wipe out his disgrace in Afghan blood ; and we further know 
 that the design was ever uppermost in his mind from the 
 moment that he ascended the throne, and that, however it may 
 have been matured by Eussian counsel, or linked with subse- 
 quent considerations of policy, the germ is thus to be sought 
 in a deep-seated feeling of personal revenge. 
 
 11. We now return to the general question. Eussia was at 
 this time singularly placed. Having sown the dragon's teeth 
 in Khorassan, she was content to await the harvest, without 
 attempting to force on a crisis, or to disturb in any way the 
 natural course of events. England, on the other hand (or 
 rather British India, for the Teheran Mission still continued 
 under the direction of the Calcutta Council), had been partially 
 awakened from its lethargy by the recent occurrences in 
 Khorassan. If no measures of positive and complete relief 
 were practicable, it was judged, at any rate, that the symptoms 
 of danger might be alleviated, and that the day of dissolution 
 for Persia might be postponed. Economists, indeed, suggested 
 the idea that the expenditure in Persia might be legitimately 
 carried so far as would equal, but not exceed, the interest upon 
 the gross outlay which we should be obliged to incur for the 
 defence of India, in the event of the former country being 
 swallowed up by Eussia; and Lord William Bentinck, although 
 at that period in the full career of his financial reform, Was not 
 indisposed to undergo some sacrifice, in order to better our 
 position at the Court of the Shah. A large supply of arms 
 and accoutrements accordingly was transmitted gratuitously to 
 
Oh. I.] .OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 49 
 
 Persia in 1832-33 ; and in the latter year a detachment of 
 officers and sergeants, more complete even than the party 
 which had been furnished from India when we were striving to 
 supplant the French, inasmuch as it provided for the require- 
 ments of every branch of the military service, was placed by 
 the Governor-General at the disposal of the Envoy at Teheran 
 for employment with the troops of the Shah. 
 
 A certain reaction did assuredly follow on this indication of 
 a renewed solicitude. It was mainly owing to the exertion of 
 British influence that Futteh Ali Shah was persuaded, in the 
 summer of 1834, to appoint Mahomed Mirza, who had just re- 
 turned from Khorassan, heir-presumptive to the Empire ; and 
 a commercial treaty, with the privilege of naming Consuls for 
 the protection of our trade, upon which we set much store, 
 and which we had been long vainly urging on the attention of 
 the Court, might at this time assuredly have been carried, but 
 for a personal misunderstanding between the British Envoy 
 and the Ministers charged with the negociation. In the 
 autumn, indeed, of 1834, when Futteh Ah Shah gave up the 
 ghost at Ispahan, Khorassan had been previously cleared of 
 troops, except in such numbers as were necessary for the 
 internal safety of the province ; our officers had been again 
 placed in communication with, if not in command of, the 
 regular army ; and, the heir-presumptive being apparently 
 inclined to hold to us, our general position in Persia certainly 
 wore a more favourable aspect than at any period since the 
 Russian war. The accession of Mahomed Shah formed a 
 new epoch in our relations, and deserves to be attentively 
 considered.* 
 
 * At the time of Mahomed Shah's the present day — forty years having 
 
 accession in 1834, with a view to the elapsed since they were passed, and 
 
 consolidation of his power and the dis- not only a suspension of relations, but 
 
 couragement of all pretenders, the the Crimean and Persian wars, which 
 
 British and Russian Governments ex- dissolved all previous bonds, having 
 
 changed some very important notes, occurred in the interim — but they are 
 
 expressive of their mutual desire to nevertheless understood to represent 
 
 respect and maintain the integrity of the existing policy of the respective 
 
 the Persian Empire. It might be a parties, and have been indeed recently 
 
 question, perhaps, how far these notes referred to as a quasi-guarantee of 
 
 would be diplomatically considered- Persia's continued independence. — 
 
 to constitute a valid engagement at 1873. 
 
 E 
 
50 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. , [Oh. I. 
 
 12. Sir John McNeill, in his article in the Quarterly Reviezv, 
 has well described the evil auspices under which our inter- 
 course with Mahomed Shah commenced. " The young Shah," 
 he says, " had mounted the throne with the countenance of 
 Eussia and the active support of England ; hut although he 
 was unable to move his army from Tabreez until he received 
 pecuniary aid from the British Mission, and the assistance of 
 British officers to command the troops, and to give the soldiers 
 confidence in the promises which had been held out to them ; 
 and although it was known and admitted at the time that the 
 success of the Shah could not have been secured, without 
 hazarding his independence, unless by the opportune and 
 effective assistance he received from England, it unfortunately 
 did so happen that, when he had been firmly seated on the 
 throne, Bussian influence was found to have gained an ascen- 
 dency in his counsels, which, under the circumstances, it 
 would have appeared unreasonable, or almost absurd, to have 
 anticipated." 
 
 The sketch, however, is in so far imperfect, that there is no 
 attempt to explain the enigma of this sudden preponderance of 
 Bussian influence, and we venture therefore to give its solution. 
 Supposing our views to have been restricted to the continuance 
 of a struggle with Bussia for influence at the Persian Court, 
 it was a capital error in our policy ever to have attached our- 
 selves to the Azerbijan party, or to have assisted Abbas Mirza's 
 family in the question of the succession. Whilst Futteh Ali 
 Shah lived, he would never tolerate a permanent Bussian 
 Mission at his Court. He resolutely set his face against the 
 establishment of Consuls at the ports on the Caspian Sea, 
 notwithstanding that the treaty of 1828 expressly conceded 
 that point to Bussia. He was, in fact, essentially anti-Bussian, 
 and, as far as his power and influence extended, he was ever 
 ready to throw his whole weight into the scale against " his 
 cousin, the Emperor." With Abbas Mirza, however, and his 
 family, the case was widely different. Bred up under the 
 shadow of the Northern Upas, they were completely subject 
 to its influence. They had been struck by the eye of the 
 basilisk, and could never possibly regain their confidence. 
 
Ch. I] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 51 
 
 Mahomed Shah had little love for Kussia ; he had never for- 
 gotten the fatal field of Ganjah, where the fleetness of his 
 groom's horse alone saved him from the grasp of the Cossacks ; 
 T)ut he was impressed with a profound conviction of her irre- 
 sistible power, and he was thus predisposed to yield to any 
 pressure she might exert, however feeble in its nature or 
 injurious in its tendency. The aid which England afforded in 
 ■seating him on the throne, was ascribed to our fear lest he 
 should immediately sink to the condition of a mere tributary 
 to the Russian Empire, rather than to any rational hope of 
 our supporting him in independence. From the very day, 
 indeed, of Mahomed Shah's accession, all chance of our com- 
 peting with Russia for influence in the Persian councils was at 
 an end ; and the more that power was thrown into the hands 
 •of the Azerbijan party, the more difficult did it become that we 
 should ever regain our due position in the country. 
 
 Russia in the meantime was fully cognizant of the advantages 
 •of her situation. Satisfied that our efforts to consolidate the 
 power of the young monarch must, through whatever channel 
 they were employed, or to whatever point they were directed, 
 terminate to her own advantage, she smiled complacently on 
 our assistance, and was quite content to occupy for a moment, 
 but for the last time, a secondary place in the pageant. It was 
 not even requisite to strike upon the old chord of conquest to 
 the Eastward. So notorious was the young Shah's passion on 
 this subject, that the coronation anthems rang with prophetic 
 paeans of victory over the Uzbegs and Afghans ; and His 
 Majesty's speech, delivered from the throne before the foreign 
 Missions on the first occasion of a public durbar, dwelt raptu- 
 rously on the same theme. The constitution of the new 
 Ministry, which, in the place of the old native and independent 
 -aristocracy, was composed of parties immediately subject to 
 Russian discipline, either from the accident of birth or from 
 then' previous employment and connexions, although contri- 
 buting largely to our embarrassment, can hardly be cited as a 
 separate element of trouble. This change, indeed, was a 
 necessary consequence of the translation of the Tabriz court 
 to Teheran, and the difficulties, therefore, that arose from it 
 
 E 2 
 
52 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [On. I. 
 
 must be added to the catalogue of evils which were entailed on 
 us by the support of the Azerbijan family, and for which we 
 never seem to have contemplated any compensating good, 
 beyond the establishment of a principle of hereditary suc- 
 cession. 
 
 Our " home " proceedings now require to be noticed. Mr. 
 McNeill had been sent to England, in the autumn of 1834, to 
 endeavour to arouse the ministry to a sense of the necessity of 
 some more active interference than the mere furnishing of 
 arms and officers from India, in order to preserve the integrity 
 of Persia ; and he was so far successful, that, on the occasion 
 of the death of Futteh Ali Shah, the Crown resolved again to 
 place our relations with Teheran under the immediate control 
 of the Foreign Office, and Mr. Ellis was accordingly a second 
 time sent out from London on an embassy of condolence and 
 congratulation to the young monarch. Much more, however, 
 required to be done to fulfil the expectations that had been 
 formed. It was necessary in the first instance that the public 
 mind should be aroused, before Government could be either 
 disposed, or able, to undertake measures involving responsi- 
 bility, or anything like extraordinary expense ; and Mr. 
 McNeill accordingly, assisted by David Urquhart, who had 
 just returned from Turkey, and by Baillie Fraser, who had 
 been travelling on a special mission in Persia, set to work to 
 write wp the Eastern question. 
 
 Press agitation had long been a familiar weapon of attack, 
 and on domestic ground it had been often wielded with almost 
 as much facility as effect ; but it was a very different affair 
 when the battle-field was the far East, and when to the impas- 
 siveness of languor was added the positive obstruction of 
 ignorance. Perseverance and real talent, however, triumphed 
 at length over all obstacles. The Monthlies poured in a close 
 and galling fire, supported by the light artillery of leaders in 
 the daily journals, and by charges of cavalry in the shape of 
 pamphlets and reports. The heavy Quarterlies, too, brought 
 up their masses to sustain the onset, and the mysterious 
 " Portfolio," which was embodied for this particular campaign, 
 proved in itself a very "Legion" of destructiveness. The 
 
On. I.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 53 
 
 public mind of England, that huge burly citadel of selfishness 
 and unbelief, was fairly taken by assault; and when Mr. 
 McNeill came out as minister to Persia in 1836, Urquhart 
 at the same time going to Constantinople as Secretary of 
 Embassy, and Baillie Fraser remaining as Oriental reporter in 
 Downing Street, expectancy was culminating towards some 
 great explosion in the East. "We beg those of our readers 
 who have been accustomed to look on the Afghan war as the 
 accident of a moment, a sudden spasm of India in an agony of 
 mortal fear, to attend to these premonitory symptoms, which 
 as surely heralded the movement as the formation of " the 
 League " preceded the repeal of the Corn Laws. 
 
 We doubt, however, if our relations with Persia had yet 
 assumed any tangible or definite shape in the deliberations of 
 the British ministry. Mr. McNeill at any rate, on his return 
 to the country with further supplies of arms and further 
 detachments of officers and sergeants, must have still looked to 
 the old object of making use of Persia as a defence for India, 
 and of strengthening her for our own benefit. He was pre- 
 pared, probably, to advocate a very much more extended and 
 effective system of relief than had yet been resolved on by the 
 ministry. His pamphlet on "The Progress of Bussia in the 
 East," which was published just before his departure from 
 England, pointed to the necessity of preserving the integrity of 
 Persia at all risks; although how that object was to be attained 
 — whether by negociation, or money, or military assistance, or 
 a bold defiance of Bussia — was purposely left in obscurity. 
 But these visions must have quickly faded, after he was brought 
 in contact with the court. The Shah, he must have seen, no 
 longer needed, nor even wished for, the protection of Great 
 Britain. His Majesty had found a more convenient, if not a 
 more safe, ally in Bussia, — an ally who would encourage and 
 promote his conquests, guarantee him against intestine 
 troubles, and shield him, if necessary, against the resentment 
 of England. It does not appear, in the Foreign Office printed 
 correspondence, at what time the scales first fell from our eyes, 
 or how, when the broad truth stared us in the face, that we 
 must henceforward encounter at the Persian Court, not the 
 
54 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. L. 
 
 insidious attack of a power equally suspected by both parties, 
 but the open hostility of a successful rival — we proposed to- 
 meet the difficulty. There are certain circumstances which, 
 render it probable that then, at the eleventh hour, we did: 
 imperfectly shadow forth the only line of policy which, without 
 entailing on us an enormous expense, could have availed us to- 
 retrieve our position. The distinguished reception which had' 
 been given in England to the refugee Princes of Shiraz, and 
 the handsome pension assigned to them, seemed to point to the 
 eventuality of a restored dynasty under British auspices in the- 
 south of Persia. The contumelious dismissal of our civil and' 
 military officers from the Eoyal camp in the summer of 1836 
 was popularly, though, no doubt, improperly, assigned to the- 
 discovery of intrigues tending to the same end ; and, as will 
 presently be shown, Kussia herself had become alarmed at this 
 possible, and under the circumstances justifiable, resolution of 
 our difficulties. If, however, we ever harboured the idea of 
 extricating ourselves by the semblance, or reality, of such a 
 scheme, the plan must have soon yielded to the more pressing: 
 necessities of the time. Witkewitch had already started for 
 Cabul, and the Shah was preparing to besiege Herat. 
 
 It enters not into our design to impugn or contradict any 
 part of the evidence which Sir J. McNeill has accumulated in 
 his article in the Quarterly Review, tending to prove the com- 
 plicity of Eussia in the proceedings of Persia against Afghan- 
 istan, and to show that the ulterior object of Eussia in thus- 
 acting was hostility against England. We merely reserve two- 
 points ; first, that the Shah was an unconscious instrument in 
 the hands of Eussia, until our opposition to his views kindled, 
 discord between us and him ; and secondly, that the full scope 
 of the Eussian policy (the channel through which the feeling 
 of hostility against us was to work, and its advantages were to- 
 be developed) has been either misapprehended or concealed- 
 On the first point it is perhaps unnecessary to enlarge ; for,, 
 supposing that the Shah can be proved to have acted un- 
 consciously against us, still if Ins proceedings were injurious,, 
 he was as amenable to our resentment as if he had been our 
 wilful enemy. The question is only of interest in proving the 
 
Ch. I.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 55 
 
 complete success of Eussia's machinations, which brought 
 England almost into collision with Persia against the wishes 
 of the one party, and without the cognizance of the other. 
 The second point is of greater consequence ; for, if the views 
 of Eussia were such as we believe them to have been, and if 
 those views were duly communicated at the time to the British 
 Government, it seems the less excusable that we should have 
 taken the bait prepared for us. 
 
 "We remember to have seen a paper which reached India, 
 long before "the grand army" had crossed the Indus, and 
 which purposed to give the confidential explanations of a high 
 Eussian functionary on the policy which his Government had 
 pursued in the affair of Herat. We know not how the paper 
 was obtained, but its verisimilitude guaranteed its authen- 
 ticity; and, although for obvious reasons it has not been 
 printed in any of the Afghan Blue Books, we venture, 
 after the lapse of ten years, to quote certain parts of it from 
 memory. 
 
 " Eussia," it was stated, " has played a very successful, as 
 well as a very safe, game in the late proceedings. When she 
 prompted the Shah to undertake the siege of Herat, she was 
 certain of carrying an important point, however the expedition 
 terminated. If Herat fell, which there was every reason to 
 expect, then Candahar and Cabul would certainly have made 
 their submission. Eussian influence would thus have been 
 brought to the threshold of India; and England, however 
 much she might desire peace, could not avoid being involved 
 in a difficult and expensive war, in order to avert more serious 
 dangers. If, on the other hand, England interfered to save 
 Herat, she was compromised- — not with the mere court of 
 Mahomed Shah, but with Persia as a nation. Eussia had 
 contrived to bring all Persia to Herat, and to identify all 
 Persia with the success or failure of the campaign ; and she 
 had thus gravelled the old system of partizanship, which would 
 have linked Azerbijan with herself, and the rest of the nation 
 with her rival." 
 
 " By interfering to save Herat, and by thus checking for the 
 moment the advance of Eussian influence towards India," it 
 
56 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 was further said, " England has made an enemy of every pro- 
 vince whose troops were engaged in the campaign — of Khoras- 
 san, Irak, Fars, Mazanderan, and Ghilan. She is now the 
 national enemy, the friend of the Soonees, and the foe to the 
 Sheeah faith ; and Eussia will not be slow to turn this revul- 
 sion of feeling to account." We remember also its being 
 observed that, " Eussia feels no anxiety at the interference of 
 England in Afghanistan. The reports of Witkewitch have 
 satisfied her that, owing to the disorganized condition, the 
 turbulent character, and the conflicting interests of the Afghan 
 tribes, Cabul and Candahar can never form a bulwark for 
 India. They are more likely to shatter the fabric to which 
 they are violently attached, and cause it to crumble prematurely 
 into ruin." 
 
 It was supposed at the time that, in thus putting the case, 
 Eussia was affecting a satisfaction which she did not feel. She 
 had been foiled, it was thought, and it was only natural that 
 she should seek for palliatives to cover her dishonour, and to 
 mitigate the keenness of her sense of disappointment. That 
 we had sustained any real injury in Persia was doubted ; and 
 the Afghan war was considered by all, except a hesitating few, 
 to promise the most complete success. But subsequent events 
 verified to a remarkable extent, not only the accuracy of the 
 Eussian calculations, but the sincerity with which they were 
 declared. 
 
 Upon the actual merits of the Afghan question, we shall not 
 venture far into the arena of discussion; although we might 
 perhaps communicate new facts, as well as new opinions, to 
 the public. The time has not yet come for writing a true and 
 detailed history of the war, either in its origin, its progress, or 
 its close ; and we must confine ourselves, therefore, to gene- 
 ralities. The justice of the expedition seems now to be pretty 
 generally abandoned; and the expediency of it, on which 
 ground alone the defenders of the war are obliged to rest their 
 case, is made to depend upon the fact of an imminent danger, 
 threatening the security of British power in the East in 1838, 
 which could be averted, or which at any rate seemed to be 
 evitable, by no other means. Now we will not dispute that, if 
 
Oh. I.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 57 
 
 Herat had fallen, there would have been a certain amount of 
 positive danger to India. It may be questioned if that danger 
 would have nearly reached the crisis which Lord Wellesley 
 had contemplated with so much serenity in 1799 : but still, as 
 the power of Persia at Cabul and Candahar would undoubtedly 
 have been exerted in a direction contrary to that which our 
 own policy unfortunately took during the subsequent occupa- 
 tion — as she would have brought forward the Sheeah Hazarehs, 
 the Parseewans, and the Kizzilbash, to confirm and strengthen 
 the Baruckzye ascendency, and would thus have escaped the 
 troubles which arose from our pursuing the contrary course of 
 raising into power the turbulent Dooranee aristocracy — it may 
 not be unreasonably supposed, that she would have attained 
 and preserved such a position in the country as would have 
 materially increased that internal agitation of India which 
 had been already called into existence by her mere preliminary 
 measures of attack. To this extent there ,was, we believe, 
 actual danger to the British power in the East from the 
 aggressive policy in which Persia had allowed herself, through 
 the personal ambition of her monarch, to be inveigled; but 
 at the same time a much stronger exhibition, than we have ever 
 yet seen, of the evils to be apprehended from this increased 
 domestic agitation, would hardly persuade us that a foreign 
 war was necessary to neutralize their effects ; still less a war 
 which violated all the acknowledged principles of military and 
 political guidance. 
 
 An argument, however, which seems to be fatal to this de- 
 fence of expediency is, that the war was not undertaken to avert 
 the danger that we have spoken of. In our own opinion, the 
 unsuccessful assault of June 23rd, 1838, settled the question of 
 Herat. The siege, we believe, would have been raised even 
 without a demonstration on the part of England in favour of 
 the besieged. It actually was raised at any rate before the 
 army of the Indus had begun to assemble, and the fact was 
 communicated to the Governor-General while the troops were 
 still encamped at Ferozpore. Lord Auckland, indeed, did not 
 affect to base the expedition on the facts set forth in his pro- 
 clamation of October 1st, or on the hostile advance of Persia 
 
58 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 towards India. He unequivocally stated, that "he would con- 
 tinue to prosecute with vigour the measures which had been 
 announced, with a view to the substitution of a friendly for a 
 hostile power in the Eastern provinces of Afghanistan, and to 
 the establishment of a permanent barrier against schemes of 
 aggression upon our North-West frontier;" — * objects no 
 doubt of a certain abstract value, but hardly more urgently 
 needed in 1838 than in 1798, or than at any intermediate 
 period. 
 
 If the Shah raised the siege through the inadequacy of his 
 resources to support the contest, he was a contemptible enemy. 
 The rulers of Candahar and Cabul would scarcely again sup- 
 plicate, or descend even to propitiation, when their brother 
 chief of Herat had triumphed. Their spirit of independence, 
 and their detestation of a foreign yoke, which had yielded for 
 the moment to the exhibition of superior force, would have 
 revived when the phantom had passed away, and they would 
 have been rendered all the more intractable for the future from 
 shame at their misplaced despondency. If, on the other hand, 
 the siege of Herat were raised, and the designs of Persia on 
 Afghanistan were abandoned, in consequence of our sending a, 
 detachment of 500 rank and file with two six-pounders to the 
 island of Karrack, we had, at any rate, a gauge of the power of 
 the nation from which we were apprehending danger. The 
 vulnerable heel was revealed to us ; and with this revelation — 
 with the proof of our ability to control the policy of the Court 
 of Teheran by the application of means which could at any 
 time be furnished from the garrison of Bombay— there should 
 have come, we think, a returning sense of confidence, a con- 
 sciousness that the march of a British army to Cabul could, 
 not really be indispensable to the defence of India. 
 
 It has been further said that, independently of the advan- 
 tages which the Affghan war promised to secure for us, the 
 treaty of Lahore bound us to undertake it, and that the safety 
 of Herat did not in any way release us from this engagement ; 
 but, in looking over the text of the treaty, we are really at a 
 loss to understand which article can be supposed to involve 
 
 * Order by the Eight Hon'ble the Governor-General of India. Nov. 8, 1838. 
 
Ch. I.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 59 
 
 such an obligation. The restoration of Shah Shujah-ul-Mulk 
 to the throne of Cabul was no doubt tacitly assumed as the 
 object of the treaty, and the nature and extent of the assistance 
 to be supplied by Bunjeet Singh towards the accomplishment 
 of that object were pretty accurately denned ; but whatever 
 may have been the character of the promises and encourage- 
 ment held out by us to the Shah at Lahore, there was certainly 
 not a syllable entered in the treaty which entailed upon the 
 British Government the liability of furnishing an auxiliary 
 army, or a contingent, or even of affording pecuniary support 
 to the enterprise. " The friends and enemies of each of the 
 three high powers were," it is true, declared "to be the friends. 
 and enemies of all ; " but a general defensive league of this- 
 nature is never held to pledge the contracting parties to mutual 
 support when hostilities may arise from aggressive proceedings- 
 on the part of one of them; and to render the condition, there- 
 fore, applicable to the case in point, it would be necessary to- 
 show, that Shah Shujah's invasion of Afghanistan was not an 
 aggression, or, in other words, to resume the position which 
 we have already stated to have been generally abandoned as- 
 desperate, and to maintain that the war was not only expedient 
 hut just. 
 
 So entirely insufficient, indeed, do the ostensible grounds- 
 appear, which have been assigned for the prosecution of the- 
 Afghan war, after the danger which menaced India from th& 
 Busso-Persian movements had been dissipated by the retreat 
 of Mahomed Shah's army from Herat, that, without attaching 
 much importance to the rabid gossiping of Mr. Masson, we still 
 cannot help suspecting, that it was owing in a great measure to 
 the bureaucratic machinery of the Governor- General's camp» 
 that the troops were finally set in motion. 
 
 13. We will now consider the effect of our proceedings upon 
 Persia. Herat owed its safety mainly to British interference ; 
 more however, we think, to the interest manifested by Mr, 
 McNeill throughout the siege, which inspired the garrison 
 with hope, and to the fortitude and skill of Lieut. Pottinger,, 
 which contributed essentially to the military defence of the 
 j>lace, than to our tardy occupation of Karrack. The Shah at 
 
60 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 the same time naturally made the most of our demonstration, 
 and professed to have raised the siege, " in sole consideration 
 of the interests of his faith and country; " and the Persians 
 generally, whose vanity as a nation is proverbial, preferred the 
 explanation of being coerced by England to that of being 
 defeated by the Afghans. We had, therefore, appeared in a 
 new character ; we had opposed the arms of Persia, and had 
 even threatened her with invasion ; and, if the nation had been 
 identified with the court, or even with the army which had 
 besieged Herat, such an attack on the national honour and 
 interests might have been expected to go far to neutralize the 
 effects of all our previous conciliatory policy. 
 
 That to a certain extent the Russian prediction of our being 
 compromised with Persia was fulfilled, can hardly be denied ; 
 but it is a gross exaggeration to assert, that in general estima- 
 tion we changed places with Russia, or that we ever sank nearly 
 to her level of unpopularity. There was an element, indeed, 
 working strongly, but silently, in our favour, — the element of 
 nationality, or a distinction of race, of which the full value 
 has only been recently recognized in the science of political 
 .government. In the same way that we have lately seen the 
 Scandinavian struggling with the Teuton, the Magyar fighting 
 to the death with the Croat, the Sclavonian rising against the 
 German, so for the last ten years in Persia there has been an 
 antagonism of race, which has been ever deepening in inve- 
 teracy, and which will hardly yet pass away without leading 
 to some violent cataclysm.. The Toork population, which 
 inhabits the single province of Azerbijan, was never allowed 
 during the reign of Futteh Ali Shah to emerge from that 
 .secondary place to which its numbers alone entitled it. Abbas 
 Mirza's army was, it is true, composed of this material ; and, 
 in the expeditions of the Prince Royal to Yezd, Kerman, and 
 Khorassan in 1881-33, the Toork power had thus made itself 
 pretty extensively felt throughout the kingdom ; but still all 
 .offices of trust and emolument were confided to Persians ; the 
 .executive power in the provinces was wielded through local 
 means ; and a native of Azerbijan was hardly to be found in 
 .the ministry. On the accession, however, of Mahomed Shah 
 
Ch. I.] OUK POLITICAIi EELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 61 
 
 the position of the two races was reversed. The Tabriz court 
 was transferred bodily to the capital.' Toork governors were 
 sent into all the provinces, and Toork garrisons were detached 
 to support them. The native nobility were ground to the 
 very dust ; the native troops were disbanded, or reduced, or 
 neglected. The municipalities were presided over by Toorks : 
 farms, monopolies, all situations, which involved the exercise 
 of power or afforded means for the amassing of wealth, were 
 entrusted to natives of the same race. The consequence was 
 that an antipathy between the Toorks and Persians, which 
 always probably existed, but for which under the old regime 
 there was little or no opportunity of display, became suddenly 
 a leading characteristic of the nation. If, therefore, the 
 provinces of southern and central Persia shared in the mortifi- 
 cation which was generally felt at the failure of the Herat 
 campaign, they were, at any rate, consoled in some measure 
 by the reflection, that the disgrace principally fell upon their 
 Toork oppressors. The appearance of a British force in the 
 Persian Gulf did not, we think, excite alarm in Shiraz and 
 Ispahan. A fear of conquest, or occupation by a foreign 
 invader, was certainly not the predominant feeling. That 
 feeling was the hope that, through the instrumentality of the 
 British arms, the power of the Toorks might be humbled, 
 and the native race might be admitted at least to an equality 
 of rights and. consideration. We have it, indeed, from the 
 best authority, that if the British force had landed on the 
 coast, and had proclaimed any suitable pretender to the throne 
 — one of the old Zend dynasty for instance, supposing that an 
 individual of that family could have been found — the tribe 
 chiefs throughout the southern and central provinces would 
 have risen to aid in the enterprise ; their motive being, less 
 that of attachment to the English, or predisposition in favour 
 of the cause which the English supported, than a hatred of the 
 ruling powers, and of the myrmidons by whom they were sur- 
 rounded. It did not, however, of course, enter into the calcu- 
 lations of Great Britain to incur the risk of precipitating such 
 a crisis. Our object was demonstration, not attack ; and in 
 furtherance of that object, it would have required the nicest 
 
«2 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. L 
 
 management to conduct any military movement whatever ; for 
 too much diffidence would have hazarded the miscarriage of 
 "the enterprise, while too much confidence might have forced 
 us on to a dismemberment of the kingdom, and have thus 
 accelerated that collision with Russia which for thirty years 
 we had been striving to retard. 
 
 Fortunately, although the court remained sulky and disposed 
 to listen to any counsel which promised revenge for the affront 
 we were conceived to have put on it, there was no occasion for 
 our exceeding the strict limits of an attitude of observation. 
 Ghorian, a fortress of some strength in the Herat territory, 
 continued to be occupied by Persian troops, notwithstanding 
 that that occupation had all along been declared by the British 
 Government to be equivalent to a hostile demonstration 
 against England. Reparation for the violence which had been 
 offered to the messenger of the British mission, and which had 
 constituted throughout the Herat controversy one of our gravest 
 grounds of complaint, was still refused. Persia had ventured 
 even to impede in some degree the working of our Afghan 
 policy, by opening a friendly communication with Yar Mahomed 
 Khan (" the arch-villain " as he is usually styled in India, but 
 according to Sir J. McNeill " the most remarkable man of his 
 age and country"), for the purpose of sharpening his already 
 awakened jealousy at the magnificent and gratuitous aid which 
 we lavished on' Herat : yet, the progress of our arms beyond 
 the Indus was so constant, and the results promised so favour- 
 ably, that we could afford to disregard such indications of 
 hostility, even had they been more malignantly shaped, and 
 fraught with more immediate injury. Persia being, in fact, for 
 the time innocuous, we were well enough content to await that 
 •compliance with our demands which in the natural course of 
 events could not fail sooner or later to take place ; the inter- 
 ruption of diplomatic intercourse and the prolonged occupation 
 of Karrack testifying to our offended dignity, while our extreme 
 reserve, in desisting from all intrigue, in rejecting offers of co- 
 operation, in avoiding every measure which might complicate 
 our position, showed that we were not inclined to push the 
 rupture to extremities. 
 
Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 63 
 
 Eussia in the meantime was not inactive. The satisfaction 
 ■with which she had viewed our retirement, and had found 
 Persia left to her exclusive embrace, soon gave way to a feeling 
 -of alarm when she learnt of the gigantic preparations which 
 British India was making to appropriate the countries inter- 
 mediate between Herat and the Indus, and when she further 
 remarked the effervescence in the public mind, and the conse- 
 quent danger to the Shah, which resulted from our isolated 
 location in the Persian Gulf. After those famous despatches of 
 ■Count Nesselrode to Pozzo di Borgo, dated respectively October 
 ■20th, 1838, and February 21st, 1839, which, however ingeni- 
 ously imagined and plausibly tricked out, had for their unique 
 objects the moderation of our Afghan scheme, and the with- 
 drawal of our force from Karrack, and which signally failed, 
 not only in attaining those ends, but even in making out a 
 oase that should withstand an ordinary scrutiny, Russia began 
 to organize her plans for allaying the commotion which she 
 had, perhaps too precipitately, called into existence, or at any 
 rate for counteracting its effects. As she could make nothing 
 of Persia, divided against itself, and embarked, moreover, in a 
 cause which the Emperor had already declared to be unjustifi- 
 able, she turned her attention to Khiva ; and hence arose the 
 manifesto of December, 1839, which declared the great object 
 of General Perowski's expedition to be " to strengthen in that 
 part of Asia the lawful influence to which Russia has a right." 
 No one doubted at the time but that a force, vastly superior 
 both in numbers and artillery to that which Lord Keane led 
 from the Indus in triumph through the defiles of Afghanistan, 
 -would be able to cross the open plain of the Desht-i-kipchalc, 
 between the Caspian and the Aral. It was in anticipation, 
 indeed, of General Perowski's success, and in deprecation of 
 the advance of our own arms beyond the Hindoo Koosh, which 
 was then in contemplation in order to dislodge Jabbar Khan 
 and Dost Mahomed's family from Khooloom, that Raron 
 Brunnow significantly remarked to Sir John Hobhouse — " If 
 we go on at this rate, Sir John, the Cossack and the Sepoy 
 v?ill soon meet upon the banks of the Oxus," — and that the 
 President replied, with more spirit, perhaps, than self-convic- 
 
64 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 tion — "Very probably, Baron; but, however much I should 
 regret the collision, I should have no fear of the result." Man 
 proposes, however, while a greater than man disposes. The 
 expedition altogether failed, partly, perhaps, from the extraor- 
 dinary severity of the season, but more essentially from the 
 fact, that Orenburg did not furnish to Eussia (any more than 
 did Tiflis in the Persian war) that strategic base for operations 
 beyond the frontier which Ferozpore, faulty, remote, and un- 
 provided as it was, offered to India. 
 
 Dispirited by this failure, and by the supposed complete 
 success of our Afghan occupation (for it must be remembered 
 that it was the fashion of the day to paint everything " couleur 
 de rose," and that the few who ventured to tell the truth were 
 mercilessly snubbed), and foreseeing real embarrassment to 
 herself if we should be induced to resort to any active 
 measures for the termination of our quarrel with the Shah, 
 Eussia now set to work to bring about that reconciliation 
 between England and Persia which, from the first hour of the 
 rupture, she had professed her desire to accomplish. She 
 believed, or affected to believe, that we were aiding and abetting 
 in certain troubles that broke out in the south of the kingdom. 
 A revolt of the Bakhtiarees was ascribed, absurdly enough, to 
 the presence of an English traveller, Mr. Layard, since so well 
 known as the excavator of ancient Nineveh. The Kerman 
 insurgents, headed by Agha Khan, it was pretended, were sup- 
 plied with arms and ammunition, with money, and even with 
 artillery, from Bombay. Baron Brunnow, indeed, pleasantly 
 complained that, " at Calcutta they still acted as if Simonich 
 were at Teheran, and Witkewitch at Cabul ; " and he further 
 categorically stated, that, in order to put an end to so very un- 
 satisfactory a condition of affairs, the Emperor had called upon 
 the Shah to comply with all the requisitions of England. If 
 the same language had been used by the Eussian representative 
 at Teheran in 1838, which was addressed to the Shah in 1840, 
 the British Mission would never have retired from the country. 
 Persia, of course, as soon as she found that all European 
 support was denied to her, Eussia seconding the cause of 
 England, and France (which had also in the interim sent a 
 
Ch. 1.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 65 
 
 complimentary mission to Teheran) declining to interfere in 
 the controversy, had no alternative but submission. Ghorian 
 was evacuated, yet the party for whose immediate benefit this 
 difficult point was at length carried, had a very short time 
 previously confirmed his claim on our consideration by turning 
 Major Todd out of Herat ! Eeparation was given for the arrest 
 and ill-treatment of the mission courier. A commercial treaty 
 was guaranteed to us. Sir John McNeill returned once again 
 to Teheran ; and the British troops were removed from 
 Karrack. 
 
 14. This settlement was opportune. If it had been delayed 
 six months longer, Russia would hardly have proffered the same 
 earnest mediation ; nor would the Shah's obstinacy have been 
 so easily overcome. If we had still been in a state of quasi- 
 hostility with Persia at the close of 1841, it would haye required 
 something more than a mere moral pressure to right ourselves 
 at Teheran. Even with six months of preparation, Sir J. 
 McNeill must have found it a difficult business to meet the 
 first burst of the Cabul disaster ; and the more so as the 
 Persians, with the usual proneness of Orientals to personify all 
 measures of policy, insisted on fixing upon our minister the 
 individual responsibility of their failure at Herat, and he had 
 thus to encounter the irritation and ill-will of almost all classes 
 with whom he was brought in contact at the court. That under 
 such circumstances, — at a season when our Indian Empire had 
 sustained a blow which, in the estimation of those who best knew 
 its strength, shook it almost to its foundations, — and acting 
 at Teheran with one of the ablest and most astute officers who 
 ever represented Russia in the East,* — Sir J. McNeill should 
 have held Persia firm to her engagements ; that he should 
 have carried the commercial treaty ; and that he should have 
 put our relations with the Shah upon something of their ancient 
 footing, must be regarded as not the least meritorious achieve- 
 ments of his distinguished career. In the spring of 1842, 
 ill-health compelled him to abandon Persia. He had been 
 employed for nearly twenty-four years in that country, and 
 
 * Count Medem. 
 
66 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Cn: I. 
 
 during that interval had raised himself by his unaided talent 
 and energy from the humble rank of an assistant-surgeon in 
 the Company's army, to that of a civil Grand Cross of the 
 Bath — a bright example to the Indian services. So high, 
 indeed, was the character he had earned for himself with the 
 ministers of the Crown, that, when he retired from the East, 
 he merely exchanged his diplomatic functions for an office of 
 equal honour, and of more utility, under the Government of 
 his native land.* 
 
 15. From 1842, until the recent death of Mahomed Shah, 
 there were few salient points of interest in the politics of Persia. 
 The objects of England were less, it would seem, during, that 
 interval, to struggle for influence at Teheran, or to restore 
 strength to Persia, than to keep a watch over the proceedings 
 of Eussia ; to preserve, as far as might be, the " status quo ; " 
 and to prevent at any rate our sustaining injury from sudden 
 impulses, which prudent counsel might avert. Our expenditure 
 was thus reduced within the narrowest possible limits. Inter- 
 ference in the domestic affairs of the country was studiously 
 avoided. When the Shah appealed to us against the imperious 
 bearing of Eussia, we assured His Majesty of our sympathy, 
 but never ventured to lead him to "hope for our support. On 
 one point only did we transgress the bounds of passive observa- 
 tion. A war was imminent between Persia and the Porte ; 
 and as it was evident that such a war, however it might 
 terminate, would essentially weaken one, if not both, of the 
 belligerents, and thus invite aggression, we determined to force 
 our mediation on the pugnacious powers. Relying also on the 
 Emperor's declaration, that the system which the two cabinets 
 bad a common interest in pursuing was that of " maintaining 
 the tranquillity of the intermediate countries which separate 
 the possessions of Eussia from those of Great Britain," we 
 invited Eussia to send a commissioner to the conference of 
 Erzeroom, and to aid us in the work of pacification. The 
 
 . * Sir John McNeill has been for the management that the famine of 1847, 
 
 last four years one of the " Poor Law which decimated Ireland, was so little 
 
 Commissioners for Scotland ; " and it felt in the sister island, 
 was partly owing to his admirable 
 
Ch. I.] OUE POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 67 
 
 invitation was, of course, acceded to, and the conference 
 accordingly commenced ; but in the proceedings of such an 
 anomalous congregation of parties it would have been un- 
 reasonable to expect either alacrity or even unanimity. All 
 things, indeed, considered, it is, we think, more surprising 
 that, under the joint mediation of Great Britain and Eussia, 
 any agreement whatever should have been concluded between 
 the courts of Constantinople and Teheran, than that negocia- 
 tions, for which five months would have been a very liberal 
 allowance of time, were actually made to extend over as many 
 years.* 
 
 At the commencement of our sketch, we have remarked on 
 the little progress that has been made by Russia, since the 
 Afghan occupation, in that path, which the war was specially 
 designed to obstruct, and which the withdrawal of our arms 
 must have left more accessible than ever; and we now propose 
 to consider this subject somewhat more in detail. It would 
 be absurd to suppose that an erroneous view had been taken 
 throughout of the bent of the Russian policy ; and yet, if that 
 policy were one of aggression against Persia and of hostility 
 towards England, the question naturally arises how it happened, 
 that the very favourable opportunity for its prosecution, which 
 presented itself on our retirement from Afghanistan, should 
 have been so little cultivated. The reasons, of course, of 
 Russia's comparative inactivity can be mere matters of specu- 
 lation, but we still give the following explanation with some 
 confidence. The Afghan war, which, in the magnitude of the 
 efforts it called forth, and the success that smiled on its com- 
 mencement, took Russia somewhat by surprise, and made her 
 almost repent of having provoked the struggle, furnished her 
 in its sequel, not only with cause of congratulation, but with 
 a lesson of much importance, as it might be applied to herself. 
 
 * It is a remarkable illustration of the proposed boundary line in 1871 ; 
 
 the extreme dilatoriness of official while the execution of the various 
 
 proceedings in the East, that the wards of the Commission in reference 
 
 labours of the Turco-Persian Frontier to disputed territorial claims has not 
 
 Commission, which commenced in yet even been taken in hand by the 
 
 1840, were only brought to a close by Courts of Constantinople and Teheran, 
 
 the exchange of the finished maps of — 1873. 
 
 T 2 
 
68 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 If England were unable to maintain herself at Cabul and 
 Candahar, Eussia could Scarcely expect to fare better at 
 Teheran and Ispahan. All the difficulties that we encountered 
 in Afghanistan would in a much graver form beset a Russian 
 army in its occupation of Persia. The enormous sacrifice, 
 indeed, at which alone a nation, exclusively Mahommedan, 
 could be overrun and held by a Christian power, was exem- 
 plified in the case of Algiers; and Russia had neither the 
 same objects nor interests in coveting the realm of the Shah, 
 that impelled France to fasten on her African colony. It is 
 possible, then, that the acquisitive policy of Russia in respect 
 to Persia, and her agitating policy in respect to India, did 
 actually cool, as the result of the Afghan war testified to the 
 transcendent danger of her schemes, and as its corollaries all 
 revealed to her the facility with which England could render 
 abortive any plan of mere intimidation, or meet any system of 
 attack. 
 
 The continued rebellion of the Caucasus, the ease with 
 which Sheik Shamil baffled all her efforts to reduce him, rising 
 up like the giant Antseus with renovated strength from every 
 fresh encounter, must have powerfully aided in modifying the 
 character of the Russian policy. "We believe, indeed, that if 
 her course had been otherwise uninterruptedly successful, — if 
 Persia had surrendered herself, a willing victim into the hands 
 of her enemy, and Great Britain had given up every inch 
 of ground beyond the Sutlej, the resolute resistance of this 
 mountain chief would still have proved the salvation of Asia. 
 We have heard it surmised, that Russia plays with the 
 Caucasus to further her views in other quarters ; that she 
 favours the impression of her weakness on an unimportant 
 point, to be enabled to employ her force with more effect where 
 greater interests are at stake ; but such is not our belief. We 
 are convinced that for the last fifteen years at least, she has 
 honestly and unremittingly employed her utmost available 
 power to reduce the tribes of the Caucasus ; and as Shamil at 
 the present time, independently of his native forces, commands, 
 it is said, the services of 15,000 deserters from the Russian 
 . ranks, and can place in battery, at different points, 200 pieces 
 
Oh. I.] OUR POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 69 
 
 of ordnance, captured from the Russians in the field, or carried 
 off from their entrenchments, we may understand how totally 
 inadequate that power has proved to the emergency,* and 
 how impossible it would have been for Eussia, with her com- 
 munications at the mercy of such an enemy, to push her arms 
 still further to the eastward, or to contemplate territorial 
 extension in that direction. The full value of the mountain 
 war of independence has hardly yet, we think, been appre- 
 ciated in preserving the balance of power. A moderate 
 support of Shamil might still, perhaps, save the Danubian 
 principalities, and as long as his banner floats from the summits 
 of the Caucasus, so long is Persia safe from the hostile invasion 
 of a Russian army.t 
 
 Although, however, the two checks, that we have thus 
 noticed, imposed upon Eussia the necessity of abstaining from 
 those active measures which might have been reasonably 
 expected to supervene upon our Afghan reverses, it is not to 
 be supposed that, during the period which has since elapsed, 
 she has exhibited no signs of animation and no tendency to 
 an onward movement. Her conduct, it is true, in Persia has 
 been more guarded than formerly, and more observant, to Eng- 
 land in particular, of the amenities which should characterize 
 
 * A friend has furnished us with sainted scoundrels, very like those 
 the following story, which is currently Lesghies and Daghistanis you have in 
 quoted in Persia, as an example of the mountains.' The Emperor looked 
 ready repartee, but which is also not as black as thunder, but said not a 
 without a certain degree of political word further on the subject." 
 significance: — "When the Amir + Events have sufficiently verified 
 Nizam visited the Emperor of Eussia the correctness of this view, for it 
 during his Georgian progress in 1837, was not until after the submission of 
 and introduced the Heir Apparent, Shamil in 1859, and the consequent 
 then a boy of 7 years of age, His pacification of Circassia, that Eussia 
 Majesty observed in the course of con- began to push her way up the Jax- 
 versation, 'Who are these Afghans, artes. The forecast only failed in 
 that they should be allowed to laugh anticipating that the first development 
 at your beards in this way ? Whose of the power of Eussia, when freed 
 dogs are they to stand in the path of from the Caucasian entanglement, 
 Mahomed Shah ? ' (We quote, of would take place in the direction of 
 course, the Persian version of the Persia ; whereas, in reality, her ad- 
 story.) ' Oh ! ' answered the Amir, vances have commenced in the far 
 ' they are an insignificant set of vaga- EaBt, and the Persian question is 
 bonds, not worth naming ; idle un- deferred to a later period. — 1873. 
 
70 ENGLAND. AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 the intercourse of friendly states ; but it has not been less 
 constant in its aim, or less progressive in its action. Her 
 shadow has been gradually darkening over the land. Having 
 coerced into her interests the Prime Minister, a Eussian 
 subject by birth, who, by the force of certain rules of the 
 ecstatic school of philosophy to which they both belonged, 
 held the Shah in leading-strings, she pursued, during the 
 elosing years of the late monarch's reign, an unobtrusive 
 but an undeviating course of interference, almost of super- 
 vision, over the internal affairs of the country. Her pror 
 tection was granted to all applicants. She recommended 
 candidates for offices, and screened offenders, constituted her- 
 self referee in disputed cases, and not unfrequently usurped and 
 exercised the functions of the executive power. Her attention 
 was particularly directed to Azerbijan, and to the countries on 
 the Caspian. She brought the Governor of the former 
 province, the Shah's uterine brother, into direct dependence 
 upon hev, supported him against the central Government, and, 
 when his liberty was endangered, granted him an asylum in 
 the Eussian Embassy, and ultimately, received and welcomed 
 him as an imperial guest at Tiflis. Upon the shores of the 
 Caspian the extreme jealousy of the littoral tribes compelled 
 her to proceed with greater circumspection. Commencing, 
 however, with a consulate at Eesht, and agents at other ports, 
 she obtained in process of time the authorization of the Shah 
 to construct a naval arsenal on the island of Ashoor Ada, for 
 the rendezvous and refitting of her marine.* She then placed a 
 consul in the town of Asterabad, to protect the trade which this 
 establishment had created; and, shortly before the death of the 
 Shah, she is also understood- to have proposed to institute 
 another consulate at Meshed, the extension of her commerce 
 being the ostensible, and perhaps really the immediate, object 
 
 * The Russians are said to have understanding that the occupation was 
 
 first visited Ashoor Ada in 1838, merely temporary, and was intended 
 
 but it was not till 1842 that Sir J. to check the incursions of the Turco- 
 
 McNeill drew the attention of the mans into the territory of Asterabad, 
 
 British Government to , their irregular and to prevent the extension of piracy 
 
 occupation of the island. The aoqui- —18,73. 
 escence of Persia was obtained on the 
 
On. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 71 
 
 of her activity; but political influence also, and increased 
 facilities for intrigue mil follow, as she must well know, of 
 necessity in the train of that commerce, when it may have 
 once fairly taken root in Khorassan. 
 
 Persia herself in the meantime had presented a miserable 
 and melancholy spectacle. She had been undergoing the very 
 extremity of suffering which misgovernment could entail upon 
 a nation. The Prime Minister of Persia, Hajee Mirza Aghas- 
 see, had for a period of thirteen years the destinies of the 
 country over which he presided more completely under his 
 guidance than perhaps any absolute autocrat of ancient or of 
 modern times ; and lamentably did he abuse the trust reposed 
 in him. Self-sufficient almost to fatuity ; utterly ignorant of 
 statesmanship, of finance, or of military science, yet too vain 
 to receive instruction, and too jealous to admit of a coadjutor ; 
 brutal in his language ; insolent in his demeanour ; indolent 
 in his habits ; he brought the exchequer to the verge of bank- 
 ruptcy, and the country to the brink of revolution. Alienating 
 at the outset of his career fully one-half of the revenues of the 
 Empire in extravagant grants to pampered courtlings, personal 
 dependents, upstarts, and empirics, he consumed the remainder 
 in amusing the military mania of the Shah, for whose edifica- 
 tion he prepared a park of about 1000 pieces of artillery, and 
 commissioned above half a million of English muskets. At 
 the commencement of 1848, the Government paper — and it 
 must be remembered that the finance of Persia is carried on 
 entirely by a system of assignments — was at ninety per cent, 
 discount. The pay of the army was generally from three to 
 five years in arrears. The cavalry of the tribes was almost 
 annihilated. The intense animosity of the Toorks and Persians 
 had reached a climax which crippled the means of action of 
 the provincial Governors, and threatened to produce complete 
 disorganization. With the exception, indeed, of Azerbijan, in 
 which the whole wealth of the Empire had become pretty well 
 concentrated by the constant return of its inhabitants laden 
 with the spoil of the provinces, Persia generally presented the 
 appearance of a country occupied in force by a foreign enemy. 
 Eesistance to the Toorks was hopeless for the moment, but 
 
72 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. I. 
 
 the desire for revenge was only deepened in intensity by the 
 necessity of prolonged endurance. 
 
 In his foreign policy we do not think that the Prime Minister 
 wilfully betrayed his country. He never submitted patiently 
 to the tuition of Eussia. On more occasions than one he pro- 
 claimed concession to have reached its limit, and struggled to 
 break the meshes that were being woven around him. But 
 he was impotent. He had not that confidence in England 
 which might have led him to throw himself upon us for protec- 
 tion, nor had we shown any disposition to volunteer our 
 support, or even to grant it, if it had been solicited. A French 
 alliance had seemed for a time to hold out a prospect of succour 
 from a quarter where no danger was to be apprehended, and had 
 been cultivated, therefore, with more attention than in reality 
 it merited. For a short period, indeed, the Comte de Sartiges 
 held a position at Teheran more favourable, as far as the con- 
 sideration of the Court was concerned, than that occupied 
 either by the Eussian or the British Minister ; but a relation 
 of this nature was evidently artificial, and could lead to no 
 permanent result. France had no substantive interests in 
 Persia, for which she could have ventured to put herself in 
 opposition either to Eussia or to England ; nor, if she had 
 been ever so much disposed in favour of Persian integrity, and 
 had desired to retain the Shah as her own minion, is it very 
 apparent how she could have carried her plans into execution. 
 A categorical reference on this subject was, we believe, made 
 to Louis Philippe before the revolution of February ; but that 
 event — the expulsion of a Monarch by his subjects, and the 
 establishment of a republican government, measures utterly 
 repugnant to the oriental idea of the divine right of kings, — 
 scattered, of course, the negociation to the winds ; and, until a 
 royal or imperialist dynasty shall be again seated on the throne 
 of France, we venture to predict that French influence will not 
 regain at Teheran that transient lustre which flickered round 
 it in 1847, struck out from the jarring contact of British and 
 Eussian interests. 
 
 16. On passing events in Persia we must be allowed to ex- 
 press ourselves with some reserve. Mahomed Shah died at 
 
Ch. I.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 73 
 
 Teheran on September 5th, 1848 ; and officers of the British 
 and Eussian missions immediately rode post to Tabriz to 
 proclaim, and bring to the capital, his eldest son, Nassir-ed-din 
 Mirza, who had been separately and conjointly recognized by 
 the Courts of St. James's and St. Petersburg, as the legitimate 
 successor to the throne. Persia had been so much habituated 
 of late, in all measures of state policy, to receive her impulses 
 from the European powers, that probably under any circum- 
 stances the simple declaration of the British and Eussian 
 Ministers would have sufficed to settle the immediate question 
 of the succession. In the actual posture of affairs the acqui- 
 escence of the nation in that declaration was inevitable ; for, 
 of the few competitors who could pretend to exercise any 
 influence on the general body of their countrymen, one, 
 Bahman Mirza, was in honourable exile at Tiflis, and all the 
 others were refugees at Bagdad. In the provinces, also, the 
 peasantry and tribesmen were everywhere too intent upon their 
 local emancipation, to take heed of an abstract matter like that 
 of the succession. It may be said, then, that the Eussian and 
 British Missions, and a mere clique of notables, — who had, 
 however, sufficient influence at the capital to cause public 
 property to be respected, and generally to prevent disorder, — 
 effected at the moment a transfer of kingly power, to which, in 
 the best appointed times of former Persian history, the path 
 could have only lain through long avenues of intrigue and 
 blood. The obnoxious Minister was, of course, hurled from 
 power, and only escaped the popular fury by taking sanctuary. 
 The Toork governors generally were expelled from the pro- 
 vinces, and the garrisons either saved themselves by a precipi- 
 tate retreat, or, where their numbers admitted of defence, shut 
 themselves up in citadels, and awaited attack. The young 
 Shah encountered no opposition whatever on his march from 
 Tabriz to Teheran. He made his public entry into the capital 
 on October 21st : and thus ended the first scene of the drama. 
 The second scene is not yet played out, or, at any rate, 
 we are not yet acquainted with its result; but as far as it 
 has gone, it is of a much less agreeable character than its 
 predecessor, and it adumbrates progressive trouble. In the 
 
74 ENGLAND AND ETJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Cm I. 
 
 disposition of the Shah, so far as his tender age and hitherto 
 obscure career afford materials for inquiry, in the constitution 
 of the court, in the state of parties, in the internal condition 
 of the country, and in its foreign relations, we look in vain 
 for a single element of strength or a single characteristic of 
 permanence. "When we say that Nassir-ed-din Shah is a mere 
 youth of eighteen years of age, it may be understood that, for 
 a considerable time, at any rate, he must be a mere cipher in 
 the Government which he is supposed to wield. The future 
 of Persia will depend in a great measure on the training which 
 he may receive during the critical period of the next few years, 
 while his character is being formed for good or for ill ; and it 
 is much, therefore, to be lamented that statesmen of the old 
 school, like Mirza Shefi and Mirza Buzurg, who guided the 
 fortunes of the Empire with so much dignity and wisdom in 
 the early days of Futteh Ali Shah, are no longer to be found 
 in Persia, to give their young sovereign the benefit of their 
 counsel and example. With regard to the actual ministry, our 
 only consolation is, that it cannot last, and that any change 
 must be for the better. A fatuous priest has been succeeded 
 by a timid scribe, and the inexperience of the one is scarcely 
 less obstructive to business than were the eccentricities and 
 malignancy of the other. The state of parties is still more 
 pregnant with evil ; for, over and above the two great factions, 
 the Toorks and Persians, which have hitherto, in spirit at any 
 rate, divided the kingdom, and which (having whetted their 
 appetite for blood in many an encounter during the recent 
 convulsion in the provinces) may be expected to be hence- 
 forward pledged to an internecine struggle, leading too 
 probably to the dismemberment of the empire — there may 
 now be considered to be a third party, which desires nothing 
 more than to promote this struggle, and to profit by the 
 mutual exhaustion of the combatants. We do not think it 
 worth while to particularize petty sections, or mere local 
 divisions — although some of these, such as the tribe party of 
 the Queen Mother, may very possibly play an important part 
 in the future government of the country : — for, if a real crisis 
 were imminent, we conceive that all other feelings would yield 
 
Ch. I.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 75 
 
 to that of a distinction of race, or to the strong impulse of 
 personal ambition. 
 
 On the internal condition of Persia, and on the present 
 aspect of its foreign relations, we could say much, if our space 
 permitted ; but we have already exceeded the ordinary limits 
 of a political article, and must hasten, therefore, rapidly to a 
 close. In every quarter there is abundant cause for anxiety, 
 and few, very few, faint glimmerings of hope. The rock, upon 
 which the government of the country will first split, will pro- 
 bably be a want of funds to defray the most ordinary and limited 
 expenditure. The treasury has been drained of its last ducat, 
 and we see little chance of its being replenished : for neither 
 will the provinces, after the license of an interregnum, and 
 with the consciousness of recovered strength, be induced to 
 submit to exactions ; nor will the Prince Governors, who have 
 been sent to replace the subordinate chiefs employed during 
 the late reign, and who will each endeavour to establish his 
 own independent court, be in any hurry to contribute their 
 quota of revenue for the support of the central government. It 
 will be dangerous, again — at any rate while the " Res dura et 
 regni novitas " hamper the free action of the government — to 
 attempt to resume the grants so extravagantly lavished by 
 Mahomed Shah and his minister upon unworthy objects. 
 Without pretending, indeed, to vaticination, it seems to us that 
 the sustaining or motive power of the government no longer 
 exists, neither can it be renewed ; and that, when the original 
 impetus is lost, the wheels of the machine accordingly must 
 cease to work. 
 
 The general condition, too, of the provinces is hardly less 
 unfavourable to the consolidation of the young monarch's 
 power, than an empty treasury, and impotent and divided 
 councils. In no quarter, we may safely say, is there any feel- 
 ing of confidence in the stability of the government. The 
 public mind is- still heaving with the agitation of the many 
 local revolutions which followed on the death of the Shah, and 
 extensive tmeutes have since broken out in Mazenderan, 
 Ispahan, and Kerman, aimed almost undisguisedly against the 
 existing government. Khorassan, however, undoubtedly affords 
 
76 ENGLAND AND ETTSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. I. 
 
 the greatest cause for apprehension. Ever since the Assef-ed- 
 Douleh, the head of the old Persian party, was removed, about 
 two years ago, from the government of the province, very great 
 discontent has prevailed generally throughout that part of the 
 kingdom. An accident, shortly before the death of the Shah, 
 brought this discontent to a head, and raised the population of 
 Meshed in arms against the Toork garrison, which held the 
 citadel. The old Eussian colonel who commanded the Toorks* 
 made a brave defence, but was compelled at length to evacuate 
 the place, and to retire with a remnant of his forces, and with 
 the Prince Governor of the province, to the camp of Yar. 
 Mahomed Khan, who had advanced with a considerable army 
 from Herat, — not exactly for the relief of Meshed, but with a 
 view of sweeping the country in the general scramble, and annex- 
 ing perhaps a portion of the Khorassan territory to his Afghan 
 principality. Yar Mahomed Khan made an attempt to carry 
 Meshed, but failed ; the Khorassanis being not less inveterate 
 against the Afghans than against the Toorks, and having now 
 put forward the son of the Assef-ed-Douleh as their quasi 
 independent ruler.. It would have been easy, we believe, for 
 the young Shah's government, at this stage of the affair, to 
 have brought about, through British mediation, the ostensible 
 submission of the province. The Khorassanis were resolved 
 to be no longer trampled on by the soldiery of Azerbijan : they 
 had mercilessly massacred the Toorks wherever they had 
 fallen into their hands, and had proclaimed against them a 
 war of extermination ; but the Salar, as the Assef-ed-Douleh's 
 son was named, had no pretension to enter the lists as a com- 
 petitor with Kassif-ed-din Shah for the throne. He boasted, 
 indeed, to have aided the royal cause in forcing the Afghans 
 to retire towards Herat ; and the most to which at that time 
 he ever ventured to aspire, was that either his father or him- 
 self should govern Khorassan as a lief of the empire — that is, 
 to be placed in fact something on the same footing .which 
 
 * It must not be supposed that this years ago, and is undoubtedly the most 
 
 officer belongs to the army of the efficient military chief at present at 
 
 Czar. He is a Russian refugee, who the disposal of the Shah, 
 entered the Persian service some thirty 
 
Ch. L] oue political eelations WITH PEESIA. 77 
 
 Mahomed Ali Pasha had been allowed to occupy in his 
 government of Egypt under the Sultan. The ministry of the 
 Shah, however, seems to have shown an invincible repugnance 
 to the inauguration of the new reign by negociation with a 
 party flushed with triumph, and still exhibiting an attitude of 
 defiance. 
 
 It was judged indispensable to punish the insurgents before 
 acceding to any terms for a permanent settlement of the 
 province; and reinforcements accordingly were sent to Kho- 
 rassan to co-operate with the garrison which had evacuated 
 Meshed, but which still held its ground, supported by Yar 
 Mahomed Khan's army, upon the Herat frontier. These 
 reinforcements, consisting exclusively of Azerbijan troops, 
 were beaten off from the first town which they attacked after 
 entering the province ; and they have since retired towards 
 Teheran, where efforts are being now made to support them. 
 That the Minister has pledged himself to reduce Khorassan 
 " coute qu'il coute," would be of little consequence, if it merely 
 involved the question of his personal fate ; but, unfortunately, 
 there are far graver interests concerned in the contest. 
 According to our view, it is impossible that the Toork yoke 
 should be again violently imposed on Khorassan; and the 
 prolongation of the struggle, therefore, in increasing the exas- 
 peration of parties, would appear to render only more certain 
 the threatened dismemberment of the kingdom. There is, 
 indeed, an alternative, which has been already freely discussed, 
 and which might be adopted, in order to prevent this disinte- 
 gration of the empire. An auxiliary Russian army might be 
 disembarked at Asterabad, and pushed on to Meshed, either in 
 avowed support of the royal cause, or preliminary to an 
 arrangement of the same nature as that which made Russia 
 the arbiter of the destinies of the Danubian principalities, and 
 led to her present permanent (?) occupation of Bucharest and 
 Yassy. 
 
 It would be premature at present to discuss the eventualities 
 of such a movement. Although, indeed, Russia has seen with 
 great concern the progress of our arms in the Punjab, and 
 would assuredly desire "to lessen the effect on Afghanistan of 
 
78 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. I. 
 
 our location at Peshawur and Shikarpur, we doubt exceed- 
 ingly, after the attentive examination of her career in the East 
 embodied in the foregoing pages, that she would incur the 
 risk at present of military operations in Khorassan. We 
 anticipate that she will continue for some years longer the 
 same course of gradual advance that she has pursued since 
 the Afghan war. The effect of the succession of Nassir-ed- 
 din Shah upon the relative positions of Eussia and England at 
 Teheran will probably be an exact reproduction of the action 
 and reaction which followed on our united support of Mahomed 
 Shah fourteen years ago. "We shall have undergone trouble, 
 responsibility, and perhaps expense, merely to render the 
 Russian predominance more certain. A short blaze of popu- 
 larity may possibly attend the first indication of our awakened 
 solicitude for Persia ; but that we shall fall back into a 
 secondary position, as soon as the season of exertion may be 
 over, and that of fruition may arrive, we hold to be a necessary 
 consequence of the nature of things. As far, indeed, as 
 Eussia finds that she can press with safety upon the incapa- 
 bility of a boy king, and the incoherency of a divided govern- 
 ment, so far it may be presumed that she will be prepared to 
 push on her approaches. That she will replace her minion 
 Bahman Mirza in the government of Azerbijan may be consi- 
 dered inevitable ; that she will strengthen herself at Asterabad, 
 and push her feelers into Khorassan, is equally to be expected : 
 that she will further control the court, and through that 
 control will make herself felt wherever the authority of the 
 court extends, is hardly to be doubted ; * but to adopt any 
 more active course of interference, before the outburst of that 
 domestic crisis, which may be imminent, and cannot be very 
 distant, would be to stultify her previous caution, and to plunge 
 herself into needless embarrassments. By what measures on 
 
 * As we write, we hear of the arrival shall be surprised if this embassy does 
 
 at Teheran of a splendid Russian not replace Bahman Mirza in Tabriz, 
 
 Embassy conducted by Lieut. -Gen. obtain further grants in Asterabad, 
 
 Schilling, and charged ostensibly with and perhaps establish a consulate at 
 
 the empty form of congratulating the Meshed, 
 new monarch on his accession. We 
 
Oh. I.] OUE POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 79 
 
 the part of England the armed intervention of Russia in the 
 north or in the east of Persia, if ever it should take place, 
 would require to be met, would depend, not less upon the 
 European combinations, to which in the meanwhile the election 
 of Louis Napoleon to the Presidency of the French Republic, 
 or other causes, might have led, than upon the state at the 
 time of the finances of India, and upon the degree of fixity 
 and security which might have been obtained for our North- 
 Western Frontier. 
 
 Baghdad, April, 1849. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA Continued. 
 
 1. 1848-1852. — State of Persia from the accession of Nassir-ed-din Shah to the 
 death of the Amir Nizam. — 2. Affairs of Herat. Death of Yar Mahomed 
 Khan. Our Convention with Persia regarding Herat, 1853. — 3. Persia 
 during the Crimean War, 1854-1856. — 4. Herat affairs during the same 
 period. Occupation of Herat by Persia, Oct., 1856. — 5. 1856-1858. — 
 Persian War. Treaty of Peshawer, Jan., 1857. Treaty of Paris, March, 
 1857. Its provisions and their effect. — 6. 1858-1863. Teheran Mission 
 transferred to India Office, 1859, and re-transferred to Foreign Office, 1860. 
 The question examined. Our policy in Persia. Affairs of Herat to the 
 death of Dost Mahomed Khan, May, 1863. — 7. Disputes between the Persians 
 and Afghans in regard to Seistan. — 8. History of the Persian Telegraph. 
 Convention of 1863, &c. — 9. Affairs of the Persian Gulf and Bahrein up to 1868. 
 — 10. Affairs of Mekran, and frontier delimitation between Persia and Kelat, 
 1862-1872.— 11. The Seistan arbitration, 1870-1872.— 12. Present state 
 of our relations with Persia. The Atrek frontier and proposed expedition 
 against the Turcomans. The Grand Vizier. — 13. The Keuter Concession and 
 the Shah's visit to Europe, 1873. — 14. Prospects of Persia and policy 6f 
 England towards her, 1874. 
 
 The interval of nearly a quarter of a century, which has 
 elapsed since the foregoing sketch of our political relations 
 with Persia was published in India, would seem to render it 
 necessary, for the due understanding of the subject, that the 
 narrative should be continued in outline to the present day. I 
 proceed, therefore, to furnish such a supplement, with a brief 
 preliminary explanation on two points. First, in regard to 
 the historical element, as I have been officially connected more 
 or less with the politics of Persia during the whole period 
 under review, and have enjoyed, moreover, unrestricted access 
 to all the public documents concerned, I may claim, I think, 
 a perfect confidence in the accuracy of my record of facts ; and 
 secondly, in regard to opinions and inferences, I should wish 
 it to be understood that on all such matters I merely express 
 my personal views, quite independent of the Government 
 policy, to which, indeed, those views will be found to be not 
 
Ch. n.] OUK POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 81 
 
 unfrequently opposed; and in order the better to mark thig 
 sense of individual responsibility, I propose in the following 
 summary to drop the editorial we as unmeaning and incon- 
 venient, and to write throughout in my own name and character. 
 
 The first point to which I would draw attention, as con- 
 firmatory of the general accuracy of the views contained in the 
 preceding sketch, is that, although twenty-four years have 
 elapsed since it was written, and although events have occurred 
 in the interim — events of such gravity as a suspension of 
 intercourse, and even open war — which usually exercise an 
 important influence on the interests and counsels of nations, 
 still no substantial difference is to be recognized between the 
 political relations of England and Persia as pourtrayed in 
 1849, and as they exist at the present day. The British and 
 Russian Governments, however cordial in Europe, are con- 
 strained, in the present as in the past, to observe to each 
 other in the East an attitude of reserve, if not of mistrust; 
 while Persia, prudently desiring, as she always has desired, 
 to be on friendly terms with both Governments, has acquired 
 the full confidence of neither. 
 
 A sort of triangular contest between England, Russia, and 
 Persia is, in fact, the normal condition of Central Asian policy; 
 and in the retrospect which I now propose to take of Persian 
 affairs since the accession of Nassir-ed-din Shah to the throne 
 of Teheran, the several recent phases of this inevitable compli- 
 cation may be studied with advantage. 
 
 During the opening years of the new reign which commenced 
 in 1848, nothing could have been more discouraging than the 
 internal condition of the country. Ruin and revolution, in- 
 deed, appeared to be imminent, and were only averted by the 
 high qualities which, contrary to all expectation, showed them- 
 selves in the character of the Amir- Nizam, who was now 
 raised to the dignity and power of Prime Minister. This 
 individual, although of plebeian descent, and unfitted therefore 
 to command the respect of the princes and nobles of the 
 Persian Court, had no sooner entered upon office than he gave 
 evidence of very high administrative qualities. Fearless almost 
 to a fault, he grappled with the difiicuities of his position in 
 
82 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 the most determined manner. His first care was finance. By 
 revoking the extravagant grants of his predecessor, regardless 
 of complaint and opposition, and by imposing in some cases 
 additional taxation, he obtained funds for current expenditure, 
 and gradually re-established the revenues of the State on a 
 healthy footing. He then applied himself to political reforms. 
 Kesisting all attempts at a compromise, and steadily declining 
 the offer of mediation, he fairly stamped out the rebellion in 
 Khorassan by force of arms, and thereby no doubt greatly 
 strengthened the Shah's authority throughout the Empire; 
 while at the same time he succeeded in suspending for awhile 
 the dangerous antagonism of the Toorks and Persians by a 
 skilful combination of conciliation and firmness. His most 
 difficult achievement, however, — that which required the 
 strongest exercise of will, and which he believed, perhaps with 
 reason, to be of paramount importance to the interests of the 
 Government — lay in his firm but consistent and impartial 
 opposition to European pressure. If he pertinaciously with 7 
 stood, for instance, the efforts of Russia to replace Bahman 
 Mirza in Azerbijan, he was equally obstinate in refusing to 
 admit the intercession of England in favour of the Assef-ed- 
 Douleh and his family in Khorassan ; and so thoroughly, 
 indeed, did he observe this impartiality of political conduct, 
 that when obliged by circumstances to yield in one direction, 
 he at once sought to redress the balance by a corresponding 
 concession in the other. We are thus assured by competent 
 authority* that the Convention of 1851, whereby for the first 
 time our cruisers acquired the right of stopping and searching 
 native vessels in the Persian Gulf suspected of being engaged 
 in the African slave trade, was granted to the British Minister, 
 not in acknowledgment of the justice of our demand, nor even 
 as a personal favour, but simply as a set-off to a somewhat 
 humiliating concession which had been wrung from the Prime 
 Minister by Russia at about the same period, the dismissal of 
 the Prince Governor of Mazenderan having been peremptorily 
 insisted on by the Court of St. Petersburg, in satisfaction for 
 
 * See Watson's " Persia," p. 398, quoting Lady Sheil, who was present at 
 Teheran at the time. 
 
Ch.II.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 83 
 
 liis asserted complicity in a recent attack by the Turcomans on 
 the Eussian settlement of Ashur-ada. 
 
 There can be no doubt that at this period the interference 
 •of the European missions at Teheran in the domestic affairs 
 of the country was carried beyond all reasonable limit. Not 
 only was a constant pressure exerted for political purposes on 
 the chief Ministers of the Court, but a right of asylum to 
 offenders against the State was also far too liberally granted ; 
 and in some cases, not merely individuals but large classes of 
 the community were taken bodily under the protection of 
 the foreign Consulates.* The mischievous effects of such a 
 system became soon apparent ; for, however desirable it may 
 be in the general interests of humanity to provide a corrective, 
 such as the right of asylum, against the despotic exercise of 
 power in an Oriental state, still it is impossible for an "iin- 
 perium in imperio " to exist without a serious loss both of 
 character and authority to the native Government ; and it is 
 not, therefore, surprising that the Amir-Nizam, as soon as 
 he felt strong enough to assert his rights, addressed himself to 
 the remedy of this abuse as the crying grievance of the Admi- 
 nistration. Before any definite change, however, could be 
 affected, his career was brought to an untimely close, and it is 
 curious to observe that he owed his own downfall and death to 
 the very system which he was seeking to suppress. The Shah's 
 jealousy, indeed, of his Minister, which caused his suspension 
 from office, was first seriously aroused by the ill-advised efforts 
 of the Eussian Mission to protect him — in opposition to a 
 rival who was regarded as a partizan of England; and the 
 subsequent orders for his death were hastened by the appre- 
 hension that instructions might, in the interim, arrive from St. 
 Petersburg, authorizing the Eussian Minister's official inter- 
 ference in his favour. The story, however, of the disgrace and 
 death of the Amir-Nizam is one of the saddest that occurs in 
 the whole range of Persian history. Every evil passion, every 
 miserable motive, jealousy, selfishness, perfidy, and hatred, 
 
 * The American community of Talriz the departure of the young king for 
 was thus temporarily placed under the Teheran in 1848. 
 ^protection of the British Consulate on 
 
 a 2 
 
84 ENGLAND AND EU8SIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. H. 
 
 seem to have combined to cause the death of this really extra- 
 ordinary person, who was far in advance of his age and country, 
 the only .redeeming feature in the tale being the devotion of his 
 royal wife, who watched over the doomed man like his guardian 
 angel, and was only ultimately overreached by the cruellest of 
 frauds. 
 
 2. The death of the Amir-Nizam early in the year 1852, 
 shocking as it appeared to the nations of Europe, and arresting 
 as it also did the onward march of progress and improvement 
 in Persia, was still more disastrous in its effects on the external 
 political relations of the country. From this period, indeed, 
 may be dated that resumption of an aggressive tendency to the 
 Eastward, which a few years later culminated in a war with 
 England. Closely following on the change of ministry at 
 Teheran, where Mirza Agha Khan, the so-called English 
 protege, was now installed as Sadr Azem, or " Grand Vizier," 
 there occurred a crisis at Herat under circumstances which not 
 unnaturally re-awakened the longing of Persia for territorial 
 extension in that direction, and fairly warranted an expectation 
 of success. Yar Mahomed Khan, who had so long upheld the 
 independence of the Afghan Western Principality, equally 
 against Persia and against the Baruckzyes of Cabul and 
 Candahar, died in the autumn of 1851, and was succeeded by 
 his son, Said Mahomed, a dissolute and imbecile youth, who, 
 meeting with opposition from the Herat chiefs soon after his 
 accession to power, turned for support to Persia, and even 
 proffered his allegiance to the Shah. A difficult question then 
 arose for the consideration of the British Government, com- 
 mitted as it already was in principle by the Afghan War, to the 
 maintenance of the integrity of Herat. My own opinion, which 
 I put on record at the time, and which I still believe to have 
 been sound, was to the following effect : that as there was now 
 no question of Russian instigation or intrigue, nor of hostility 
 to British India, it could not possibly be to our interest to 
 irritate Persia by opposing Said Mahomed's overtures, and 
 insisting on the continued independence of Herat in spite of 
 itself. The ground, indeed, which I took up was even broader, 
 and involved a question of principle that is hardly yet obsolete 
 
Ch. II.] OUB, POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 85 
 
 for I argued that, looking to the future of Herat and the alter- 
 native of its being either in friendly or unfriendly hands, it 
 would be better for us under both contingencies to have to deal 
 with a Persian than with an Afghan power. The friendship of 
 united Persia, I suggested, would more avail us in resisting 
 the advance of Eussia than the divided councils of Cabul, 
 Candahar, and Herat; while, on the other hand, if coercive 
 measures were ever requisite to prevent Herat from becoming 
 dangerous to India, it would be a less arduous undertaking to 
 send an expedition to the Persian Gulf, as in 1838, than to march 
 another army above the passes. Had we remained passive at the 
 period in question, there can be no doubt but that the fertile 
 valley of the Heri-rud, with its formidable fortress, would have 
 been re-annexed to Khorassan without a struggle ; for Herat 
 itself was already Persianized to a great extent, and neither Cabul 
 nor Candahar, estranged by half a century of independent rule, 
 would have moved a man to support the family of Yar Mahomed 
 Khan ; and regarding the question by the light of subsequent 
 events, and without impugning our present policy, to which we 
 are now irrevocably committed, I am not at all sure that this 
 would not have been the proper solution of the Herat difficulty 
 of 1852. But the responsible officers decided otherwise. Con- 
 formably to Foreign Office tradition, as shaped by the Afghan 
 War, the integrity of Herat was to be maintained at all hazards, 
 and a Convention was accordingly imposed upon the Shah in 
 January, 1853,* by which Persia undertook not to send troops 
 to Herat unless the city was menaced from the East, nor 
 indeed to interfere in the internal affairs of the place in any 
 manner whatever, the views of the British Government, as 
 succinctly stated by Colonel Sheil to Said Mahomed Khan, 
 being " a determination that Herat should remain in Afghan 
 hands and in independence." 
 
 3. Although the Sadr Azem, who was now in office, submitted 
 to this restriction without any serious resistance, there can be 
 no doubt but that it was most unpalatable to the Shah, and 
 that it predisposed him to he influenced generally by counsels 
 
 * The text of this Convention is given in the Appendix. 
 
86 ENGLAND AND RTTSSDA. IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 hostile to England. An indication, indeed, of an altered state 
 of feeling towards us was afforded at this time by the favour 
 with which in the first instance the proposals of Kussia were 
 received at Teheran, for Persia's participation in the wai- 
 against Turkey. England and France had not, it is true, as 
 yet decided to interfere actively in the struggle, but still our 
 views and interests in regard to the pending contest were 
 sufficiently understood ; and when Persia accordingly under- 
 took, on the invitation of Russia, to prepare auxiliary armies 
 both at Tabriz and Kermanshah, she was committing herself 
 to a course of quasi-hostility against us. Fortunately the 
 negociations opened in 1853 broke down, owing partly to the 
 opposition of the Sadr Azem, who, when uninfluenced by 
 private considerations, was inclined to England rather than to 
 Russia, and partly to the unseemly impetuosity of the Russian 
 Minister at Teheran, who, in remonstrating with the Grand 
 Vizier against what he conceived to be a breach of faith, was. 
 betrayed into an act of direct personal violence ; but enough 
 had transpired to show that we were no longer supreme in the 
 councils of the Shah. Considered, indeed, from a Persian, 
 point of view, the position of the Shah's Government, when we- 
 declared war against Russia in 1854, was most embarrassing. 
 On the one hand there were grievances of long standing, 
 against Turkey, principally connected with the frontier, which 
 might be redressed by making common cause with Russia; 
 while the humiliation of England, if she was worsted in the 
 struggle, would also strengthen Persian interests at Herat ; 
 but on the other hand, Russia was the normal and hereditary 
 foe of the Persian state, the only power whose aggressive- 
 policy really constituted a material danger, and it would be 
 suicidal, therefore, to assist in developing her greatness at the 
 expense of Turkey. There was much vacillation at Teheran, 
 produced, perhaps, as much by our own half-hearted policy as 
 by conflicting views of the true interests of Persia. The Shah's 
 Government naturally expected, if we were in earnest in our 
 desire to cripple Russia's power in Asia, that we should land 
 an efficient British force in Mingrelia, co-operate with Shamil, 
 who was eager for action, raise the discontented population of 
 
Ch. II.] OUB POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 87 
 
 Georgia and Armenia, subsidize Persia, and finally turn our 
 Asiatic strength to account by bringing a powerful contingent 
 into the field from India through Baghdad and Kurdistan. 
 Under such circumstances Persia would no doubt have been 
 prepared to cast in her lot with us, and strike a blow for the 
 recovery of Erivan ; but when it was seen that Kars was 
 sacrificed without an attempt being made to relieve it, that the 
 threatened invasion of Georgia dwindled to a meaningless 
 demonstration of Turkish troops in the valley of the Ingoor, 
 that India's contribution to the war was the mere loan of a 
 couple of cavalry regiments sent through Egypt to the Crimea, 
 and that Persia was counselled to observe neutrality, instead of 
 being called on to furnish an auxiliary army, there can be no 
 doubt that at Teheran, where the causes which hampered our 
 free action — the jealousies of France and the want of any 
 national enthusiasm in favour of our Turkish ally — were un- 
 known, the effect of the slow progress of the Eussian war — 
 confined as it was in the Eastern field of operations to the 
 siege of Sebastopol — was to raise a suspicion either of our 
 sincerity or our power. Our political influence therefore waned 
 in Persia during the years 1854 and 1855, notwithstanding 
 that the identity of the interests of the two countries was never 
 more apparent, and a free scope was thus given to the miser- 
 able intrigues which, at the close of the latter year, led to a 
 suspension of diplomatic relations and the retirement of our 
 Minister from the Court. 
 
 4. As we had originally quarrelled with Persia in 1838, on 
 the subject of Herat, and had now reopened the old sore, by 
 preventing the acceptance of Said Mahomed's voluntary offer of 
 dependence, so, in the progressive stages of the misunder- 
 standing with us, which may be dated from the Convention of 
 1853, and which resulted in war, the Teheran Court continued 
 throughout to pay a close attention to the affairs of Afghanistan. 
 Debarred by this Convention from intermeddling in the internal 
 affairs of the Principality, Persia had proposed in the first 
 instance to form a Quadripartite Treaty with Cabul, Candahar, 
 and Herat, for defence, as it was stated, against their common 
 enemies ; and, failing in this scheme, through the opposition of 
 
88 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 Dost Mahomed Khan, who was now beginning for the first time 
 to realize the advantage of an English alliance, she then sought 
 to bring on a collision between Herat and Candahar, which, 
 according to the first Article of the Convention, would have 
 afforded her a sufficient reason for interference. The attitude, 
 indeed, of the Teheran Court towards the Afghan States during 
 the year 1854 was so threatening, that Dost Mahomed no 
 longer hesitated to throw himself into the arms of England. 
 He made his first overtures for an alliance at the close of 1854, 
 just as Mr. Murray was proceeding to take charge of the 
 Mission at Teheran, and on March 30th, 1855, he concluded a 
 treaty with us at Peshawer, of perpetual peace and friendship,* 
 by which, after an interval of twelve dreary years, it was hoped 
 that the blunder of the Afghan war would be at length repaired. 
 Simultaneously almost with the conclusion of this treaty, a 
 crisis, involving a change of Government, occurred, both at 
 Herat and at Candahar. In the former city, Said Mahomed 
 Khan, the unworthy son of the Great Vizier, having exhausted 
 the patience of his subjects, was deposed, and a Suddozye 
 prince of good character, Mahomed Yussouf by name, who had 
 been for a long period a refugee at Meshed, and who was 
 everywhere regarded as an instrument in the hands of Persia, 
 was established in his place. To what extent this revolution 
 was really due to the intrigues of Persia, was never officially 
 known. We did not care, without direct proof of the active 
 agency of Persia, to complicate the position at Teheran, where 
 our relations were in the mean time becoming strained, by 
 denouncing the proceedings of Prince Mahomed Yussouf at 
 Herat, as an infringement of the Convention of 1853 ; but it is 
 certain that in Afghanistan generally the revolution was so 
 understood, the substitution, indeed, of the Meshed refugee for 
 the hereditary ruler of Herat being regarded as equivalent to 
 the transfer of the government of the city to the hands of 
 Persia. So fully impressed with this idea was Dost Mahomed 
 Khan, who was now in alliance with us, and who on the death 
 of his brother, the well-known Sirdar Kohandil Khan, which 
 occurred almost simultaneously with Said Mahomed's de- 
 * See Appendix No. II, 
 
'Ch. n.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 89 
 
 position, had proceeded to Candahar, in order to re-unite that 
 territory to the crown of Cabul, that he repeatedly applied to 
 us to be employed in vindicating our treaty rights by recovering 
 Herat from the Persians ; and when we declined to sanction the 
 movement, regarding it as premature, he proposed, in Afghan 
 interests, to lead an expedition against the western capital on 
 his own account. Events, however, of importance now followed 
 each other in such rapid succession, that this intention fell 
 through. Mr. Murray was compelled, by a long course of 
 studied provocation, to suspend relations with the -Persian 
 Court. He accordingly struck his flag at Teheran on De- 
 cember 6th, 1855, and retired to Baghdad; and in the following 
 March the Shah's Government, no longer withheld by con- 
 siderations of prudence, threw off the mask, and sent an army 
 to Herat, which was at once admitted into the city with the 
 consent of the Suddozye Prince, who thus confirmed his 
 dependency on the Persian Crown. But this first Persian 
 occupation was very brief. An " eineute " occurred after a 
 few weeks, which ended in the Persians being driven out of the 
 city, while Prince Mahomed Yussouf hoisted the English flag, 
 and urged Dost Mahomed, whose alliance with England was 
 now a matter of notoriety, to support him against Persian 
 domination. Immediately following, however, on this appli- 
 cation, a second revolution occurred, the Suddozye Prince 
 being deposed, and sent to the Persian camp as a prisoner, 
 while his deputy, Isa Khan, remained in command of the city. 
 A desultory contest now ensued, and was continued for some 
 months, until at length, on October 25th, 1856, Isa Khan, in 
 despair of receiving aid from Dost Mahomed and the English, 
 hauled down the Afghan flag, and surrendered Herat to 
 Persia. 
 
 5. This decisive result, whereby the object was accomplished 
 at which Persia had persistently laboured for twenty years, 
 and which we had as persistently opposed, roused the British 
 Government to action. We immediately declared war against 
 Persia, and instigated the Afghans to attack her* It is of 
 interest to observe how our Afghan, and our Persian policy 
 have thus always acted and re-acted on each other. It has 
 
90 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. II.- 
 
 been already shown that the resumption of our relations with 
 the Afghans, which had remained in complete abeyance since 
 1842, was due to the renewed solicitude of Persia, in the same 
 quarter, Colonel Sheil's Teheran Convention of 1853 having 
 naturally led to the preliminary treaty with Dost Mahomed in 
 1855 ; and it is equally certain that our formal engagement 
 with the Ameer of Cabul, concluded at Peshawer on January 
 27th, 1857,* whereby we contracted an alliance of perpetual 
 peace and friendship with the Afghans, and promised them a 
 subsidy of a lakh of rupees a month, was the legitimate conse- 
 quence of the declaration of war against Persia, three months 
 previously. If Persia had given us no more serious cause of 
 offence than in writing obnoxious letters to our Minister, or 
 contesting rights of protection which were undefined and 
 almost undefinable, it is probable that we should have judged 
 her to be sufficiently punished by a withdrawal of our counte- 
 nance and support; but when she proceeded to violate her 
 solemn engagements, and to thrust herself ,'aetively into the 
 arena of Afghan politics, we were constrained, not only in vindi- 
 cation of our honour, but in deference to the principles that we 
 had laid down for the protection of our Indian interests, to 
 take up arms against her. There is at the same time no 
 question but that we entered on the Persian War most 
 reluctantly, and with a full appreciation of the political injury 
 it might entail on us — an injury, indeed, which would be likely 
 to become more serious in proportion to our military success. 
 Fortunately the war was of veiy short duration, and the injury 
 was therefore reduced to a minimum. The expeditionary 
 force from India disembarked at Karrack in the Persian Gulf 
 on December 4th, 1856, and peace was signed at Paris three 
 months later, namely, on the 4th of March, 1857, t though 
 hostilities were locally prolonged for another month, owing to 
 the imperfect means of communication which existed in those 
 days, before the establishment of a telegraph between Constan- 
 tinople and Bassorah. 
 
 During this brief conflict it may also be observed there 
 
 * See Appendix No. III. t The text of the Treaty of Paris is 
 
 given in the Appendix No. IV. 
 
Ch. II.] OUE POLITICAL KELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 91 
 
 were bat three occasions of actual collision between the' 
 English and Persian forces, namely, on the landing at Eishire, 
 in the action of Khushab, and at the capture of Mohamreh, so 
 that the Persians suffered little from military excesses, or any 
 of the usual horrors of a campaign, and the war left behind it 
 but few traces of irritation or ill-will. Persia made no pre- 
 tension to military equality with England, and was not there- 
 fore humiliated by defeat. "What she did resent at the time, 
 and what has ever since rankled hi the hearts of all patriotic 
 Persians was, that we should have subsidized the Afghans- 
 against her. The invasion of her Southern provinces by the 
 troops from India was regarded as the natural consequence of 
 her own occupation of Herat — a mere repetition, indeed, of the 
 proceeding of 1838 ; but that we should completely reverse the 
 political status which had been established on her Eastern 
 frontier since the Afghan War, and should now supply the 
 Cabul troops, from whose perfidy we had so severely suffered,, 
 with arms and money in order to enable them to attack our 
 former friends, disconcerted the Shah's Government exceed- 
 ingly, and greatly increased its soreness on the subject of 
 Herat — the more so, indeed, as before her rupture with us, 
 Persia had been making strenuous efforts to inveigle Dost 
 Mahomed into an alliance with herself, and had actually 
 brought the frontier districts of Lash and Farreh into depen- 
 dence on Teheran, with a view to the further extension of the 
 Shah's political power to Candahar. 
 
 This system of subsidizing the Afghans against their neigh- 
 bours inaugurated, no doubt, a new era in our Central Asian 
 policy, but it hardly possessed— in its origin, at any rate — 
 either the significance or the aggressive character which was 
 attributed to it by the Kussians and Persians. Eussiam 
 official writers have represented the Treaty of Peshawer as 
 guaranteeing the Ameer in his possessions of Bulkh, Cabul,. 
 and Candahar, and inciting him to further conquests, while 
 Persia, conscious that the first subsidy was directed against 
 her occupation of Herat, has taken offence at every subsequent 
 supply of arms and money to the Afghans, seeing in all such 
 efforts upon our part to strengthen her Eastern neighbour, an 
 
92 
 
 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. II. 
 
 indication of our mistrust in her own good faith and a desire 
 to control her .policy. Perhaps we were in some degree re- 
 sponsible for the exaggerated colouring given by foreign 
 powers to the Treaty of Peshawer, as we had certainly strained 
 the facts of the case in the other direction, by proclaiming in 
 the preamble to the treaty that we merely aimed at protecting 
 the possessions of the Ameer in Bulkh, Cabul, and Candahar, 
 " with which the Shah had manifested an intention to inter- 
 fere." In reality our main object was then, as it is now and 
 ever has been since Burnes first visited Cabul, to see a strong 
 and friendly Prince ruling over the Afghans, on the north-west 
 frontier of India ; but we also looked to the co-operation of the 
 Ameer's forces in turning the Persians out of Herat ; and it was 
 thus specially provided that the payment of a lakh of rupees 
 a month was to continue until peace was made between the 
 British and Persian Governments, and no longer. As events 
 turned out, the Afghans gave us no assistance whatever in the 
 Persian War — not from any lukewarmness upon their part, 
 but simply because no assistance was required. Peace was 
 concluded within six weeks of the date of our agreement with 
 Dost Mahomed, and the Persians evacuated Herat in due 
 course under the provisions of the Treaty of Paris. It appears, 
 however, from the official records, that an aggregate sum of 
 £260,000 was disbursed to the Ameer of Cabul during the 
 years 1856-58, the payment of the subsidy, which had com- 
 menced in the autumn of 1856, before the formal treaty was 
 concluded at Peshawer, being continued, not only up to the 
 final act of the war — the restoration of Herat to the Afghans, 
 on July 27th, 1857 — but for fourteen months longer, or as late as 
 September 30th, 1858. There were, of course, many sufficient 
 reasons for this prolongation of the subsidy beyond its natural 
 limits, of which I may note the following : — 1st, we had sent 
 a Mission under Major Lumsden to Candahar, to see that the 
 money advanced for military purposes was properly expended, 
 and so long as our Officers remained in the country it was 
 judged inexpedient to discontinue the allowance to the Ameer. 
 2ndly, The Indian authorities were much dissatisfied with the 
 form of government established in Herat after the withdrawal 
 
Oh. II.] OUK POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 93 
 
 of the Persians, and doubted if the continued dependence of the 
 city upon Persia did not violate the conditions of the Treaty 
 of Paris, in which case renewed local interference might be 
 necessary; and 3rdly. During the years 1857-58, we were 
 passing through the most critical phase of our Indian history 
 — the period of the Sepoy mutiny — when it was of the first 
 importance that the Cabul "ruler should be on friendly terms 
 with us, and when, indeed, no one less powerful or less loyal 
 than Dost Mahomed Khan could probably have prevented a 
 general Afghan invasion of the Punjab. 
 
 The Persian Government is said to have been much surprised 
 at the moderation of the terms which we imposed on her as 
 the price of peace — terms which, in fact, placed her in a 
 better, rather than in a worse, position with regard to us. 
 Ferrukh Khan, the agent who, on Mr. Murray's retirement, 
 had been sent to England to offer explanations and to deprecate 
 our anger, and who might have succeeded in composing the 
 quarrel at the outset, but for the aggravated grievance of the 
 expedition against Herat, was given a " carte blanche " after 
 the occupation of Bushire ; and it was expected at Teheran that 
 he would at least have been obliged to cede some portion of 
 territory, and to make other sacrifices before putting an end to 
 hostilities. It has, indeed, been imputed to Lord Clarendon, 
 as an error of policy, by some of our public writers, that as we 
 were completely in the right, and were entitled to compensation 
 for the heavy outlay to which we had been subjected in fitting 
 out the Persian expedition, he did not, on the conclusion of 
 peace, profit by the occasion to have secured us a permanent 
 footing in the Gulf, either at Bushire or Karrack, which might 
 have served as an equipoise to the Russian occupation of Ashoor- 
 ada; but, in my own opinion, he exercised a sound discretion 
 in resisting the temptation to acquire territory in this quarter. 
 A settlement on the coast of Persia would, no doubt, have 
 facilitated trade, and produced other local advantages, but it 
 was not required for the maintenance of our general political 
 influence in the Gulf, and it would have probably occasioned 
 so much irritation to the Shah's Government, as to affect 
 permanently our relations with the country. The only 
 
94 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 important interests that were held to be at stake at this epoch 
 were those connected with the Afghan frontier, and in that 
 •direction, accordingly, we imposed conditions of increased 
 stringency, and even accepted responsibilities which were not 
 ■only stringent but embarrassing. Not satisfied with renewing 
 the interdict against any interference on the part of Persia with 
 -the government or internal affairs of Herat, we further took on 
 ourselves the onerous duty of arbitrating in the event of future 
 differences between the Persians and Afghans, engaging to 
 •exert our influence with the latter to prevent umbrage being 
 given by them to the Court of Teheran, and binding the 
 Shah's Government in no instance to take up arms unless our 
 friendly offices had failed to obtain redress. It has always 
 heen my opinion, that these terms of settlement were not 
 judicious. They either went too far, or not far enough. If 
 we merely desired to retain the " status quo ante bellum," 
 there was no occasion to commit ourselves to intervention in 
 the Perso-Afghan quarrels. The mere embodiment of the 
 Convention of 1853, in a formal diplomatic treaty, would have 
 answered all our purposes. If, on the other hand, we desired 
 to put a definite end to all connexion between Persia and 
 Herat, we should have provided for the surrender of the city 
 into the hands of the officers of Dost Mahomed Khan, who 
 could alone uphold its independence. As events turned out, 
 we were completely stultified ; for when the Persian troops 
 were withdrawn from Herat in July, 1857, under the provisions 
 of the Treaty of Paris, a Baruckzye Sirdar, named Sultan 
 Ahmed Khan, who, having quarrelled with his uncle, Dost 
 Mahomed, had sought the protection of Persia, was sent from 
 Teheran to assume the government of the city ; and this chief, 
 •succeeding as he did to power at the invitation and under the 
 auspices of the Shah, continued for the next five years to rule 
 almost as a vassal of the Persian Crown. During all this 
 period Persia, in her dealings with Herat, kept herself strictly 
 within the limitations of the Treaty of Paris. She claimed no 
 tribute ; she exacted no homage ; she did not exercise any real 
 or ostensible authority in the city; but the Afghan chief, under 
 perpetual apprehension of hostilities from the eastward, and 
 
Ch. II.] OUR POLITIOAIi RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 95 
 
 disappointed of his hopes of material support from England, 
 made a parade of his dependence upon Teheran, as the best 
 means of maintaining his power. He read the Khoiba, and 
 coined money in the name of the Shah, thereby officially pro- 
 claiming his vassalage; and when he visited Teheran, in 
 obedience to the royal summons, he received robes of honour 
 and other marks of the Shah's favour, as a distinguished 
 servant of the Crown, rather than an independent prince. 
 It was in vain that we remonstrated against so gross a per- 
 version of the relations between Persia and Herat, as defined 
 by treaty, sending a mission from Teheran under Major Taylor, 
 to congratulate the new governor, and to assure him of our 
 moral support. Sultan Ahmed Khan had certainly no affection 
 for Persia, but he was distrustful of us as the close allies of his 
 enemy, Dost Mahomed, and his suspicions of our good faith 
 were further strengthened by some unfortunate intrigues against 
 his power, which were carried on by the native employes of the 
 Mission to Herat, without the cognizance of their chief. 
 
 6. The interval between the close of the Persian War hi 
 1857, and the death of Dost Mahomed Khan at Herat in 
 1863, was one of comparative repose in the politics of Central 
 Asia. Although Russia, recovering from the shock of the 
 Crimean "War, had already entered on that career of conquest 
 in the valley of the Jaxartes, which has since made her 
 mistress of the Uzbeg Khanates, her successes had not yet 
 excited much attention in India. Nor did the strange spec- 
 tacle of a Politico-scientific mission conducted by Russian 
 officers, which at this time (in the summer of 1858) appeared 
 at Herat and opened communication with Cabul, attract more 
 than a passing comment from the Calcutta Government, 
 though as Northern India was still heaving with the agitation 
 of the Mutiny, the mission might, if Dost Mahomed Khan had 
 been at all addicted to intrigue, have led to very awkward 
 complications. It seems, indeed, as if the magnitude of the 
 •crisis we had just passed through in India had rendered us 
 insensible to minor dangers, and that our usual watchfulness 
 on the North-west frontier had thus for a time forsaken us. 
 
 It was during this period of political rest that a change was 
 
96 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. n. 
 
 introduced in the conduct of our relations with Persia, which 
 has since given rise to much acrimonious discussion, and 
 remains an open question to the present day. The change 
 was certainly not intended at the time to indicate a diminu- 
 tion of our interest in Persia. It does not seem even to have 
 been regarded by the British Government as of any political 
 significance at all, but to have been arranged simply as a 
 matter of departmental convenience. Extraneous circum- 
 stances, however, gave it an undue importance. There had 
 always been a certain jealousy between the Imperial and the 
 Indian Governments, as to the direction of affairs in Persia. 
 The rival missions of Malcolm and Sir Harford Jones early in 
 the century had brought this disagreement into prominent 
 view ; and on several subsequent occasions a shifting of 
 responsibility, backwards and forwards, between London and 
 Calcutta, has shown that the dependency of the Persian Mission 
 on England or India was still undecided. When the Govern- 
 ment of India accordingly was transferred, by Act of Parlia- 
 ment in 1859, from the East India Company to the Queen, it 
 seemed a fair occasion for effecting a compromise; and an 
 arrangement therefore was made which placed the Teheran 
 establishment under the charge of the Secretary of State for 
 India, instead of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, so 
 as to concede the point that our Persian interests belonged to 
 Indian rather than to European diplomacy, while at the same 
 time the British representative at Teheran remained under the 
 direct control of the Crown. As a subsidiary measure, Indian 
 officers were appointed to the post of Minister and Secretary 
 of Legation, and an Indian character was generally given to 
 the establishment. 
 
 Now there can be no doubt that these measures were all aimed 
 in the right direction. The principle, indeed, that Indian officers 
 were, from their familiarity with Oriental languages and customs, 
 better fitted for political duties in Persia than the home-bred 
 secretaries of the European Legations, had been so universally 
 recognized in former times, that, in the long catalogue of 
 Ministers and Charges d' Affaires at the Court of Teheran, dating 
 from Malcolm's Mission in 1801 down to the appointment of 
 
Ch.1I.] OUK POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 97 
 
 the Hon. Mr. Murray in 1856, there is no instance to be found 
 (with the solitary exception of Mr. James Morier, the cele- 
 brated author of " Hajee Baba ") of an officer being placed in 
 charge of our relations with Persia, either temporarily or 
 permanently, who had not enjoyed the advantage of an early 
 training in India. It may also be well understood that the 
 elastic usages of Indian diplomacy — unfettered by strict rule 
 or precedent, and thus permitting a large liberty of action — 
 accord far better than the inexorable traditions of the Foreign 
 Office with the temper and feelings of a Court as irregularly 
 constituted as that of Teheran, where a free interchange of 
 presents, personal tact and address, a nice appreciation of 
 Oriental character, and numberless small matters erf language, 
 conduct, and even of dress, unheard of in Europe, are indis- 
 pensable to the acquisition and retention of influence. But 
 these various considerations were, after all, mere questions of 
 detail. The essential point to be determined in shaping our 
 Persian policy, was whether questions arising between the two 
 Governments were to be viewed from an Eastern or a "Western 
 stand-point; whether, in fact, Indian or European interests 
 were to be preferred in the conduct of our relations with the 
 country. If it were once admitted that the geographical posi- 
 tion of Persia, in immediate proximity to India, constituted 
 her chief — almost her only — claim on our attention, and that 
 Indian interests must accordingly be the guiding principle of 
 our policy, then it could really signify very little whether the 
 despatches which gave expression to that policy were initiated 
 on one side, or on the other, of the Quadrangle in Downing 
 Street — the so-called rival departments of the State being, it 
 must be remembered, located under the same roof, and in daily 
 harmonious and confidential communication. Such being the 
 real state of the case, divested of all party colouring, it may be 
 doubted, in the first place, if it was worth while in 1859 to 
 disturb the ordinary routine of business, by changing the "per- 
 sonnel " of the Teheran Mission, and placing it in immediate 
 dependence on the Indian Office ; but that change having been 
 effected, it was manifestly wrong in the following year to 
 reverse the decision of the Government, and restore the 
 
98 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. H. 
 
 Mission to the Foreign Office, thereby wounding public sen. 
 timent in India, and giving rise to a feeling of antagonism, 
 which has ever since prevailed, to the serious inconvenience 
 of the public service. Since 1860, when Mr. Alison was 
 transferred from the secretaryship of Her Majesty's Embassy 
 at Constantinople to the charge of the Legation at Teheran, 
 the Indian press has discussed the question with a perfect 
 unanimity of feeling, but with an acerbity of expression 
 quite unsuited to the occasion ; the most harmless acts of the 
 Persian Government being construed into intentional offences 
 against India, which are only rendered possible because India 
 is unrepresented at the Shah's Court. There is some reason, 
 no doubt, m the complaint of the Viceroy that the substantial 
 interests of India are not unfrequently subordinated to con- 
 siderations of European diplomacy. There is still more reason 
 in the claim which is put forward that, if India is allowed 
 no voice in the Councils of Teheran, the large subvention, 
 amounting to £12,000 per annum, which is contributed by 
 Indian revenues to the expenses of the Persian Mission, should 
 be abolished or curtailed. This principle, indeed, was dis- 
 tinctly recognised by the Committee of the House of Commons 
 which in 1870 was appointed to inquire into the constitution 
 of the Diplomatic and Consular Services, and which, in regard 
 to Persia, reported as follows :~— 
 
 " That while they have received conflicting evidence of the 
 highest authority, oil either side of the question, your Com- 
 mittee on the whole incline to the opinion that the Persian 
 Mission should be placed under the authority of the Secretary 
 of State for India ; but that if the responsible advisers of the 
 Crown decide that such a change is not for the public interest, 
 your Committee recommend that the Members of the Persian 
 Mission generally should be selected by the Secretary of State 
 for Foreign Affairs from Her Majesty's Indian Service, and 
 that the present charge of £12,000 ' a year on the Indian 
 Revenues for the expense of such Mission should be dimi- 
 nished, so as to throw a larger proportion of the expense upon 
 Imperial revenues." 
 
 Although four years have elapsed since this Report was pre' 
 
Cn.IL] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 99 
 
 sented to the House of Commons, and although the attention 
 of Parliament has in the interim, on more occasions than one, 
 been drawn to the subject, the suggestions of the Committee 
 have remained as a dead letter to the present day. The 
 Teheran Mission continues to be formed exclusively of gentle- 
 men who belong to Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service and who 
 cannot therefore possess any personal acquaintance with India, 
 while the expenses of the establishment are defrayed almost 
 entirely from Indian revenues, notwithstanding that Persia 
 itself is becoming daily more closely connected with our Indian 
 Empire through the rapid extension of steam and telegraphic 
 communication. It is to be hoped, then, that the question will 
 ere long be again subjected to a very careful scrutiny, and that 
 if it is deemed inexpedient to cancel the present arrangment, 
 which places Persia in official dependence on the Secretary of 
 State for Foreign Affairs and for which perhaps a new and not 
 unimportant plea may be found in the increasing gravity of the 
 Russian question, the recommendations of the Committee, 
 which was presided over by the present Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, will at any rate be so far accepted as to ensure a 
 certain amount of Indian experience in the " personnel " of the 
 Mission, together with a due regard, in the conduct of our re- 
 lations with the Court of Teheran, to Indian interests, both 
 financial and political. 
 
 To return from this digression, it may now be convenient 
 to consider the local effects in Persia of our thus shifting 
 the responsibility of managing our relations with the Shah 
 from one department of the State to another. As the 
 change in 1859 had been understood at Teheran to in- 
 dicate a more lively interest on our part in the welfare of 
 Persia, so the return to Foreign Office control in 1860 was 
 interpreted to mean a resumption of the old policy of indiffer- 
 ence ; and certainly the experience of the next few years 
 immediately following the appointment of Mr. Alison to 
 Teheran, so far from disabusing the Shah of this impression, 
 must have tended rather to confirm it. The distinguishing 
 feature, indeed, of our Persian policy at this period seems to 
 have been a desire to reduce our expenditure to a minimum, 
 
 h2 
 
100 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 and to withdraw as far as possible from all interference with 
 the internal or external affairs of the country. The Shah was 
 prepared, had he met with encouragement from England, to 
 fliave made a determined stand against further Eussian en- 
 croachment, and various schemes to this end were discussed 
 by His Majesty's ministers, which however, as they came to 
 nothing, need not be further alluded to. In one instance our 
 excessive caution and perverse economy certainly led to a 
 sacrifice of our true interests. The Shah, dissatisfied with the 
 results of his experiment of employing French and German 
 officers with his troops, and anxious to restore the "prestige" of 
 the Persian army which had sustained a blow from a disastrous 
 encounter with the Turcomans of Merv in the autumn of 1860, 
 would fain have returned to the original system of British in- 
 struction and command, under which Persia had first acquired 
 a disciplined force, and which in spite of many drawbacks had 
 on the whole worked well both for British and for Persian 
 interests ; but his proposals were never received with much 
 cordiality in Downing Street, and ultimately, on a petty 
 question of account as to the proportion of the officers' allow- 
 ances to be defrayed respectively by the Indian and Persian 
 treasuries, the whole scheme was wrecked, never perhaps to 
 be revived unless under very much less favourable circum- 
 stances. 
 
 A further illustration of our determined abstention from 
 interference, which gave considerable offence to Persia — inas- 
 much as it was held to be inconsistent with our treaty engage- 
 ments — occurred shortly afterwards on the Afghan frontier, 
 where affairs, which had never settled down since Sultan Ahmed 
 Khan's assumption of the government of Herat, were now 
 rapidly approaching a crisis. The frontier district of Farrah 
 had been recognised as a dependency of Herat, from the time 
 of that state's first becoming independent of Candahar and 
 Cabul, in the old days of the Suddozye monarchy ; and it was 
 therefore clearly an act of aggression when in 1856 f Dost 
 Mahomed Khan, on the plea of rescuing this outlying district 
 from a malcontent Sirdar of Candahar who was supposed to he 
 in league with the Persians, incorporated it with his own 
 
Ch.H.] our political relations with EEKSIA. 101 
 
 dominions. As soon, indeed, as Sultan Ahmed Khan was 
 confirmed in his own government, he protested against such an 
 alienation of his territory, and although at this early stage of his 
 career he was powerless to act, he kept the recovery of Farrah 
 steadily in view, and ultimately in 1862, took advantage of some 
 local disorders to expel the Cabul garrison, and re-annex 
 the district to Herat. Dost Mahomed Khan instantly took the 
 field against his nephew, and marched in such force to the 
 westward that Persia became seriously alarmed, and made 
 repeated applications to England, both through the Shah's 
 ambassador in London, and through our own minister at 
 Teheran, to avert the troubles which threatened Khorassan 
 from the presence of a large and hostile army of Afghans at 
 Herat. The Shah was naturally disinclined to see the rule at 
 Herat of his voluntary vassal, Sultan Ahmed, exchanged for 
 the vigorous independence of Dost Mahomed Khan ; and he 
 probably therefore magnified the danger of the Cabul advance, 
 in the hope that we should feel ourselves obliged to interfere 
 under the terms of the treaty of Paris ; but Sir John Lawrence 
 had already initiated that policy, which was afterwards charac- 
 terised as one of "masterly inactivity," and the only response, 
 accordingly, which he returned to the appeal of Persia was to 
 withdraw his agent from the Ameer's camp, whilst in England 
 we cautiously replied that the domestic quarrels of the Afghans 
 could not be held to give any such cause of umbrage to Persia 
 as to call under the treaty for the interposition of our influence 
 or authority. Persia no doubt felt much aggrieved at our thus 
 repudiating responsibility for Dost Mahomed Khan's pro- 
 ceedings, which had already led to the recovery of Farrah and 
 the beleaguerment of Herat; and she would probably have 
 marched an army to the frontier, — which had for some time past 
 been concentrated at Meshed, — in order to protect Khorassan, 
 had not the danger of any further complication been unex- 
 pectedly dissipated by the almost simultaneous death of the 
 two Afghan leaders, one immediately before, and the other 
 immediately after the capture of Herat by the Cabul army at 
 the end of May, 1863. 
 
 There were not wanting persons at the time who thought 
 
102 ENGLAND AND ETJSSIA IN THE BAST. [Oh. H. 
 
 that we committed a grave political error in declining to 
 mediate in 1862-63 between the belligerent forces in Western 
 Afghanistan; and these politicians hold that the subsequent 
 fortunes of Herat have fully confirmed their judgment. No 
 efforts on our part, of course, could have averted the stroke of 
 fate which carried off the redoubtable Dost Mahomed and his 
 nephew within two months of each other in the very crisis of 
 the siege of Herat ; but if at an earlier period we had stepped 
 in to arrest the extension of the power of Cabul to the west- 
 ward, we might have laid the foundatidn of a strong indepen- 
 dent government at the Western Afghan capital, which, re- 
 maining under our guarantee in the family of Sultan Ahmed, 
 and supported by us equally against the Eastern Afghans and 
 the Persians, would have constituted a real bulwark of defence 
 to India, instead of offering, as Herat does at present, — owing 
 to the family feuds and intestine troubles which have ever 
 since distracted the province, — the most vulnerable point of 
 attack in the whole line of our north-west frontier, and the one 
 least accessible either to our arms or influence. 
 
 7. Another still more notable instance of our do-nothing 
 policy in 1863, which at the time it was difficult to reconcile 
 with the obligations of the Treaty of Paris, and which in its 
 consequences has since involved us in the most serious embar- 
 rassment, occurred in connection with the conflicting claims 
 of the Persian and Afghan crowns to the limitary province of 
 Seistan. There is no occasion in this rapid sketch to sift the 
 merits of such claims. It is sufficient to note that, although the 
 Afghan national element had scarcely ever existed in Seistan, — 
 the great majority of the inhabitants being of Persian race and 
 faith, while the remainder were immigrant Belooches, — still the 
 political supremacy of the Afghans, as evidenced by the pay- 
 ment of tribute, had been admitted more or less readily in the 
 province ever since Ahmed Shah established a powerful and 
 independent government in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Seistan, in fact, was Persian territory, which had been 
 irregularly attached at different periods to Herat and Candahar, 
 and the recovery of which was always regarded by the Court of 
 Teheran with eager expectancy. At the time of our concluding 
 
Oh. II.] OITE POLITICAL EOLATIONS WITH PEESIA. 103 
 
 tlie Treaty of Paris (March, 1857), the dependency of Seistan 
 was undoubtedly an open question ; and as difficulties shortly 
 afterwards supervened between the Persian and Afghan Govern- 
 ment, owing to preparations on either side for an invasion of 
 the province, the very case contemplated in the 6th Article of 
 the Treaty seemed to have arisen, in which it became our duty 
 to step forward as mediators, " using our best endeavours to 
 compose such differences in a manner just and honourable to 
 Persia." During the years 1861-63, Persia did indeed re- 
 peatedly call on us to interfere under the terms of the Treaty, 
 and endeavour to prevent Afghan aggression on Seistan, to 
 which we merely replied that, as the British Government had 
 never recognised the sovereignty of Persia over the province, 
 they could not oppose the Afghan pretensions ; until at length, 
 in November, 1863, being pressed for a definite answer, Lord 
 Russell referred the parties to the arbitrament of the sword, 
 stating that "Her Majesty's Government, being informed that 
 the title to the territory of Seistan is disputed between Persia 
 and Afghanistan, must decline to interfere in the matter, and 
 must leave it to both parties to make good their possession by 
 force of arms." 
 
 Surprise has been often expressed by Indian writers at our 
 having thus ignored our duty as mediators under the Treaty 
 of Paris ; and it has been further remarked as si serious blot 
 on our home diplomacy that, while we accorded full liberty of 
 action to one of the belligerent parties, we took no steps to 
 notify the arrangement to the other ; but in explanation of our 
 apparent inconsistency, it must be remembered that not only had 
 We at this time contracted no treaty obligations towards Cabul, 
 nor obtained any right of interference in its affairs, but that, on 
 the contrary, after the death of Dost Mahomed, in June, 1863, we 
 had studiously held aloof from Afghan politics, neither recognis- 
 ing Shir Ali's right of succession, nor giving him any support 
 whatever in fighting his way to power. To have accepted the 
 office of mediators in regard to Seistan affairs on the requisi- 
 tion of Persia, according to the terms of the Treaty of Paris, 
 would have involved the necessity of upholding Shir Ali's power 
 from the commencement of his career, which was entirely 
 
104 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. H 
 
 opposed to Sir J. Lawrence's declared policy of "masterly 
 inactivity." But on the other hand it should be noted that if 
 we had thus mediated in Seistan in 1864 — as we afterwards 
 mediated in 1872 — we should have obtained far better terms 
 for the Afghans, and indirectly for ourselves. Persia, indeed, 
 had not then undertaken any such systematic incorporation of 
 the Seistan territory in her own dominions, as afterwards 
 enabled her to assert a right of possession as far as the left 
 bank of the Hehnund, and the Arbitration Commissioners 
 would thus have had a " tabula rasa " for their delimitation of 
 frontier. In respect also to our Afghan relations, so far from 
 regarding the recognition and support of Shir Ali in 1863 as 
 premature and inexpedient, many are inclined to think that it 
 would have been sound policy; inasmuch as it would have saved 
 us from much local trouble and disorder, as well as from certain 
 direct evils, the effects of which are yet apparent in the distrust 
 of us that has ever since, with greater or less activity, rankled 
 in the Ameer's breast, and more especially in the false but 
 dangerous reputation still attaching to Abdur-Rahman Khan 
 from his brief ascendency at Cabul, for which our excessive 
 caution at this period is mainly responsible. 
 
 Persia was, no doubt, much disappointed at receiving our 
 final answer declining to put any pressure on the Afghans, and 
 the more so as she was not prepared to accept the alternative 
 of immediate action. Nevertheless, from this time forward, 
 secured against any further remonstrance upon our part, she 
 did steadily pursue her policy of establishing a paramount 
 position in Seistan ; until, partly by arms, partly by con- 
 ciliation, and partly by intrigue, she had brought all the 
 Persian inhabitants of the province completely under her 
 control, and had even tampered to a considerable extent with 
 the Afghan allegiance of the Belooches. At length, in 1870, 
 Shir AH Khan, being firmly established in power at Cabul, 
 began to look seriously to the vindication of his interests in 
 Seistan ; and Lord Clarendon believing from the language held 
 on either side that war was imminent between the Persians 
 and Afghans, proposed that arbitration under the 6th Article 
 of the Treaty of Paris, which ought to have been proposed 
 
Oh. II.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITS PERSIA. 105 
 
 seven years before, and which, had it then been carried out, 
 would have probably given half of Seistan Proper to the 
 Afghans. 
 
 8. About this period, 1863, the first considerable breach was 
 effected in that crust of exclusiveness which had hitherto 
 isolated Persia from all contact with European civilization, the 
 pioneer of progress in this instance being the electric telegraph, 
 for which Persia was mainly indebted to the enterprise and 
 encouragement of England ; though, to say the truth, we are 
 not entitled to any particular credit for conferring the boon 
 upon Persia, since the circumstances which led to the intro- 
 duction of the telegraph into the country were the result of 
 accident rather than design, and referred, moreover, especially 
 to our own national interests. The history of the affair may 
 be thus briefly described. Turkey, which was far in advance 
 of Persia in the adoption of the useful arts and sciences of 
 Europe, had proposed, — as early as the year 1859-60, and for 
 her own purposes of rapid communication with her outlying 
 dependencies, — to lay down a telegraphic wire from Constan- 
 tinople, through Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, to Baghdad ; 
 provided that we would undertake to continue the line from 
 the latter place to India, so as to give a fair prospect of re- 
 munerative return on the initial outlay ; and as we were at the 
 time smarting under the disappointment of our first submarine 
 cable in the Eed Sea having completely failed, we gladly fell 
 in with a scheme which thus seemed to promise us a continuous 
 telegraphic communication between London and Bombay, at no 
 great expense and with the least possible responsibility. Some 
 years were consumed in the negociations, preliminary surveys, 
 and other measures of preparation, that were required to give 
 effect to our arrangement with the Porte ; so that it was not till 
 the year 1863 that our Overland Telegraphic Convention was 
 finally concluded at Constantinople ; and, in the meantime, we 
 had come to the conclusion, that however easy it might be to 
 lay down and maintain a submarine cable between our Indian 
 telegraphic terminus at Karrachi, and the head of the Persian 
 Gulf, there would still always be a certain risk and incon- 
 venience in keeping up, — either in our own hands or in those of 
 
106 ENGLAND AND EtTSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 the Turks,— -the direct line of communication between that point 
 and Baghdad, owing to the pestilential climate of the marshes 
 of the Lower Euphrates, and the lawless habits of the Arab 
 tribes which encamp upon the river's banks. Of so formidable 
 and persistent a character indeed were these evils represented 
 to be, that it was judged indispensable to the successful 
 working of the telegraph between Europe and India to provide an 
 alternative line through Persia, by which the Arab country might, 
 if necessary, be entirely avoided. Hence arose the necessity "of 
 opening negociations with the Persian Government, for the 
 construction by our officers of a circuitous line, conducting 
 from the Baghdad frontier, by the populous cities of Ker- 
 manshah, Hamadan, Teheran, Ispahan, and Shiraz, to Bushire, 
 on the sea coast. When this scheme was first proposed, it 
 encountered a strenuous resistance on the part of the re- 
 actionary party at Court, who denounced it as opposed to the 
 interests of the country, in conceding too much power to a 
 foreign Government ; but the terms were, nevertheless, finally 
 accepted by the Shah in 1863, and embodied in a formal 
 Telegraphic Convention, which Convention — having been re- 
 cently renewed, with some slight modifications rendered 
 necessary by the altered circumstances of the case — is, in 
 fact, in operation at the present day ; not, indeed, for the 
 original purpose of supplementing the Turkish line, — which 
 now follows its natural direction from Baghdad to Bussorah, 
 secured by the payment of black-mail from interruption by the 
 Arab chiefs, — but as a main link in the great Indo-European 
 telegraphic system which connects the East and West, through 
 the Persian, Bussian, and German Empires. A good deal of 
 jealousy was, as I have said, manifested on the first proposal to 
 surrender into the hands of foreigners a great national industry 
 like the telegraph ; but the terms which we offered for the con- 
 cession were so very advantageous, — being equivalent to the pay- 
 ment of a royalty of over £10,000 a year for the right of transit, 
 together with a free wire for local use, and the ultimate rever- 
 sion of the entire property,*— that Persian pride was silenced ,' 
 
 * The principle upon which our first, was negotiated was simply this, that 
 Telegraphic Convention with Persia- the line should be constructed by Eng' 
 
Ch. II.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 107 
 
 and after a short experience, there has been quite a revulsion 
 of popular feeling in favour of the telegraph, which is now 
 appreciated, not merely as a convenience, but almost as a 
 public blessing. There can, indeed, be no doubt, that Persia 
 has derived the greatest benefit from the establishment on her 
 territory of the Indo-European Telegraph, partly from the 
 large expenditure of foreign money connected with the first 
 construction and maintenance of the line, but more essentially, 
 because it has awakened her from the sleep of ages, and 
 brought her into contact with the activity of modern Europe, 
 It is now acknowledged to have been mainly owing to the city of 
 Teheran being placed in direct telegraphic communication with 
 the other capitals of the East and West, that a desire has been 
 created among the Persians for a closer intercourse with 
 Europeans, and that a path has been thus opened for the 
 development of the resources of the country, through the 
 application of European industry, enterprise, and skill. 
 
 Nor has England failed to obtain her fair share of 
 the advantages of the undertaking. Economists may think, 
 since the successful laying of the Bed Sea Cable, that 
 the possession of an alternative land line is dearly purchased 
 at an annual outlay of about £20,000, at which the expense to 
 us of the Persian line has been approximately assessed ; but, on 
 the other hand, there can be no doubt that the free circula- 
 tion of our officers through the country, in connection with the 
 service of the telegraph, has gone far to restore that influence 
 which the British Government and nation formerly enjoyed in 
 Persia, but which of late we have so much neglected; while 
 at the same l^me, under the able tuition of such leaders as 
 Patrick Stewart, Sir Fred. Goldsmid, and Major Bateman 
 Champain, a school of young Engineer officers has been 
 formed, who worthily replace the old "British Detachment,"* 
 
 land at the expense of Persia to whom she pays a small contribution to the 
 we should pay a maximum of 30,000 working expenses. She owes us at 
 tomans (about £12,000) a year as the present about £50,000 for cost of con- 
 cost of our messages. In the New struction. See Abstract of Conven- 
 Conrention the yearly amount payable tions in Markham's "Persia;" p. 542. 
 to Persia from revenue is reduced to * Four officers, who subsequently 
 12,000 tomans (or about £5,000), while rose td high diplomatic Office in 
 
108 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA. IN THE EAST. [Ch. 11. 
 
 and who, being thoroughly familiar with the language and 
 usages of the country, are thus available for those delicate and 
 important political duties which from time to time arise in the 
 East, and for which Indian experience alone is hardly a suffi- 
 cient qualification. 
 
 9. The telegraph, by uniting the Governments of England 
 and Persia in a bond of common interest, helped to mitigate 
 that feeling of soreness on the part of the Shah which had first 
 arisen in the events connected with the war, and had since 
 been kept alive by the indifference we had shown to his appli- 
 cations for assistance and advice. If due and timely advantage 
 had been taken of this improved state of feeling, important 
 results might have ensued, but the Shah was not particularly 
 well served at the period in question. Since the removal, 
 indeed, of the Sadr Azem in 1858, shortly after Mr. Murray's 
 retirement, no individual minister had been allowed on his own 
 responsibility to direct the counsels of the State, nor was there 
 any officer of distinguished ability in power at Teheran. It 
 thus happened that, although in obedience to the impulse given 
 by the successful working of the telegraph, there was certainly 
 a disposition to set other similar enterprises on foot, and 
 various schemes, in which the Shah took a strong personal 
 interest, were thus discussed for attracting British capital to 
 the country, and for establishing under British auspices rail- 
 ways and tramroads, and even a national Bank, still no 
 immediate result was arrived at, nor indeed did the plans of 
 the friends of progress yield any fruit whatever until after a 
 further period of ten years' incubation. 
 
 Amongst the schemes which were now considered for 
 strengthening Persia the Shah proposed to purchase two or 
 three steamers, which, being manned by Indian or Arab crews, 
 and being placed under English naval officers, should look 
 after the police of the Gulf in so far, at any rate, as regarded the 
 Persian waters; but His Majesty received no encouragement from 
 us in this respect, as we knew that Persia cherished ambitious 
 
 Persia, belonged to this original D'Arcy Todd and Sir Henry Eawlin- 
 "British Detachment," namely, Sir son. See ante, page 49, 
 Justin Sheil, Colonel Farrant, Major^ 
 
Oh. II.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 109 
 
 designs upon the Island of Bahrein and other independent Arab 
 States, with which we had concluded treaties of friendship ; 
 and we foresaw that the presence of a Persian naval force in a 
 sea which was already frequented by the vessels of so many rival 
 powers would be an element of disturbance rather than of 
 order. A misunderstanding, indeed, occurred shortly after- 
 wards between the British and Persian authorities in regard to 
 the possession of the island of Bahrein, which, if there had 
 been any of the Shah's vessels on the spot, might have led to 
 a collision. Persia had, in reality, no right of sovereignty 
 whatever over Bahrein, her last occupation of the island dating 
 from the time of the Suffaveans, but she had nevertheless, with 
 her usual lust for territorial aggrandisement, on several occa- 
 sions put forward this antiquated pretension : and in 1867 she 
 went so far as to encourage a revolution in the island, adopting 
 one of the claimants to the chief ship as her vassal, and autho- 
 rising him to hoist the Persian flag in token of his dependency. 
 This intruder, whom we denounced as a pirate, was blockaded 
 in the first instance by our fleet, his correspondence with 
 Persia was intercepted, and he was ultimately driven by force 
 from the island, the supreme authority being restored to his 
 rival, whom we had supported from the commencement. The 
 Persians were naturally mortified at a result which demolished 
 at one fell swoop, their new-born maritime aspirations, and 
 protested warmly against our high-handed proceedings, com- 
 plaining especially of our having established a blockade of the 
 island without any warning, of our having intercepted a missive 
 of the Shah's addressed to one whom he considered his subject, 
 and finally, of our having cannonaded a fort over which the 
 Persian flag was flying. Unfortunately, the Imperial and Indian 
 Governments regarded this affair in somewhat different lights. 
 In India it was thought that any concession to Persia would 
 injure our prestige with the Arabs, and lead to serious troubles 
 in the Gulf ; whereas the Foreign Office, underrating the local 
 question, and desiring rather to conciliate the Shah, who was 
 said to consider himself personally affronted by the seizure- of his 
 letter, would have admitted that the blockade and armed attack 
 had been somewhat precipitate, and have made the " amende " 
 
110 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. n. 
 
 accordingly. Ultimately a sort of compromise was effected 
 between the two departments of the State by our maintaining 
 the absolute independence of Bahrein, whilst at the same time 
 we promised, that in the event of hostile proceedings being 
 again undertaken against the island, due notice of our intentions 
 should be given to Teheran. I am not aware that any incon- 
 venience has resulted, or is likely to result, from this act of 
 diplomatic courtesy to an old ally. Persia is so entirely 
 innocuous as a maritime power that it is impossible for us to 
 feel any jealousy of her, however extravagant her pretensions ; 
 and it was manifestly not worth while to continue an irritating 
 correspondence between the two Governments on a mere empty 
 point of honour. 
 
 10. Among other beneficial effects of the telegraph may be 
 noticed the employment of our arbitration to adjust territorial 
 differences between the Shah and his Eastern neighbours. In 
 the course of the negociations which our officers were obliged 
 to carry on, both with the Court of Teheran and with the local, 
 chiefs^with a view to obtaining a right of way through the 
 districts along the coasts from the Indus to the Persian Gulf 
 — for an aerial wire, to be used as an alternative line to the 
 parallel submarine cable, it had been ascertained that although 
 Persia was admitted to be bounded geographically by the 
 Indian Ocean, still the Shah in practice possessed little 
 authority over the littoral tribes from the island of Kishm to 
 the eastward. Bunder- Abbas, indeed, and the adjacent terri- 
 tory of Minal), as far as Cape Jask at the entrance of the Gulf, 
 which formed the ancient kingdom of Ormuz, had been leased 
 with very few interruptions for the last fifty years to the Im&m 
 of Muscat, while the ports of Gwader and Charbar, the only 
 important settlements along the southern coast beyond the 
 Gulf, were held by independent Arab chiefs who, although 
 located respectively on Belooch and Persian soil, repudiated 
 all connection with either Government. 
 
 When the attention of Persia was drawn to so anomalous 
 a condition of affairs in territory which she claimed as her 
 own, and especially when she became alive to the uncertainty 
 of the border line between her territories and those of the 
 
Ch. II.] OUE POLITICAL BELATIONS WITH PEESIA. Ill 
 
 Khan of Kelat, she seems to have required her frontier 
 officers at once to assert and extend their authority. About 
 this time, at any rate, began a sustained series of encroach- 
 ments on the part of Ibrahim Khan of Bumpoor, which 
 provoked the active opposition of the Khan of Kelat, and which 
 would inevitably have ended in hostilities between the Persians 
 and Belooches, had we not, after some hesitation, intervened to 
 keep the peace. Our remonstrances at Teheran led, in the 
 first instance, to the deputation of officers to examine and 
 report upon the disputed line of frontier ; and, ultimately, it 
 was arranged that General Goldsmid, who had served for a 
 long period in Persia, in charge of the Telegraphic Establish- 
 ment, and had acquired the full confidence of the Government, 
 should mediate between the Persians and Belooches, laying 
 down on the map a line of frontier between their respective 
 territories, such as was admitted at the time hi the country 
 and proposing the same for official recognition at Teheran and 
 Kelat. Persia has too often complained on similar occasions 
 that the Indian authorities treat her as their natural enemy 
 and identify their own interests with the parties which she 
 is opposing. Why, she asks, should we support the Belooches 
 against her ? Why should we desire to have a barbarous and 
 intensely jealous state — indisposed to commerce and torn by 
 domestic faction — like Kelat, in immediate proximity to our 
 possessions in Scinde, rather than a responsible and friendly 
 Government like Persia? No doubt the Indian authorities act 
 under the instinctive feeling, that in keeping Persia at arms' 
 length and encouraging the growth of intermediate States, they 
 are protecting their frontier in reality against the approaches 
 of Bussia, which is the phantom that looms in the distance ; 
 but this is an argument that we cannot expect Persia to 
 admit or even to comprehend, and we must be content therefore 
 to remain under the imputation of an unworthy prejudice. In 
 this instance, however, Persia had certainly nothing to com- 
 plain of. General Goldsmid experienced considerable difficulty 
 in carrying out his mediatory office in Mekran, being impeded 
 both by the jealousy of the border chiefs, and more especially 
 by the guile and perversity of the Persian Commissioner, who 
 
112 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 was associated with him in his duties ; but ultimately he 
 succeeded, with the help of his very efficient Engineer Staff, in 
 laying down as proposed, a provisional frontier line drawn from 
 the sea coast in the Bay of Gwetter as far north as Jalk in 
 27° 30' north latitude ; and that this suggested settlement of 
 territorial claims, which followed as far as practicable the status 
 of occupation or tributary dependency, was not unfavourable to 
 Persia, may be inferred from the fact that, with the exception 
 of one quasi-neutral district the allotment of which was reserved 
 for subsequent adjustment, the Shah at once accepted the dis- 
 tribution proposed in the British programme, which indeed 
 advanced the frontier of Persia two degrees to the eastward, 
 beyond the point that was laid down in the Kussian War Office 
 map, published simultaneously with the British survey, as her 
 furthest legitimate limit. The reserved district of Kohek which, 
 although sometimes paying tribute to Kelat, was apparently 
 within the geographical limits of Persia, was also in the 
 sequel virtually abandoned to the Shah, inasmuch as the Kelat 
 frontier line was drawn to the east of it — while the Kerman 
 authorities further proceeded to realize their rights over Charbar 
 which was to the west of the frontier line, by expelling the 
 Arab colony and substituting a Persian garrison, so that real 
 substantial benefits accrued to Persia from our intervention, 
 without any injury being caused, as far as can be seen, to the 
 political interests of India. 
 
 11. By an easy transition, mediation in Mekran, on which 
 we entered merely in out* capacity of peace-makers, led to an 
 arbitration in Seistan, where interference was more pressingly 
 demanded by our obligations under the Treaty of Paris. The 
 Foreign Office, indeed, had ldng since become aware that an 
 error had been committed in 1863, in declaring the Shah to be 
 at liberty to make good his claims upon Seistan by force of 
 arms ; and when, accordingly, in 1870, a further appeal to us 
 was made to interpose our good offices, in order to prevent 
 actual collision between the Persians and Afghans on the lower 
 Helmund, Lord Clarendon no longer hesitated to accept the 
 responsibility. General Goldsmid was again selected for the 
 arduous task of composing frontier differences, and again he 
 
On. II.] OTJE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 113 
 
 was subjected in the execution of his duty to every sort of 
 hindrance and annoyance by the intolerable duplicity of his 
 Persian colleague. On this occasion, too, the difficulties of his 
 mission were much aggravated by the conflicting nature of the 
 conditions which were to regulate his decisions, "present posses- 
 sion" being balanced against "ancient right," and a further 
 source of embarrassment being created by the claim which Persia 
 advanced to exclude from arbitration all rights acquired under 
 the operation of Lord Eussell's famous letter of 1863. Under 
 such very discouraging circumstances it is greatly to General 
 Goldsmid's credit that he so far succeeded in his mission as to 
 obtain, by a diligent and careful scrutiny of evidence, a reliable 
 account of the gradual extension of the power of Persia over 
 the province, and that he was also enabled, through the active 
 exertions of the same engineer officers, Majors St. John and 
 Lovett, who had so admirably seconded his efforts in Mekran, 
 to bring away with him a good topographical sketch of the 
 disputed territory for discussion and adjudication at Teheran. 
 It was quite impossible to attempt any local adjustment. The 
 Afghan commissioner, who, in company with General Pollock, 
 joined General Goldsmid in Seistan, was to the full as imprac- 
 ticable on all essential paints as his Persian colleague, and as 
 the Indian Government cordially supported Shir Ah Khan in 
 his resistance to any Persian encroachment up the Helmund, 
 while the Shah maintained that it was only in this direction his 
 claims were open to contention — all the territory to the west- 
 ward being already incorporated with Persia — the prospects of 
 the arbitration looked sufficiently hopeless. When General 
 Goldsmid, indeed, in the autumn of 1872, after a full and fail' 
 discussion, delivered his arbitral judgment at Teheran, both 
 parties entered formal protests against the decision. Persia 
 insisted on being allowed to occupy the lands on the left bank 
 of the Helmund, as high up as Eudbar, with a view, firstly, to 
 holding the predatory Belooch tribes in check, who would 
 otherwise have free access to Seistan proper from the desert ; 
 and secondly, in order to guard against the abstraction of the 
 river water by canals running to the south, which would starve, 
 if it did not altogether stop, the irrigation of the lower lands con- 
 
114 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 tiguous to the lake ; while on the other-hand the Ameer of Cabul 
 complained that all the cultivated land of the province, — the 
 region which would alone repay the cost of administration, and 
 which alone was properly named Seistan, — was removed from his 
 jurisdiction and assigned over to chiefs who kept a considerable 
 force under arms ready at any moment to invade the Afghan ter- 
 ritory. General Goldsmid's scheme of partition, which followed 
 the status of recent, if not of actual, possession, was twofold. 
 He assigned to the Afghans in the first place the right bank of 
 the river throughout its course to its embouchure in the 
 northern reedy portion of the lake, thus definitely giving them 
 not only Farrah, Lash and Jowain, but also Chakansur and the 
 lands on the Khash-rud, together with several posts quite lately 
 established by the Persians on the Helmund, such as Nad-ali, 
 Keleh-Fath, &c; and in the second place he confirmed the 
 Afghans in possession of the left bank of the river as far down 
 as the Bend-i-Kohek, where the Helmund turns to the north, 
 and the great irrigating canals come off and carry fertilising 
 streams to the south-west and west ; but at this point he drew 
 an arbitrary line to some distant peak in the desert to the 
 south, thus legalising and confirming the hold of Persia over 
 the entire productive plain of Seistan proper, as constituted by 
 the present hydrography of the province. As far as revenue 
 and population were concerned, Persia had no doubt by far the 
 best of the bargain, but the Shah nevertheless resented deeply 
 the curtailment of his jurisdiction up the left bank of the 
 Helmund ; and although under great pressure, which, owing to 
 a change of Ministry, we were fortunately able at the moment 
 to exert at Teheran, he did at length formally accept the arbi- 
 tration, he at the same time reserved his right of appeal to 
 Lord Granville, and during his visit to England he thus made 
 the most strenuous efforts to obtain a modification of the terms 
 of settlement. Any such modification, however, which, in con- 
 sequence of the deep personal interest manifested by the Shah, 
 who considered his honour pledged to protect the Belooch 
 chiefs residing between Kohek and Budbar, we might have 
 been disposed to concede, was rendered absolutely impossible 
 by the critical state of our relations with Shir Ah Khan, who 
 
Oh. II.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA, 115 
 
 evidently thought that his interests had heen sacrificed, and only 
 accepted our terms with the utmost reluctance, notwithstand- 
 ing that they were accompanied with the offer of a large com- 
 pensatory money grant, and other conditions of substantial 
 value. Without entering on any elaborate examination of this 
 much-vexed Seistan question, I must now be allowed to make 
 a few general observations on its political bearings. It must 
 be borne in mind, then, that we were ourselves responsible to 
 a great extent for the complications which had supervened since 
 1863,* and had thus no right to complain if we were forced at 
 last to purchase Shir Ali's acquiescence in our proposed pacifi- 
 cation ; but in real truth it may be questioned if the Cabul 
 Ameer and the Indian Viceroy have not throughout attached an 
 exaggerated importance to Seistan. Though possessing great 
 natural advantages, the province is in its present aspect a 
 wretchedly unhealthy country, only habitable for a few months 
 in the year, and hardly worth the expense of governing ; while 
 in regard to its strategical value, which is the point of view 
 that has been chiefly regarded in India, great misapprehension 
 prevails. So far from Seistan being, as has been so often 
 stated, a convenient base for aggression upon India from the 
 westward, it is in every respect inferior to Herat for that 
 purpose. To the south and south-east it is bounded by an 
 impassable desert; while to the east it possesses one single 
 line of communication along the Helmund, contracted and ill- 
 supplied, and exposed to a flank attack from the northward 
 throughout its whole extent, from Seistan to Candahar. Sup- 
 posing, indeed, the Afghans to be in strength at Herat, 
 Farrah, and Zamir-Dawer, it would be quite impossible for a 
 Persian army to march along the Helmund from Seistan to 
 Girishk. The only military value of Seistan consists in its 
 abundant supply of camels for carriage, and these animals are 
 for the most part in the hands of the Belooches, who are Afghan 
 and not Persian dependents, and who might thus be available 
 for our own purposes, though hardly for those of our enemies. 
 
 * That is since the date on which and Afghans "to make good their pos 
 Lord Russell had sanctioned an appeal session " of Seistan. 
 to arms on the part of the Persians 
 
 1 2 
 
116 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. H. 
 
 The object of our recent interference was good, not only in 
 fulfilling a treaty obligation, but in aiming at the prevention of 
 an effusion of blood, and the avoidance of serious frontier com- 
 plications ; and it must be further admitted that General Gold- 
 smid's arbitration was as fair and as practical as was possible 
 under the circumstances. Indeed it would seem that, tied as 
 he was by definite conditions of procedure, no other course was 
 open to him than that which he adopted ; but at the same 
 time it is impossible to avoid seeing that there is not one 
 element of permanence in the recorded terms of settlement. 
 The allegiance, for instance, of the Belooches will depend, not 
 on our declared distribution of frontier districts, but on the 
 view taken by the tribes of their own interests ; while the pro- 
 posed line of demarcation between Persian and Afghan terri- 
 tory south of the Helmund, being arbitrary, and, so-to-speak, 
 imaginary, can never be practically observed ; and, finally, it 
 must occur to every student of political geography that the 
 refilling of the old or western bed of the Helmund, which the 
 river only left forty years ago,* and to which it may at any 
 moment return, would alter the whole hydrography of the pro- 
 vince, and annihilate those distinctive physical features on 
 which the recent arbitration was based. 
 
 12. It now remains to consider the general position of affairs 
 at Teheran during the last few years, and the present state of 
 our relations with the government of the Shah. The influence 
 of personal character upon public policy is nowhere more con- 
 spicuous than in the East. At Constantinople and Teheran, 
 the gravest European questions have been too often determined, 
 not on a fair consideration of the interests of the country, but 
 rather according to the private predilections of the responsible 
 minister of the day. Our war with Persia, indeed, was noto- 
 riously due, in a great measure, to the malevolence of the indi- 
 vidual who then exercised the functions of Grand Vizier, and 
 although no minister was appointed to succeed to that position 
 
 ♦Captain Edward Conolly, who mund in his " Sketch of the Physical 
 
 visited Seistan on his return from Geography of Seistan." See Journal 
 
 Herat in 1839, has minutely described of Asiatic Society of Bengal. Vol. IX. 
 
 this change of the course of the Hel- Part II. p. 715, 
 
Oh. II.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 117 
 
 of supreme authority, where he might again imperil the national 
 fortunes in pursuit of his own schemes of ambition or revenge, 
 still we have had abundant reason to complain of the bias of 
 the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who, until lately, has been tht 
 channel of our official communications with the Shah, and who 
 throughout his long, and not undistinguished, career has done 
 his best on all occasions to disparage England and English 
 interests. It is believed to have been owing to his influence at 
 Court that the advances of Eussia in Central Asia, which took 
 a definite form after the Crimean war, and which in reality 
 compromised to a large extent the security of Persia, were 
 nevertheless regarded at Teheran with an indulgent, if not a 
 favourable, eye. This minister, indeed, is said to have con- 
 gratulated his sovereign on the humiliation by the arms of 
 Russia of Persia's hereditary enemies, the Uzbegs of Khiva and 
 Bokhara, and to have encouraged similar operations against the 
 Turcomans. It was not, at any rate, until the aggressive move- 
 ments of Russia threatened the tribes upon the immediate 
 frontier of Persia, over whom the Shah claimed to exercise 
 jurisdiction, that any feeling of suspicion or uneasiness was 
 created at Teheran. Then arose a discussion which is of some 
 importance to British interests, and which thus deserves more 
 than a passing notice. When Russia landed her first detach- 
 ment of troops in 1869, at Krasnovodsk, on the eastern shore 
 of the Caspian, with the avowed object of crossing the desert to 
 Khiva, Persia raised a protest against what she ventured to call 
 a violation of territory, claiming the Bay of Balkan and Island 
 of Cherekan as Persian soil, and she even invited the British 
 government to support her reclamation; but no practical result 
 ensued. Russia merely stated in reply, that as the Shah had 
 no real authority over the Turcomans to the north of the 
 Atrek, he was precluded from interfering with the projected 
 movements, which were, however, directed to the improvement 
 of commerce rather than to territorial conquest, and which, in 
 so far as they repressed brigandage and promoted order on the 
 frontier, would tend to the consolidation of His Majesty's 
 authority. There was no formal convention, either at this time 
 or afterwards, between the two governments on the subject of 
 
118 ENGLAND AND ETJS3IA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 the frontier ; but as Persia omitted to put in a demurrer to the 
 claim, which, in 1869, Russia indirectly advanced to the sea 
 board as far south as the mouth of the Atrek, her right to 
 contest that claim at a future period may be considered to have 
 lapsed. And such, indeed, seems to have been the practical 
 upshot of the discussion, for Russia was no sooner settled at 
 Krasnovodsk, than she began at once to exercise authority over 
 all the country north of the Atrek, and the Governor of As- 
 trabad was notified in due course from Teheran that he was to 
 confine his jurisdiction to the southern bank of the river. It does 
 not appear that Lord Clarendon took any notice of Persia's appeal, 
 in 1869, to support her resistance to the Russian encroachment, 
 notwithstanding that the officer in charge of the Teheran Mission 
 had, with much sagacity, drawn particular attention to the 
 serious interests involved in the question;* pointing out that the 
 passage across the desert from Krasnovodsk to Khiva was, 
 from want of water, quite impracticable, either to troops or 
 caravans, and that if Russia therefore was resolved to penetrate 
 into Central Asia from the Caspian, she would have no alter- 
 native but to move down in the first jdace to the mouth of the 
 Atrek, establishing a post in that vicinity as her starting point, 
 and following up the valley of the river hi her subsequent march 
 along the northern border of Khorassan, to the vicinity of 
 Merv, from whence she would command the routes leading 
 respectively to Bokhara and Herat. This forecast was soon 
 afterwards verified in a remarkable manner; one of the first 
 operations of the Russians, after disembarking on the eastern 
 shore of the Caspian, being to found a military post at 
 Chikishlar, near the mouth of the Atrek, from which point, 
 both before and during the Khiva expedition, columns of attack 
 and reconnoissance were repeatedly marched into the interior ; 
 while the official maps which were issued to embody the results 
 of the Russian topographical surveys, claimed from this time 
 onward the course of the main stream of the Atrek as the 
 recognised national frontier. Persia, it is true, on more 
 
 * See Mr. Ronald Thomson's letter mentary Return: "Correspondence 
 to Lord Clarendon, dated Teherau, respecting Central Asia.'' No. II. 
 November 14, 1869, in the Parlia- 1S73, page 20. 
 
Cir. II.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 119 
 
 occasions than one, has repudiated a line of demarcation for 
 which no authority, or semblance of authority, exists, and which, 
 amongst other fatal results, would bring the Eussians into the 
 pleasant valley of Monah, in the immediate vicinity of JBooj- 
 noord ; but it is to be feared that the " Atrek frontier" may, 
 by force of iteration, become, like the cession of Ashoor-ada, 
 an accepted point of history, Persia having no power to right 
 herself, and English interests being hardly engaged at all in 
 the dispute;* inasmuch as the route beyond the frontier claimed 
 by Persia, that is, along " the Attock," or northern skirts of 
 the hills which bound the Atrek valley, — by the line of the 
 Turcoman forts of Kizil-arvat, Kahriz, and Ashkabad, — is 
 actually more convenient for the march of an army from the 
 Caspian to Merv than the parallel line, 30 or 40 miles to the 
 south, which clings to the main stream of the river in Persian 
 territory, and leads through a comparative desert till it reaches 
 the rich Monah valley. But whichever may be the best line of 
 advance from the Caspian, England has always viewed any 
 movements of Eussia in this quarter with suspicion. It may 
 have been necessary, she admits, to adopt coercive measures 
 against Bokhara and Khiva, in vindication of commercial or 
 political rights; but she cannot recognise any such necessity for 
 interference with the Turcoman tribes, and least of all with the 
 Tekehs, who, however ready to resist invasion, or however prone 
 to brigandage on the Persian frontier, are entirely removed at 
 present from all contact with Eussian military posts, or with 
 Eussian lines of commerce, and afford therefore no legitimate 
 
 * It is now reported, as these sheets movement. This reported extension, 
 
 are passiug though the press, that indeed, of the Russian frontier to the 
 
 Russia is preparing to claim the sea south is the more significant, as it is 
 
 coast of the Caspian as far south as further stated that the new military 
 
 the mouth of the Kara-Su, in the Trans-Caspiau Government, of which 
 
 Bay of AsterabiLd ; and Veniukoff Krasnovodsk is to form the head 
 
 certainly, many years ago, insisted on quarters, is to exercise jurisdiction as 
 
 the right of Russia to this frontier ; far east as Kahriz or Ashkabad, thus 
 
 but Persia will undoubtedly protest • intruding into the heart of the Tekeh 
 
 against any such encroachment, should Turcoman country, and almost ne- 
 
 itbo seriously proposed, as it would cessitating, for the maintenance of 
 
 be equivalent to the surrender of order, an advance, at no distant time, 
 
 Asterabad ; and we could hardly re- to the camping ground of the tribes 
 
 main indifferent to so menacing u, a t Merv. 
 
120 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 pretext for hostilities. Kussia may, of course, discover such a 
 pretext, by sending an experimental caravan through the 
 country, which would assuredly be attacked and plundered, 
 or by assisting the Khan of Khiva to levy a war contribution 
 on the outlying nomades, which would in all probability be 
 opposed ; but the intention to provoke a contest would, under 
 such circumstances, be so obvious, that we should be obliged to 
 look to an ulterior political motive ; and such a motive would 
 at once suggest itself, if we considered that the route through 
 the Turcoman country conducted to the important strategical 
 position of Merv, which, being occupied in strength by Eussia, 
 would exert a very powerful pressure, not only on Afghanistan, 
 but on India. ' 
 
 It may thus be well understood that the persistent rumours 
 of an intended expedition against the Turcomans of the Attock, 
 which have circulated ever since the conquest of Khiva, and 
 which, although now suspended, on the distinct and pacific 
 assurances of Russia, may at any moment be revived, have 
 attracted considerable attention in England, and the more so as 
 there is reason to believe that Persia, whose interests are seriously 
 compromised by the lawless proceedings of the Tekeh tribes, 
 would be not unwilling to assist in their coercion. That England 
 feels any real alarm on this score, or that she regards the occu- 
 pation of Merv by the Russians as a vulnerable point in her 
 Indian armour, is hardly a correct statement of the case. 
 What she does foresee is this, that if Russia, not content with 
 her possession of the Khanates, should still further disturb the 
 equilibrium of the East, by absorbing the Turcomans of the 
 Attock and re-establishing a great capital at Merv,* England 
 
 * The natural advantages of Merv that of any other city between the 
 
 are so great — situated as it is in an Caspian and the Indus, and points it 
 
 oasis of surpassing fertility, and pos- out moreover as the great commercial 
 
 sessing an unlimited supply of water emporium of the future for all Central 
 
 — that it would necessarily soon at- Asia. At the time of the invasion of 
 
 .,, tract a large population, if security Cheughiz Khan, Merv was the chief 
 
 were only afforded of life and pro- city of Khorassan, and was popularly 
 
 perty ; while its geographical position supposed to contain one million of in- 
 
 at a point where the high road from habitants. The present town, which 
 
 Khiva to Herat crosses the high road is twelve miles to the west of the 
 
 from Persia to Bokhara, gives it a ancient city, is only occupied by the 
 
 strategical value, superior probably to Turcomans for a few months in the 
 
Oh. II.] OUK POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 121 
 
 would in all probability be compelled to meet the requisition for 
 support of her ally, the Ameer of Cabul, by furnishing auxiliary 
 garrisons for Candahar and Herat, a measure that would entail 
 a heavy expenditure on the revenues of India, and would not 
 improbably lead to eventual collision between the two great 
 European powers, both in the East and "West. 
 
 The possibility of so grave a crisis has undoubtedly occupied 
 the thoughts of our statesmen during recent discussions, deeply 
 affecting, as it does, our Indian interests, and lending excep- 
 tional importance to the character of our present relations with 
 Persia. It was in 1871 that an administrative change was 
 effected at Teheran, from which great results were anticipated, 
 though they have hardly yet been realised. His Majesty the 
 Shah, disappointed with the meaningless, and often retrograde, 
 proceedings of a Council of State presided over by a mere 
 departmental minister, and anxious to inaugurate a distinctly 
 progressive policy, resolved o:ice more to appoint a Grand 
 Vizier, or " Sadr Azem," who should be invested with a 
 general control over all branches of the administration ; and 
 for this purpose he selected an individual who was probably 
 the most competent, the most enlightened, and the most trust- 
 worthy public officer in his dominions. Endowed by nature 
 with an intellect of a very high order, which had received 
 a more careful cultivation than often falls to the lot of an 
 Oriental, and fortified by a large and varied experience, Mirza 
 Hussein Khan entered upon office under peculiarly advan- 
 tageous circumstances. He had been bred up indeed from 
 infancy in official circles, his father having been a minister of 
 Mahomed Shah's, and he had served his noviciate abroad, 
 partly in Teflis and partly in Bombay, after which he filled for 
 twelve years the responsible post of Persian Minister at Con- 
 stantinople. On being called by his sovereign in 1871 to 
 the supreme direction of affairs, he did not scruple to avow a 
 belief, from which he has never since swerved, that while it 
 was necessary for the national safety to fulfil with the utmost 
 
 year at the period of harvest, and of the place in 1840, when it belonged 
 does not contain more than a hundred to Khiva, see Abbott's "Journey from 
 squalid huts. For a good description Herat to Khiva," Vol. I. Chap. 3. 
 
122 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 strictness all treaty obligations towards Eussia and to cultivate 
 generally the most friendly relations with that power, still the 
 confidence of Persia should be reserved for England. At the 
 time of his accession to power there were several small matters 
 at issue between the two governments, which occasioned fric- 
 tion, and which might, under less careful manipulation, have 
 been swollen into substantial grievances. The understanding, 
 for instance, which had been arrived at between the Viceroy of 
 India and the Ameer of Cabul at the famous Amballah Con- 
 ference in 1869, had been magnified, according to popular 
 rumour, into an offensive and defensive alliance which boded 
 ill to peaceful neighbours ; and Persia, always jealous and 
 distrustful of our Afghan alliance, was thus disposed, until 
 explanations were given, to take offence at what seemed an 
 attitude of defiance. On her opposite frontier, where chronic 
 disorder prevailed, she also complained of the preference 
 shown by our officers to the Turks when called on to mediate 
 in border quarrels. The special j'ohits again, which were 
 reserved in the Mekran and Seistan arbitrations, referring 
 to the dependency of Kohek in the one settlement and the 
 allegiance of the Belooches below Budbar in the other, caused 
 perhaps more irritation at Teheran than the general pacifica- 
 tion had produced content. Finally, Bahrein was not forgotten, 
 and fresh causes of dispute had arisen, both at Bushire and 
 Charbar. In each and all of these matters the conciliatory 
 ' influence of the Grand Vizier was exerted with marked, if not 
 immediate, effect ; and the improved state of our relations at 
 Teheran thus paved the way to what he intended as the crown- 
 ing point of his political programme. 
 
 13. This programme, which was aimed at the regeneration of 
 Persia, through the identification of her interest with those of 
 Great Britain, embraced two leading features ; the one was the 
 Eeuter concession ; the other was the Shah's visit to England; 
 and each of these subjects it may be now convenient to 
 consider in some detail. It has been already stated that 
 immediately after the construction of the telegraph, various 
 plans were discussed at Teheran for extending the field of 
 enterprise and inviting the participation of European skill and 
 
Oh. II.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 123 
 
 industry and the employment of European capital. Some of 
 these plans were no douht sound and honest, but the greater 
 part were put forward by adventurers and speculators, who 
 commanded no confidents, and whose specious offers rather 
 distracted than aided the government. It is asserted, indeed, 
 that it was mainly to escape the risk and turmoil of conflicting 
 schemes and adverse interests, that ultimately, after a very 
 mature consideration, it was determined to confide to the hands 
 of a single company, presided over by Baron Julius de Eeuter,* 
 a naturalized British subject, the complete and exclusive 
 control of the whole industrial resources of the empire for a 
 period of 70 years. This gigantic monopoly, at which Europe 
 stood aghast, comprised the following items : the construction of 
 a railway from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf, with any num- 
 ber of subsidiary branches ; the laying clown of tramways 
 throughout the kingdom ; the exclusive working of all the 
 Persian mines, excepting those of gold and silver ; the intro- 
 duction of works of irrigation on whatever scale was deemed 
 expedient; the establishment of a national bank; the issue of a 
 loan of six millions sterling, with a Persian guarantee of 5 per 
 cent, interest, and 2 per cent, sinking fund ; together with a right 
 to initiate all remunerative public works, such as lighting with 
 gas, paving and embellishing the capital; making roads, bridges, 
 and embankments ; postal and telegraphic extensions ; mills, 
 factories, and workshops, &c, and finally a farm of the entire 
 customs of the empire for a period of 25 years. The Grand 
 Vizier, who, with his confidential adviser, Mirza Malcom 
 Khan, now minister in England, was responsible for this 
 extraordinary delegation of Inrperial powers to the hands of a 
 private company, no doubt considered that he had sufficiently 
 protected the interest of the' Persian Crown, by providing 
 that 20 per cent, of the net profits of the Railway and 15 per 
 cent, of all other net profits should accrue to the government ; 
 while in respect to the customs, he had stipulated that the 
 
 * This concession, of which an company be was empowed to form is 
 
 abstract will be found in the Appendix mentioned in many of the articles as 
 
 No. V., was granted to Baron Keuter identical with the "Concessionaire." 
 in his individual capacity, but the 
 
124 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN TEE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 aggregate proceeds of the present time should be augmented for 
 5 years by an annual fixed sum of £20,000, and during the 
 remainder of the term by a transfer to the Shah of 60 per cent, 
 of the difference between the present farm and the actual 
 proceeds. He did not apparently regard the concentration of 
 power in the hands of a single individual as objectionable or 
 dangerous, because the concessionary had the right, which he 
 would certainly exercise, of transferring any portion of his 
 privileges with their attendant obligations to other parties, and 
 because the directors and shareholders of the company, 
 or companies, which would thus be formed and then executive 
 officers would be principally of British nationality, which it 
 was the especial desire of the Prime Minister to identify with 
 Persia and Persian interests. There was something grand, 
 something heroic in the idea of sacrificing national pride — 
 almost national independence — to the eventual resuscitation of a 
 fallen country, but the scheme was hardly practical. There 
 can be no doubt that the Grand Vizier was thoroughly honest 
 and in earnest in granting the Beuter concession. He believed 
 that he was advancing the true interests both of Persia and 
 of England, and he expected our countenance and support. 
 What he failed to understand was the enormous political diffi- 
 culty of realizing so vast a scheme. He miscalculated the 
 serious character of Eussia's opposition ; he miscalculated the 
 extent of England's indifference, and above all, he failed to 
 appreciate the determined — the almost indignant — resistance of 
 his own countrymen. 
 
 "While the Eeuter concession was still the theme of general 
 wonder and interest, His Majesty the Shah put in execution 
 his long-cherished object of visiting the European capitals. 
 He was accompanied by the Grand Vizier and Mirza Malcom 
 Khan, and by several Princes of the Blood, whom it was 
 judged inconvenient to leave behind at Teheran. There 
 is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the Shah's de- 
 claration, repeated on several prominent occasions, that the 
 essential object of his visit to Europe was to cement friendly 
 relations with England, or rather to place those relations on a 
 new footing of complete and mutual confidence ; but it may be 
 
Oh. II.] OUR POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 125 
 
 questioned if his expectations in this respect were realized. In 
 Russia he found intense chagrin — amounting almost to indig- 
 nation — prevailing in the highest quarters on the subject of the 
 Reuter concession. The ostensible grounds of Russia's dis- 
 satisfaction were ; firstly, that the negociations for the con- 
 cession which placed the resources and to a large extent the 
 administration of Persia at the disposal of a rival government 
 — for it was never questioned in Russia but that the British 
 government was privy to the- whole arrangement, and intended 
 to profit by it to the utmost — had been conducted in secret, 
 and in a spirit unfriendly to her interests ; and secondly, that 
 her trade would be most seriously hampered by being subjected 
 at the various custom-houses on the Persian frontier to the con- 
 trol of British "employes." The merchants, indeed, of Moscow 
 and Astrachan, who drive a large trade with Persia, and com- 
 pound with the Persian officials on very favourable terms for 
 the free passage of then - goods into the country, were seriously 
 alarmed at the prospect of a rigid exaction of custom dues at 
 the ports of entry ; but as they could not avow this alarm, nor 
 complain of the correction of an abuse, they shifted then' 
 ground to an imaginary grievance on the question of the tariff, 
 and asserted — without any authority whatever — that under the 
 Reuter arrangement an arbitrary power of valuing Russian 
 goods for duty would be in the hands of their commercial rivals ! 
 On the part of the Russian government the most serious 
 objection — although it was kept entirely in the background — ■ 
 referred in all probability to the mines of the Elburz, the ex- 
 traordinary value of which had been long known, and had been 
 discounted by Russia as a reversionary interest of the future. 
 In other respects — so far at any rate as regarded the develop- 
 ment of the resources of the country — Russia would have 
 benefited equally with Persia's other neighbours ; and indeed 
 in regard to one particular enterprise, which was the leading 
 feature of the concession — the construction of the railway from 
 Resht to Teheran — the advantages, both political and commer- 
 cial, would for some time to come have accrued to Russia almost 
 exclusively. Under whatever differing shades of feeling, however, 
 Russia may have viewed the principle of the Reuter arrange- 
 
126 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 ment, there can be no doubt that she made a most resolute 
 stand against its form and conditions as originally settled ; and 
 that when the Shah, accordingly, came to England and found 
 that we were indifferent to the transaction — refusing absolutely 
 to be committed to any guarantee, and hesitating even as to 
 granting a moral support, since we feared that the complications 
 and embarrassment arising from our connection with the scheme, 
 however limited, would outweigh all advantages — the fate of 
 the concession was virtually sealed. It was only indeed under 
 the possible agreement of the European powers to the neutrali- 
 zation of Persia, the Shah's dominions forming a sort of Asiatic 
 Belgium, that the working of the Beuter concession — by means 
 perhaps 6f a great international company or commission — 
 would have been at all practicable ; and although this idea was 
 mooted, and is understood to have received some consideration 
 at Berlin and Vienna, it may be well understood that where the 
 interests of England and Bussia were strong, immediate, and 
 conflicting, while the interests of the other powers were feeble 
 and indirect, the prospect of any joint action, or acceptance of 
 mutual responsibility, was altogether visionary. As the 
 ultimate fate of the Renter concession is not yet decided, I can 
 only briefly notice its later phases. Baron Reuter had taken 
 certain steps to assert his rights before the Shah's departure 
 from Persia. He had sent out engineers, for instance, to make 
 the preliminary studies and surveys, and he had actually laid 
 down a permanent way for the railroad for a few miles at the 
 Resht terminus, so as to escape the risk of forfeiting the 
 caution-money, amounting to £40,000, which had been de- 
 posited hi the Bank of England, and which was liable to confis- 
 cation if the works were not commenced within fifteen months 
 of the date of signing the contract, a term of grace that expired 
 on October 25th, 1873 ; but beyond these preliminary measures 
 of execution he had made no real progress in bringing his 
 scheme to maturity. Without a guarantee of the British govern- 
 ment, or any direct promise of protection, he had found it im- 
 possible to place a Persian loan in the London market, or even 
 to form a company in England for working the concession ; and 
 he was thus understood to have been in communication with 
 
Ch. II.] OUB POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 127 
 
 foreign capitalists with a view to a practical transfer of his 
 rights, or to some arrangement for international co-operation, 
 when on the return of the Shah to Persia in the autumn of 
 1873, the whole contract was summarily annulled by a formal 
 notice in the official Teheran Gazette. 
 
 It would be difficult to justify this annulment on legal 
 grounds, if the concession had been a contract between private 
 parties; for the delay in executing the works which was the 
 reason assigned for the proceeding, was mainly owing to the 
 dilatoriness of the Persian authorities in furnishing the required 
 specifications ; and moreover the penalty of such dela}', in so 
 far as regarded the railway, was declared in the deed to be a 
 forfeiture of the caution-money, not a dissolution of the 
 contract ; but the real truth was that the Shah, indisposed to 
 the concession by the pressure exerted against it in Europe, 
 acted under "force majeure" in his final act of authority; for 
 the popular feeling against the surrender of his royal powers 
 into the hands of foreigners which had been fanned and fed, 
 directed and intensified, during His Majesty's absence in 
 Europe, by certain powerful malcontents at court, declared 
 itself so strongly on his return that it could not be prudently 
 resisted. It is indeed a matter of notoriety that the Shah's 
 crown was in jeopardy for some weeks after his return to 
 Persia, an insurrection in the capital being imminent, and the 
 two declared objects of the public rancour being the Grand 
 Vizier and the Eeuter concession, on both of which heads His 
 Majesty was compelled to yield, before he could venture to 
 leave his palace and resume his ordinary avocations of pleasure 
 or of business. Under such circumstances of a compulsory 
 abrogation of his rights, it might be assumed that Baron 
 Eeuter would be entitled to compensation ;" but here again the 
 argument' arises that the concession itself was against the 
 public polity of Persia, and thus "ipso facto" invalid. How 
 the question may be ultimately settled it is impossible to say. 
 It must needs be in the interests of Persia, that some of the 
 -industrial schemes, foreshadowed in the Eeuter concession, 
 should be executed, and a fair distribution of such schemes — 
 affording profitable investments of capital with attendant advan- 
 
128 ENGLAND AND BTJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. II. 
 
 tages — among the different European nationalities, ought to 
 satisfy all parties, and prevent any further exhihition of 
 jealousy or ill-will. If the construction of railways for instance 
 in the north of Persia may have a special attraction for Russia, 
 England would seem to have a- corresponding interest in the 
 railways of the south ; and the completion, again, of a longi- 
 tudinal line through Persia from west to east — that is, from 
 Baghdad to Herat — ought to enlist the common sympathies, 
 and support of all the European powers, as an independent 
 section of the continuous iron road which must before long 
 unite the East and West. 
 
 A notice of the Shah's visit to the European capitals may 
 now be resumed. In most of those capitals, in Berlin, Brussels, 
 Paris, and Vienna, amusement mingled with instruction was 
 the chief object in view. It was only in St. Petersburg, 
 London, and Constantinople that politics were at all discussed • 
 and, as might have been expected, amid the turmoil and pre- 
 occupation of royal receptions and national festivities, even in 
 these cities no serious results were arrived at. The Shall was 
 anxious that England should, if possible, come to an under- 
 standing with Russia as to the maintenance of the integrity of 
 Persia, and he would have desired to see notes exchanged on 
 the subject — not so much, perhaps, in the hope of the question, 
 being definitely and permanently settled, as with a view of pro- 
 ducing for the time a sense of public security ; but it was 
 judged inexpedient, while Bussia was yet smarting under the 
 fancied humiliation of the Reuter concession, to address inter- 
 pellations which, if they had any meaning at such a juncture, 
 would seem to be aimed in the same direction of emancipating 
 Persia from her control. The only result, accordingly, of the 
 Shah's appeal was a reference to the old assurance of a joint 
 support, which had been accorded to Mahomed Shah at the 
 time of his mounting the throne in 1834, and which, having 
 never been withdrawn, might be supposed to apply to his suc- 
 cessor at the present day. So antiquated and qualified a 
 recognition of integrity was no doubt far less than had been 
 expected, either by the Shah or his minister. The latter, 
 indeed, with his impulsive temperament and unlimited conn* 
 
Ch. n.] OUR POLITICAL EELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 129 
 
 dence in the justice of his views, had dreamed of reviving the 
 status of fifty years ago. He is understood to have pointed to 
 the avowed, the traditional policy, of England in the East, to 
 the necessity of providing India with bulwarks against Russian 
 encroachment, which, in former times a mere speculative 
 danger, had now become an urgent and pressing reality. If it 
 were worth while, he argued, to enter on the Cabul and 
 Crimean wars in order to check the development of Russian 
 power in the East, if it were good policy to support the Turks, 
 to subsidise the Afghans, to throw out feelers even as far as 
 Kashgar and Yarkend, why should Persia, the very corner- 
 stone of Indian defence, be neglected and disparaged ? It was 
 useless to urge that Persia had been weighed in the balance 
 and been found Wanting ; that she was false,- effete, corrupt in 
 her very core, worthless as 1 an ally, and, in fact, beyond the 
 pale of diplomatic action. The answer would naturally be that 
 she had never yet been fairly tried, that hitherto she had dis- 
 trusted England as much as Russia, and was now for the first 
 time really in earnest in desiring to combine against the 
 common enemy. As to her vitality, it would be said, no one 
 who knew the country could question it. Although for the 
 moment blighted by misfortune, by mismanagement, by domestic 
 disloyalty, rather than by foreign pressure, yet under the in- 
 vigorating influence of British aid, of British counsels, and 
 British example, she would rise again stronger than ever, and 
 would play a not unimportant part in the coming destinies of 
 the East. A Persian diplomatist of enthusiastic views, full of 
 faith in the future, and expectant of benefits, could hardly have 
 much in common to discuss with practical English statesmen 
 who had learned their lessons in the past, and rarely committed 
 their country to obligations beyond the necessities of the day ; 
 so that it is not surprising if the Grand Vizier of Persia left 
 London without coming to any more clear understanding with 
 Her Majesty's ministers, than that it was generally desirable 
 for the two governments to cultivate mutually the most friendly 
 relations, and to work together for the preservation of the 
 peace of the East. The most valuable result, probably, of the 
 Shah's visit to England, was the impression which he carried 
 
130 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. n, 
 
 away, stamped indelibly on his mind, of the warm and cordial 
 reception that he had met with from all classes of the com- 
 munity, an impression which will assuredly render him in the 
 future more amenable to British counsels, and more disposed 
 to reciprocate our friendly feelings. It is certain also that he 
 saw much to admire in the teeming industry of our great 
 centres of population, in the working of some of our time- 
 honoured institutions, in the abundant evidence of a high 
 civilization, and above all in the perfect order which reigned 
 throughout the land, an order which is almost inexplicable to 
 an Asiatic ; but whether the admiration of such striking scenes 
 will lead to any practical result in ameliorating the condition of 
 a country like Persia, where the whole social and moral system 
 is on such- an entirely different footing, is, to say the least of 
 it, exceedingly doubtful. We can only hope that the bread 
 having been cast upon the waters will be found after many 
 days. 
 
 In passing through Constantinople on his return to Persia 
 the Shah received a further proof of our real interest in his 
 affairs, in the valuable assistance rendered by our Minister to 
 the composition of existing differences with the Porte. These 
 differences referred principally to the exercise of civil and 
 criminal jurisdiction by Persian consular officers over Persian 
 subjects resident in Turkey, and as the subject was approached 
 by the ministers of the two countries from entirely different 
 stand-points — the one claiming by usage and prescription the 
 application to Persian residents in Turkey of the "most- 
 favoured-nation" clause of the European treaties, — so as to 
 secure for Persia the special benefits of the Turkish capitu- 
 lations with France, England, and Russia, — whilst the other, 
 following the international law of Europe, placed all strangers, 
 including, of course, Persians, on an exact equality in the eye 
 of the law, with native-born subjects, — there did not seem 
 much probability of arriving at a common understanding. 
 Through the joint mediation, however, of the British and 
 Russian representatives at the Porte, a compromise was 
 effected in time to admit of the personal meeting of the two 
 Mahomedan sovereigns — the Sultan, indeed, when the first 
 
Oh. IT.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PERSIA. 131 
 
 difficulty was surmounted, receiving his guest with that 
 
 magnificent hospitality for which he is celebrated ; — and 
 
 though impediments have since arisen to the execution of the 
 
 terms of settlement which were then agreed to — impediments 
 
 that have been further complicated by the revival of old frontier 
 
 feuds and tribal quarrels — still there is no reason to doubt 
 
 that, if England and Russia continue to act in concert, the 
 
 Turco-Persian dispute must be accommodated without that 
 
 appeal to arms which has more than once been imminent. 
 
 The Shah hurried his return to Persia in consequence of 
 
 rumours of intrigue and disaffection, and he had no sooner 
 
 landed on the shore of Ghilan than the threatened explosion 
 
 took place. Elements of opposition, discordant in their 
 
 nature, but each of considerable power, had confederated to 
 
 force the Grand Vizier from office, and for the first time in the 
 
 present reign the authority of the sovereign was set at naught. 
 
 The ostensible ground of complaint against Mirza Hussein 
 
 Khan, was the grant of the Reuter concession, and to a 
 
 certain extent no doubt the public irritation against him was 
 
 really due to this cause, but a glance at the names and 
 
 characters of the chief conspirators will show that private 
 
 animosity and political intrigue had at least as much to do with 
 
 the Grand Vizier's deposition as any real sense of national 
 
 humiliation. The malcontents, indeed, consisted of the 
 
 following very dissimilar parties and factions. Firstly, the 
 
 reigning Sultana, who exercised great personal influence over 
 
 the Shah, and -who was bitterly incensed against the Grand 
 
 Vizier for being sent back to Persia from Moscow on a point of 
 
 etiquette, and thus deprived of her visit to the European 
 
 capitals. Secondly, the fanatical party, — headed by the Ulema 
 
 and the Finance Minister, — who repudiated any attempt to Euro- 
 
 peanize Persia, and denounced the Grand Vizier on this account 
 
 as a traitor to his country. Thirdly, the Princes of the Blood, 
 
 who had accompanied the Shah on his tour, and who had 
 
 suffered innumerable personal affronts at the hands of the 
 
 minister, which they were bent on avenging. Fourthly, the 
 
 Russian party in a body, guided by the Minister for Foreign 
 
 Affairs, who was, moreover, a personal rival of the Grand 
 
 k2 
 
132 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. H. 
 
 Vizier's ; and fifthly, the so-called national party, inspired and 
 led by Ferhad Mirza who had been left by the Shah as Eegent 
 at Teheran, and who, although naturally of an enlightened, 
 humane, and thoughtful disposition, and thoroughly loyal to his 
 sovereign, had been nevertheless provoked almost to frenzy by 
 the threatened Eeuter monopoly of Persian industry and 
 commerce. Before these antagonists the Grand Vizier fell and 
 for a time even it was doubtful if the tragedy of 1852 might not 
 be repeated ; but the danger was only temporary. The Shah 
 managed the crisis with equal prudence and decision. Obliged 
 at first to yield to the popular clamour; he still maintained an 
 attitude of dignity and reserve, and thus soon brought the 
 movement under control, succeeding in the end, not only in 
 asserting his power, but in dealing out a stern retribution to 
 the conspirators. The recalcitrant Princes, indeed, who had 
 headed the confederacy, and thus given it consistency and 
 weight, were deprived of any further power of mischief; while 
 the Foreign Minister, who was not less culpable, was sent into 
 honourable exile at Meshed, where he might cultivate his 
 Russian predilections without any immediate danger to the 
 State; his office, at the same time, which in the present 
 condition of Persia controls undoubtedly the most important 
 department of the government, being conferred upon the ex- 
 Grand Vizier, who has throughout these late troublous 
 proceedings retained the full confidence of his sovereign. 
 
 14. Such being the present aspect of affairs, it may be in- 
 teresting to consider for one moment Persia's political pro- 
 spects, and especially as regards her relations with England. 
 There can be no doubt that the country is at present in 
 a most depressed condition, probably in a more depressed 
 condition than she has ever before reached at any period 
 of history. A series of natural misfortunes have combined 
 with a long course of misgovernment to produce the most 
 intense and wide-spread destitution. The silk of Ghilan, 
 which was formerly the staple production of the kingdom, has 
 entirely failed of late years, owing to disease among the silk- 
 worms, and although there is now a slight improvement in the 
 crops, the export does not reach a fifth part of its former 
 
Oh. H.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH PEESIA. 133 
 
 amount. Scarcity and drought, again, for several years con- 
 secutively, culminating in the famine of 1872, have depopulated 
 large districts, converted flourishing villages into a wilderness, 
 and spread the seeds of misery and pestilence broad-cast 
 through the land. In the mean time the circulating medium 
 has so diminished as to check all industrial efforts, and for the 
 moment to annihilate trade. A bankrupt treasury, an unpaid 
 army, corrupt officials, indecisive councils, and a timid exe- 
 cutive, these and other chronic evils increase in intensity from 
 day to day, and seem to foreshadow a condition, not merely of 
 political decrepitude, but of what may be almost termed a 
 national atrophy. And yet, notwithstanding this appalling 
 picture, Persia has assuredly a career before her, either for 
 good or for ill. Her geographical position, forming a con- 
 necting link between Europe and India, makes. her a political 
 necessity of the future, her importance in the eastern scale of 
 nations becoming yearly greater as the powers around her 
 undergo changes of accretion or disintegration. With Turkey 
 crumbling into ruin on one side ; with Russia pushing on, not 
 so much perhaps for a steadfast political purpose as under the 
 impulse of irresponsible military ambition ; with England 
 stimulating the native mind of India to unnatural activity by an 
 artificial system of education which may well create anxiety ; 
 with movement, portentous movement on every side, it is im- 
 possible that Persia can remain quiescent. It should be clearly 
 understood that Russia has neither the will nor the power to 
 subjugate Persia. Although the country is very sparsely 
 populated, not containing more than six or seven millions of in- 
 habitants, yet are the Persians so indissolubly bound together by 
 their peculiar heresy, so strongly protected are they by nature, 
 by impregnable mountains, and impassable deserts, that no 
 European power could hold them in permanent subjection, 
 except at a cost altogether incommensurate with the result. 
 Russia could neither spare garrisons for the scores of towns 
 scattered round the central desert, and each, if necessity 
 arose, the focus of insurrection, nor could she penetrate the 
 great chain stretching from Sulimanieh to Kerman, where each 
 separate mountain group would be another Caucasus. 
 
134 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. H. 
 
 Under great provocation, and almost as a last resource, 
 Russia might appropriate the Caspian shores from Lenkoran to 
 Asterabad, and even occupy the settled districts of Azerbijan, 
 utilizing indeed, the docile and hardy peasantry of that province 
 in consolidating other conquests ; but to suppose that she would 
 interfere with the Kurds and Lurs and Bakhtiaries, who have 
 defied all invaders from Alexander to the present day, or 
 attempt to administer a country so utterly unproductive as 
 Central and Southern Persia, would be to suspect her of a want 
 of sagacity of which she has never hitherto shown any trace. 
 "What she would naturally desire, and we have especially to 
 guard against, is a domination of the country by means of 
 moral and political pressure, which would enable her to use 
 Persia as a lever against contiguous nationalities, against tbe 
 Turks on one side, against the Turcomans and Afghans on the 
 other. Persian hostilities against Herat, inspired and guided 
 by Eussia, have already on two occasions committed us to 
 the largest measures of retaliation and defence ; the same 
 policy, pursued with the same success in regard to Merv and 
 the Turcomans, would possibly lead to another modified Afghan 
 occupation. The question, then, for our consideration is, 
 can such extreme measures be rendered unnecessary by our 
 establishing a strong position for ourselves in Persia ? Can we 
 turn the tables upon Eussia by converting Persia into a means 
 of defence, rather than of offence, to India ? Strategists will 
 point out that any serious Eussian advance from the Caspian in 
 the direction of Merv and Herat would be impossible, if the 
 column were threatened on the flank from Persia; and they 
 will further maintain that if we are to defend India from attack, it 
 would be better to fight our intended invader in Persia tban 
 upon our own frontier, where any check would raise a host of 
 enemies in our rear. These, however, are mere general military 
 principles, which, although it may be well to remember them, 
 are hardly of immediate application. What we have at present, 
 to look to is the "modus operandi" of turning Persia to 
 account, supposing such a policy to be accepted by the English 
 nation ; and here no doubt opinions would differ. The optim- 
 ists would refer to General Malcolm's mission, when we fairly 
 
Ch. H.] OUE POLITICAL RELATIONS "WITH PEESIA. 135 
 
 bought the French out of Persia, and carried the nation by- 
 golden storm. Others would advise mere friendly counsel and 
 diplomatic support, a continuance indeed of our present policy, 
 but somewhat strengthened and extended. A mean between 
 the two extremes would probably best meet the necessities of 
 the case. Some activity must be shown, some expense, some 
 responsibility must be incurred, if we are to arrest the down- 
 ward course of events which are rapidly converting Persia into 
 an outlying Eussian dependency. The physical capabilities, as 
 well as the intelligence, of the Persians are far above those of 
 the neighbouring eastern nations, whether Turks, Indians, 
 Uzbegs, or Afghans. In each of these fields then, we might 
 obtain, at no great risk and no great cost, very large results. 
 An experimental contingent force of 10,000 men, raised, armed, 
 fed, paid, clothed, disciplined and commanded by British 
 officers, would not only be a respectable military body, but 
 would elevate the tone of the people and show what they were 
 capable of, if properly handled and encouraged. On the other 
 hand a judicious, but genial support of enterprises, aimed at 
 supplying the wants of the nation, at stimulating their industrial 
 and creative faculties and raising them in the scale of civiliza- 
 tion, — not on the selfish and wholesale scheme of the Eeuter 
 concession, but with a a^sciiminative regard for native interests 
 and feelings, — would no doubt be well received, and would bear 
 fruit in due season. 
 
 At any rate the time is certainly propitious for making a 
 serious effort, owing to the peculiarly favourable disposition of 
 the Shah and his Foreign Minister, and if the country is, as can- 
 not be denied, unnaturally depressed at the present moment, its 
 improvement under our encouraging auspices would be all the 
 more marked and appreciated. 
 
 August, 1874. 
 
CHAPTEB III. 
 
 THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 {Reprinted, with Notes, from the " Quarterly Review," for 
 October, 1865. No. 236, p. 529.*) 
 
 1. Apathy of the English public in 1865, in Regard tq affairs in Central Asia, 
 contrasted with the Russophobia of 1838.— 2. Retrospect of Russian policy 
 in Central Asia from the period of the Afghan war. Khivan expedition of 
 1839-40, and negociations with Bokhara np to 1842. — 3. Operations of 
 Russia in the Steppe and on the Jaxartes from 1847 to period of the Crimean 
 war, 1854. — 4. Simultaneous advances in the Trans : Ili region to the East- 
 ward. — 5. Invasion of Kokand territory in 1863 ; capture of Turkestan and 
 Chemkend, and Gortehakoff's circular of 1864. — 6. Resumption of hostilities. 
 Capture of Tashkend, and creation of Government of Turkestan, 1865.— 7. 
 British policy in Central Asia after the Afghan war. Convention with Persia 
 regarding Herat, 1852. Treaty' of Paris, 1857 ; and our general relations 
 with the Afghans. — 8. Our unofficial communications with Turkestan from 
 1842 to 1865. — 9. Prospective relations of Russia with Kpkand, Bokhara, 
 and Khiva, and their probable effect on British Indian interests. — 10. Brief 
 review of the Central-Asian commercial question. — 11. Consideration of our 
 future policy. 
 
 1. To those who remember the Kussophobia of 1838-39, the 
 indifference of the English public to the events now passing in 
 Central Asia must appear one of the strangest instances of 
 reaction in Modern History. At the former period there was 
 no special cause of jealousy or ill-will between England and 
 Russia. On the contrary, as far as the state of Europe was 
 concerned, Russia was regarded by us with rather a friendly 
 eye. She was the great conservative power of the "West, and 
 might be expected to render important aid to the cause of 
 peace and order, by checking the revolutionary mania of 
 
 * Art. VIII.— 1. A Narrative of ment of India at Calcutta, 1867.) 
 the Russian Military Expedition to 2. The Russians in Central Asia. 
 
 Khiva under General Perofski in 1839. Translated from the Russian by John 
 
 Translated from the Russian by J. and Robert Michel! London, 1865. 
 Michell 1865. (Printed by Govern- 3. Invalide Russe. 1865. 
 
CjtHL] 
 
 THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA, 
 
 137 
 
 France and Germany. In the East, too, it required a very 
 
 bold effort of imagination to conjure up a sense of impending 
 
 danger ; for at that time Eussia was hedged up along her; 
 
 Asiatic ' frontier by a series of barriers, which promised tp 
 
 prevent — ; and which, indeed, while they lasted, did actually pre-s 
 
 vent— any possible extension of her territorial limits towards 
 
 India. The Caucasus was then unsubdued, and the tribes 
 
 inhabiting that range found occupation for above one hundred 
 
 thousand of the soldiers of the Czar. The Caspian was uhap 7 
 
 proached by rail, and boasted of but two solitary steamers, 
 
 which timorously trod its waves and peered curiously into the 
 
 creeks and roadsteads of the Ghilan coast. Ashoor-ada, the 
 
 island jit the entrance ■ of the Bay of Asterabad, which is 
 
 destined,- perhaps, one day in the hands of the great Northern 
 
 Power to become the Aden of this inland sea,* had been but 
 
 * (The following notes regarding the 
 Russian proceedings' at Asho'or-ada, 
 and in the vicinity, are taken'from an 
 official memorandum recently drawn 
 up on the subject. The Russians first 
 set foot on the island pf Ashoor-ada, at 
 the mouth of the Bay of Asterabad, in 
 1837-38. They settled there on the 
 plea of protecting Persian trade against 
 the Turcoman pirates, and the occu- 
 pation did not attract much notice till 
 1842, when it was first officially re- 
 ported to the Foreign Office by Mr. 
 M'Neill. In 1846 extensive build- 
 ings were erected in the island, and 
 negociations were opened from thence 
 with the Turcomans. Persia then ap- 
 plied to England to aid in obtaining the 
 withdrawal of the Russians. In 1849 
 England did appeal to Eussia to with- 
 draw, but fruitlessly. In 1854 Persia 
 demanded officially that the island 
 should be evacuated, but was told com- 
 pliance with such a demand was im- 
 possible, though Russia admitted that 
 Ashoor-ada was undoubtedly Persian 
 territory. Efforts were at the same 
 time made by Russia to obtain a for- 
 tress on the mainland, which how- 
 
 ever Persia steadily resisted. In 
 1856 the 'position ' at Ashoor-ada was 
 strengthened, at the same time that a 
 large addition was effected to the 
 Russian naval force on the Caspian. 
 Persistent attempts were made from 
 this time by the Russians from Ash- 
 oor-ada to gain over the Turcomans, 
 up to 1865. In 1866 the Shah visited 
 Ashoor-ada, and confirmed the Rus- 
 sians in exercise of a police power over 
 the Turcoman trade. Persia was 
 stated at the same time to have been 
 promised support in her claims on 
 Herat, on condition of raising no 
 opposition to the extension of Russian 
 power on the Caspian, the Oxus, and 
 Jaxartes. Russia also made prepara- 
 tions to garrison the port of Gez on 
 the mainland near Ashoor-ada, as a 
 further check to the Turcomans, but 
 was forestalled in this movement by 
 Persia. In 1868 Russia proposed to 
 move her naval station from Ashoor- 
 ada to the mouth of the Atrek. In 
 1869 Krasnovodsk was occupied by 
 Russia preparatory to the movement 
 of troops against Khiva. In 1870 
 Russia assumed that her frontier on 
 
138 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. m. 
 
 recently detached from Persia, and was still a naked sand- 
 bank 1 . Above all, tbe boundary of Russia, confronting India, 
 was drawn from tbe Ural Eiver, north of the Caspian, to the 
 old Mongolian capital of Semipolatinsk, or " the Seyen Cities," 
 by a cordon of forts and Cossack outposts, called the Orenburg 
 and Siberian lines,* which abutted on the great Kirghiz steppe 
 along its northern skirts, arid, to a certain extent, controlled 
 the tribes pasturing in the vicinity, but by no means established 
 the hold of Russia on that pathless, and, for the most part, 
 lifeless waste. 
 
 A great Tartar empire which should unite Siberia with the 
 fertile valleys of the Oxus and Jaxaries, had been imagined by 
 the Russian Czars as early as the sixteenth century, and would 
 probably have been realized, either by Peter the Great or Cathe- 
 rine, but for the intervening wilderness of the Kirghiz-Kazz&ks. 
 Extending for two thousand miles from west to east, and for 
 one thousand miles from north to south, and impassable, 
 except to a well-appointed caravan, at certain seasons and 
 along particular tracks, this vast steppe seemed to have been 
 
 the sea coast extended as far south as Guriev, where the Ural Biver de- 
 the mouth of the Atrek ; a claim that bouches into the Caspian. It follows 
 was not contested at the time by up the left bank of the river to Oren- 
 Persia. In 1871 Russia founded a burg and Orsk, and then crosses by- 
 military post at Ghikishlar, near the the head streams of the Tobol Eiver 
 mouth of the Atrek, and during this to Troitska. From hence it is drawn 
 year and the next established a con- to Petro-paulovsk on the Ishim, and 
 trol, more or less complete, over the so on to Omsk on the Irtish ; and 
 Turcomans from the sea-coast as far from Omsk it follows up the left bank 
 east as Ashkabad. In 1873 occurred of the river to Semipolatinsk and 
 the great Khiva expedition, one Buktharminsk on the Chinese frontier, 
 column of attack, which, however, The total measurement of the line in- 
 failed in its object, marching from eluding sinuosities is 3300 versts or 
 Chikishlar by the Turcoman route. 2200 miles, and the Cossacks employed 
 In 1874 the military Trans-Caspian go- to guard it number over 20,000 men. 
 vernment was formed, subject to the It has been often proposed to erect a 
 governor-general of the Caucasus, the continuous rampart like the Chinese 
 head-quarters being at Ki-asnovddsk, wall, along the northern part of the 
 and the frontiers extending south as line, so as to connect Orsk on the 
 far as the Gurgan, and east as far as Ural with Omsk on the Irtish ; but 
 Kahriz, half way to Merv. Yemuts no great progress has ever been made 
 and Tekkehs were also enrolled as with the work, and it is now defini- 
 Eussian subjects.-1874.) tively abandoned. 
 * This famous line commences at 
 
Ch. m.] THE EUSSIANS IN OENTEAL ASIA. 139 
 
 placed by nature as a ' buffer ' between the power of civilized 
 Europe, and the weakness and barbarism of Central Asia. 
 
 Moreover, at the period in question, our British Indian 
 empire, freed for the moment from internal throes, and warming 
 into active life under the influence of Lord William Bentinck's, 
 beneficent administration, was confined within the modest limits 
 of the Sutlej and the north-western desert ; so that a broad 
 zone of above twenty degrees of latitude, peopled, by strong and 
 independent races, intervened between the most northern 
 districts of India and the most southern settlements of Bussia, 
 Yet at such a time, and under circumstances calculated to 
 inspire so just a confidence in our own position, the appearance 
 of a Bussian Envoy at Gabul, and the advance of the Shah of 
 Persia against Herat in suspected collusion with Bussia, were 
 sufficient to create a panic in India, which shortly led us into a 
 war with the Afghans, the most momentous that has ever 
 occurred in the history of our Indian Empire ; both in regard 
 to the immediate sacrifice which it entailed of treasure, life, 
 and honour, and still more in regard to its effect on our 
 " prestige," from which indeed we are still suffering. 
 
 "Whether the danger apprehended to India at this period was, 
 or was not, imaginary, is a separate question. Those who are 
 best acquainted with the East believe that if Herat had fallen to 
 the Persian army in 1838, and if in pursuance of that victory 
 an alliance, which was actually proposed, had been concluded, 
 under the guarantee of Bussia, between the Shah of Persia on 
 the one side, and the Baruckzye rulers of Afghanistan upon the 
 other, the effects of such a combination would have been 
 sensibly felt beyond the Sutlej, — the more sensibly, indeed, that 
 the Calcutta Government had exaggerated the importance of 
 the supposed hostile demonstration against India, and had 
 made its success or failure the gauge, as it were, of British 
 supremacy in the East. Our object, then, in recalling the 
 panic of that fatal period is, not to show that it was wholly un- 
 reasonable, but to contrast its excessive violence with the 
 apathy which, under greatly aggravated circumstances, we are 
 now displaying. 
 
 At present, whether we regard the geographical extension ot 
 
140 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. III. 
 
 the Eussian and Indian boundaries, or the material development 
 of the two Empires, or the political condition of the countries 
 which still separate; them, the gravity of the' situation is cer- 
 tainly much . increased. We have, in the first- place, greatly 
 advanced our own frontier, British India has now absorbed 
 both Sinde and the Punjab. Our detachments guard the 
 passes and occupy the valleys which indent the mountain-chain 
 from Peshawer to the Bolan. The. shadow of our • power still 
 hovers over the more distant points of Candahar and Cabul, 
 Farther eastward, too, Cashmere and Thibet, though nominally 
 independent, are in reality mere outworks of India, and the 
 boundary of our political empire- in this direction is the Kara* 
 Koram range. Russia, on the other hand, in the due course of 
 events, and by her own natural growth, has become much more 
 formidable as a prospective limitary power. The Caucasus, 
 after half a century of resistance, has been finally subdued, and 
 although powerful garrisons may yet be required for some time 
 to come for the military occupation of the mountains, still a con- 
 siderable portion of the one hundred thousand soldiers formerly 
 employed in the field against the Circassians, Chichenses, and 
 Daghestahis must needs have been set at liberty, and thus ren- 
 dered available for new conquests in Central Asia.* At the same 
 time the material development of Russia towards the East has 
 been enormous. A railway now connects Petersburg with 
 Nijni-Novogorod;t and there are said to be three hundred 
 steamers plying on the Volga between this point and the 
 Caspian. On the Caspian itself the steam-vessels of all classes 
 available for purposes of war number over fifty, and there is 
 besides a small subsidiary flotilla on the Aral, which is being 
 
 * (A memorandum drawn up in our the Caucasus, and another line con- 
 War Office, 1873, states as follows : nects Teflis with the Black Sea at 
 " The war establishment of the army Poti, which line is to be continued to 
 of the Caucasus is 196,414 men Baku, on the Caspian. A line from 
 (164,038 combatants), 40,897 horses, Teflis to the Persian frontier is also 
 and 248 guns ; of these probably under construction, and a conces- 
 90,000 or 100,000 could be put in the sion has been further ^ven for a 
 field immediately." — 1874. ) line from Samara, on the Volga, to 
 
 + (Since continued to Saritsin. A Orenburg, to be continued in due 
 
 line also connects Moscow with Teflis, course to Tashkend. ) 
 except for a very short space through 
 
Ch. in.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 141 
 
 steadily increased.* The" geographical approximation, how- 
 ever, is, perhaps, the most important feature in this- re-cast of 
 the Anglo-Kussian position in the Easti While England, in 
 taking possession of the line of the IriduS from the seaboard to 
 Peshawer, has penetrated on one side nearly one thousand 
 miles into the '■ Debateable land " of former days, : Russia, 
 on the other side, by incorporating the great Kirghiz Steppe 
 into the empire, and substituting the Jaxartes for the 
 Siberian line of forts as her southern frontier, has made a 
 stride of corresponding dimensions to meet us; so ihat, 
 instead of the two empires being divided by half the continent 
 of Asia, as of old; there is now intervening between their political 
 frontiers a mere narrow strip of territory, a few hundred utiles 
 across, t occupied either by tribes torn by internecine war or 
 
 * (This rough statement of the naval 
 strength oi Russia in the East, was 
 taken from Mr. Long's pamphlet; on 
 "Russia, Qentral Asia and British 
 India, bya British subject, 1865." The 
 numbers are apparently exaggerated, 
 being greatly in excess of the return 
 given in our War Office report of last 
 year, which states as follows : "On the 
 Caspian, Russia has three launches, of 
 together 180 horse-powei' and 794 tons ; 
 ten steamers, of together 980 horse- 
 power and 3,523 tons ; four steam 
 launches and two sailing transports, of 
 together728 tons. There are threesteam- 
 boat companies on the Volga, each with 
 anumerousfleetoffaststeamers,besides 
 a number of barges, steam-tugs, &c; 
 some of these steamers ply on the 
 Caspian, and one of the companies has 
 landing- wharfs, &c, near Ashoor-ada. 
 There are also probably a few traders, 
 sailing vessels, &c. On the Sea of Aral, 
 there are four steamers, of together 170 
 horse-power and about 650 tons, with 
 one launch of 12 horse-power and 16 
 tons. " As the War Office return is taken 
 from a Russian ' ' Navy List," published 
 before the Khivan expedition, it no 
 doubt understates the present strength 
 of the establishment, but the most 
 
 liberal allowance for the increase of 
 the 1 last two years, will hardly reach 
 Mr.' Long's estimate. — 1874.) i 
 
 f From, the most northern point of 
 the Thibet frontiers in the Kara- 
 Koram range to the most southern 
 point of the Russian frontier in the 
 Thian-shan range overlooking the 
 upper valley of the Naryn River, the 
 direct distance across the level plains 
 of Chinese Turkestan cannot be more 
 than 400 miles. If we adhere, how- 
 ever, to our real military frontier, 
 instead of calculating from the point 
 to which our political influence ex- 
 tends, and measure the road distance, 
 the result will be somewhat different. 
 A recent British Envoy, Moola Abdul- 
 Mejid, travelling from Peshawer by 
 Cabul and Badakhshan and across the 
 Pamir Steppe to the Jaxartes, found 
 the entire distance between Peshawer 
 and the town of Kokand to be 1075 
 miles ; and even the direct route by 
 Bajore and Kafferistan to Badakh- 
 shan and Pamir which was also fol- 
 lowed by one of the envoys from 
 Kokand, does not diminish the dis- 
 tance by more than 200 miles. (Russia 
 has since extended her territory for a 
 considerable distance south of the 
 
142 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. III. 
 
 nationalities in the iast stage of decrepitude, and traversed by 
 military routes in all directions. 
 
 If, then, there was danger to British India frdm the attitude 
 and possible designs of Eussia twenty-eight years ago, that 
 danger must be increased a hundredfold at the present day ; 
 yet so far from being now betrayed into any paroxysm of 
 alarm, so far from thinking of intervention in the countries 
 beyond our frontier in order to arrest her progress, her pro- 
 ceedings fail even to excite our curiosity, and we seem, as far 
 as the public is concerned, to await the threatened contact of 
 the two empires with supreme indifference. 
 
 In the opening paragraph of this article, so singular a state 
 of quietude on a subject of real national importance has been 
 ascribed to the effects of reaction. No doubt the sense that 
 bur alarm formerly betrayed us into errors will account for 
 much of the indisposition now shown even to consider whether 
 there is danger or not, but there are also other influences at 
 work — influences of & loftier and more legitimate character — 
 Which have contributed, and still contribute, to the same end. 
 A considerable section of the community — a section number- 
 ing in its ranks the principal organs of the Press and the 
 leaders of public opinion, and representing much of the 
 highest intellect and the purest feeling of the age — believes; 
 and proclaims its belief; that the extension of the Eussian 
 power in Central Asia is a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished for. To substitute civilization— albeit not of the 
 highest type — for the grovelling superstition, the cruelty, the 
 depravity, the universal misery which now prevail in the Uzbeg 
 and Afghan principalities, appears to this class an object of 
 paramount importance, in regard to the general interests of 
 humanity ; of such importance indeed as to override any nice 
 question of right or wrong involved in the substitution of one 
 rule for another, and to throw entirely into the shade any 
 possible injury which our political or commercial interests may 
 
 Jaxartes, the interval between her measured on the map, being about 350 
 extreme limit S.-B. of Samaroand, British miles. — 1874.) 
 .and our limit N.-W. of Peshawer, as 
 
Ch. m.] TKE ETJSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 143 
 
 sustain in consequence. Another class of thinkers, who are 
 not prepared to carry their humanitarian feelings to so extreme, 
 a length, believe, nevertheless, that the less notice we take of 
 the pending Eussian proceedings the better. They remember 
 the axiom uttered by Sir Robert Peel, in the Sinde debate of 
 1844,- that " when civilization and barbarism come into contact, 
 the latter must inevitably give way," and they believe therefore 
 that, as Russia is now fairly in contact with the Uzbegs^ the 
 extinction of the separate. Governments of Khiva, Bokhara, 
 and Kokand must follow with the unerring certainty of a law 
 of nature. They go further, indeed, and would regard any 
 interference on our part to arrest the movement as positively 
 mischievous ; inasmuch as such interference , would not only 
 end in a miserable failure, but would recoil upon ourselves, by 
 intensifying the effect of the Eussian advance in the countries 
 beyond our frontier, and by more completely unhinging the 
 public mind in India. There are also, perhaps, a few who 
 honestly think that it would be for the advantage of the 
 British rule in India that the country should be conterminous 
 with Eussia, and that for two reasons; firstly, because we 
 should then have a reasonable and responsible neighbour with 
 whom to conduct political negotiations, instead of hordes of 
 fanatical savages on whom no reliance can be placed ; and 
 secondly, because Central Asia, in a settled condition and 
 under a European Government, would naturally be a better 
 customer, both in regard to the export and import trade of 
 India, than the barbarians who now encircle our North- West 
 frontier with transit duties and prohibitive tariffs ;* who are 
 
 * Mr. Davies, in his Indian Report his valuable Report on the Russian 
 on the Trade of Central Asia, 1862, trade -with Central Asia, says that 
 has certainly given a most formidable an attempt is made to exclude 
 list of duties on imports from British superior English cottons from some 
 territory into Kashmir, the rates of parts of Russia by a prohibitive tariff 
 duty on all our staple articles of pro- of 60, 100, or even 200 per cent, ad 
 duce and manufacture varying from valorem ("Reports of Her Majesty's 
 30 to 150 per cent, ad valorem (see Secretaries of Legation," No. v, p. 
 "Report," p. 32); but it may be 297) ; and a similar scale of pro- 
 doubted if a Russian tariff in the tective duties applies to all those 
 same quarter would be more favour- articles which are likely to compete 
 able to us. Mr. Lumley, indeed, in with the native industry. 
 
144 ENGLAND AND EUSSlA IN THE EAST. [Oh. HI. 
 
 too poor to purchase our manufactures, and tod indolent to 
 Supply our markets with their own produce. But such 
 reasoners leave entirely out df consideration that India is a 
 conquered cduntry; where a certain amount of discontent must 
 be ever smouldering which would be fanned into a chronic con- 
 flagration by the contiguity of a rival European power.. They 
 forget, too, that although Russia is at present friendly and 
 pacific, occupied with internal reforms and-disposed, perhaps, 
 to relax in our favour the stringency of her commercial code, 
 there is no security that such feelings will be of long duration. 
 Let the advocates df Russian neighbourhood' consider what 
 would be the effect on the French position in Algeria, if Eng- 
 land were to occupy the conterminous territory of Morocco, 
 and they will obtain some notion of our probable political 
 embarrassments when confronted with Russia on the Indus. 
 Such a state of things may possibly be brought about in the 
 fulness of time, and, when it does arrive, will no doubt be met 
 by lis with fitting resolution , and resource; but every English- 
 man who has &,t heart the honour and interests of his country, 
 should pray that the day may yet be far distant. 
 
 2. To understand the true bearing of the events now passing 
 on the JaXartes, and to determine the best mode of meeting, 
 or avoiding, a crisis with which these events may threaten us, 
 it is necessary to take a careful retrospect of Russian and 
 English policy in Central Asia since the period of the Afghan 
 war. This retrospect will not be entered on with any un- 
 friendly feeling to Russia. On the contrary, the views which 
 have actuated Russia in her Asiatic policy, during this period 
 of history, will be given, as far as possible, on the authority of 
 her own officers, and will be compared, in a fair and candid 
 spirit of inquiry, with the views which are believed to have 
 influenced England in the same matters ; the object being to 
 show how the two systems of policy have acted and reacted on 
 each other, and thus to arrive at a just appreciation of the 
 difficulties of the present juncture. 
 
 There is no need to dwell on the career of the Russian arms 
 in Asia in the early part of the century. It is certain that 
 the absorption of Georgia, the acquisition of the frontier 
 
Oh. ni.] THE EUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 145 
 
 provinces of Turkey and Persia, and the gradual subjugation of 
 the Kirghiz Steppe, although cited by McNeill in his famous 
 pamphlet " On the progress of Eussia in the East," as proofs 
 of her insatiate thirst of conquest, were amply paralleled by 
 our own annexations in India during the same period. " The 
 law of Nature " above quoted was, in fact, allowed full scope 
 both in one quarter and the other ; the provinces conquered, 
 or annexed, are believed to have benefited by the change ; and 
 excepting, therefore, that a certain mutual distrust was created 
 between the two European powers, no great evil arose from 
 their respective territorial extension. It is now declared by 
 Eussia that during the ten years antecedent to the Afghan 
 war, while she was suspected of a systematic policy of 
 encroachment towards India, she was in reality exclusively 
 occupied with the consolidation of her hold upon the Kirghiz 
 Steppe, and with measures directed to the development of her 
 commerce in Central Asia. Her proceedings in Persia — 
 where she certainly encouraged, if she did not instigate, the 
 expedition of Mahomed Shah against Herat — merely aimed, 
 as she asserts, at the improvement of her position in that 
 country; and the appearance of her agents at the Uzbeg 
 Courts is explained by the previous activity of English agents 
 in the same direction. 
 
 In tracing out, indeed, the origin of those misunder- 
 standings between the two great powers which culminated in 
 the Afghan and Khivan expeditions, allowance must always be 
 made for the fact that they viewed their relative positions in 
 regard to Central Asia from entirely different stand-points. 
 Eussia maintained, in the first place, that she had a prescrip- 
 tive right to the Khanat of Khiva,* which she was justified by 
 the law of nations in seeking to realize whenever an oppor- 
 
 * The narrative of the Russian subjects. In 1700 Khan Shah Niiiz 
 Expedition to Khiva, translated by paid voluntary homage to Russia ; in 
 Mr. Michell, asserts this claim cate- 1703, Khan Aran-Na'amet did the 
 gorieally in numerous passages. The same ; from 1741, Abul Khair Khan 
 following is an example: — "Thus, and his son, Nur Ali, both Russian 
 from the very commencement of the subjects, ruled over Khiva till 1750 ; 
 eighteenth century the Khivans had and Khan Kaip, another Russian sub- 
 chosen five Khans who were Russian ject, held the same position from 1770 
 
 L 
 
146 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. HE. 
 
 tunity offered. During the 18th century five different rulers 
 of the country had proffered allegiance to the Russian 
 Emperor. The province, indeed, was still viewed as the 
 patrimony de jure of the Kirghiz of the Little Horde who had 
 been Russian subjects since 1730, and the present Uzbeg 
 occupants, whose rule only dated from the beginning of the 
 19th century, were regarded as intruders. The interference, 
 therefore, of any other European power in the affairs of Khiva 
 was almost equivalent, in her estimate, to fomenting rebellion 
 in her own empire ; but it was not only on the territorial 
 question that Russia adopted a tone which to us appears 
 extravagant. She also seemed to consider that her geogra- 
 phical position gave her a claim to the monopoly of the trade 
 of Central Asia, and we accordingly find her officers on all 
 occasions resenting the proposed participation of England in 
 that trade as an invasion of Russian rights which was to be 
 opposed at all hazards. The successive travels of Moorcroft 
 and Trebeck, of Arthur Conolly, of Bailie Fraser, of Alexan- 
 der Burnes, and even of the Missionary Wolff, seem to have 
 excited the gravest suspicions. " The English," it was said in 
 reference to the state of the East in 1835, " have great faci- 
 lities for strengthening their influence in Central Asia, the 
 principal market for the manufactured goods of Russia, and 
 for doing her serious damage by establishing regular commer 
 cial relations with that country. It is only necessary indeed 
 to allow the possibility of the English supplying the Khivans 
 and the Turcomans, the nearest and most hostile neighbours 
 of Russia, as well as the Kirghiz, with arms and ammunition, 
 in order to be convinced of the necessity of counteracting the 
 schemes of England, whose agents do not even try to conceal 
 their hopes, in their published accounts, of becoming masters 
 not only of the trade between the Indus and the Hindu-Kush, 
 but likewise of the market of Bokhara, the most important of 
 Central Asia." 
 
 to 1780. Hence arises the positive right Government only sought one thing; 
 
 of Russia to the Khanat of Khiva. that is, protection for the t Russiau 
 
 Notwithstanding this indisputable trade in Central Asia," &c.,&c, 
 claim of Russia to Khiva, the Russian 
 
Oh. in.] THE EUSSIANS IN OENTEAL ASIA. 147 
 
 Now it is certain that England has always considered, and 
 does still consider, that she is entitled to exercise a fan 
 amount of influence in Central Asia, and to enjoy a fan- access 
 to the markets of Bokhara, and the other markets of that 
 region, equally with Eussia; but it is also certain that she has 
 never taken any active measures to assert or realize her right, 
 and that the apprehensions of Eussia, therefore, on this 
 score, which urged her on to an armed intervention, were 
 altogether unfounded. "What England really dreaded thirty 
 years ago, and what she had a perfect right to impede by all 
 the means in her power, was that Eussia would gradually 
 absorb, — or would, at any rate, extend her influence, either by 
 treaties or by political pressure, over — the independent coun- 
 tries intermediate between the Caspian and India, and would 
 thus complicate our position in the latter country. We may 
 have been deceived as to the extent, as well as the imminence 
 of the danger, and we undoubtedly adopted very unwise 
 measures for meeting it ; but there is no reason to question 
 the correctness of our view in principle, nor is any excuse 
 required for our having inaugurated a policy of resistance 
 which was strictly defensive. If it be borne in mind that the 
 mainsprings of action in the English and Eussian movements 
 in Central Asia from this time forward, were a feeling of poli- 
 tical jealousy on the one side, and a spirit of commercial 
 rivalry on the other, a light will be thrown on much that 
 would be otherwise unintelligible. When Lord Auckland, for 
 instance, persisted in marching an army across the Indus in 
 1838, notwithstanding that the object for which the expedition 
 was originally organised, the relief of Herat, had been already 
 accomplished by the retirement of the Shah's forces, under 
 the pressure of our demonstration in the Persian Gulf, it was 
 with the view of preventing the spread of Eussian influence to- 
 wards India. The Proclamation, indeed, of November 8, 1838, 
 stated that the main object of Lord Keane's expedition was 
 " the establishment of a permanent barrier against schemes of 
 aggression upon our north-west frontier," and Lord Auckland 
 had really at the time very plausible grounds for his alarm ; 
 for clouds appeared to be gathering on all sides. Persia had 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. in. 
 
 been entirely alienated by our interference to save Herat. 
 The Sirdars of Candahar had offered to coalesce with the 
 Shah, if the Russian ambassador at Teheran would guarantee 
 the arrangement. Dost Mahomed, exasperated at his treat- 
 ment by us, had expelled Bumes from Cabul, and was ready 
 under the inspiration of Vitkevitch, to welcome the agents, or 
 even the arms, of the Emperor. Russia was further known to 
 have been most successful in coercing the recalcitrant Kirghiz. 
 She had fairly broken ground against Khiva by arresting all 
 the Uzbeg merchants resident at Orenburg and Astracan, and 
 her intercourse with Bokhara, ever since the mission of Mons. 
 Demaison, in 1834, and the unaccredited visit of Vitkevitch in 
 1835,* was understood to be of the most friendly character. 
 What Lord Auckland probably contemplated as the result of 
 
 * There seems to have been a strange 
 fatality attending the movements of 
 this unfortunate officer. It can hardly 
 be doubted that he visited Bokhara 
 in 1835, under instructions from the 
 Governor-General of Orenburg, yet 
 his official character was never recog- 
 nised. In Mr. Michell's published work 
 on the "Russians in Central Asia," 
 p. 436, he is spoken of as "the Russian 
 traveller Vitkevitch, who visited Bok- 
 hara in 1835 ;" and in the other work 
 on Khiva, which is not yet printed, it 
 is stated that "Vitkevitch, when sent 
 in search and for the release of two 
 Russian prisoners, reported to be 
 amongst the Kirghiz, wandering on 
 the rivers Irghiz and Turgiii, was 
 driven by a enow-storm to Bokhara, 
 from whence, however, he returned 
 in safety." It certainly must have 
 been a prodigious storm to have driven 
 before it this hardy young Polish 
 officer across the Kara-kum sands ; 
 across the Jaxartes; across the still 
 more difficult Kizil-kum desert, a dis- 
 tance of at least 700 or 800 miles from 
 the Irghiz and Turgiii rivers to Bok- 
 hara. 
 
 The biography of Vitkevitch, given 
 in the note from which this passage 
 
 is extracted, is full of interest, but we 
 doubt its entire authenticity, parti- 
 cularly in regard to the^closing scene 
 of his career. The Russian account 
 says that, "on the return of Vitke- 
 vitch to Petersburg, at the end of 
 April, 1839, he was very well received 
 by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
 by whom he was immediately recom- 
 mended for promotion in the Guards, 
 and he was rewarded by an order of 
 Knighthood and a, sum in money. 
 About- eight days after his arrival at 
 Petersburg, Vitkevitch shot himself, 
 leaving behind him a short note, in 
 which he said he had burnt all his 
 papers before his death. The cause 
 of this suicide remains hidden up to 
 the present time. "... This may be 
 compared with Kaye's account of the 
 same transaction ("History of the 
 Afghan War," Vol. I. p. 200, foot note), 
 in which it is distinctly stated, and 
 we believe, on the authority of Prince 
 Soltikof, that Vitkevitch blew out his 
 brains and destroyed his papers in 
 consequence of the chilling reception 
 lie met with from Count Nesselrode, 
 and the conviction he derived from it, 
 that he was to be disavowed and 
 sacrificed, 
 
Cu. III.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTEAL ASIA. 149 
 
 this menacing combination, was the immediate establishment 
 of a Eussian mission at Cabul, and the opening of friendly 
 relations between the Emperor and Runjeet Singh, and who shall 
 say that the Governor- General was in error in judging that such 
 a demonstration, backed by the whole weight of Mahommedan 
 Persia, required to be arrested by energetic measures of self- 
 defence? That the measures which he did adopt were unsuited 
 to the occasion, and failed as much from their impracticable 
 character as from lamentable faults of execution, is a matter 
 upon which history has already pronounced its verdict, and of 
 which, therefore, it is useless here to reopen the discussion. 
 
 Closely following on our own occupation of Afghanistan, 
 occurred the famous expedition of Perofski against Khiva. 
 This expedition had long been contemplated. As a measure 
 of mere frontier police, and irrespective of all considerations of 
 external policy, it was urgently needed. With the exception, 
 indeed, of the claim of prescriptive " suzerainty " over Khiva, 
 dating from the proffered allegiance of the old Kirghiz rulers, 
 there was not a single weak point in the Eussian bill of indict- 
 ment. The Uzbegs of Khiva, either directly or through the 
 Turcomans and Kirghiz who obeyed them, had for years com- 
 mitted every conceivable atrocity against the Eussian govern- 
 ment. To man-stealing and raids upon the friendly Kirghiz 
 were added the constantly recurring plunder of caravans ; 
 attacks upon the Eussian outpost ; burdens upon trade, which 
 weighed it to the ground; outrages upon Eussian subjects 
 who ventured into the country; indignities to the government; 
 and finally a systematic course of agitation in the Steppe, 
 undertaken with a view of inciting the Kirghiz to rebellion. 
 The provocation, indeed, offered by Khiva was not less com- 
 plete as a "casus belli" than the invasion of India by the Sikhs, 
 which led to the battles of Firoz-shahr and Sobraon, and ter- 
 minated in our own annexation of the Punjab ; but curiously 
 enough, blending with these legitimate grounds for hostility, 
 and not improbably of superior weight in determining the 
 precise time of attack, there was the old feeling of commercial 
 rivalry with England. Perofski, it is true, in his proclamation 
 of November 26, 1839, merely stated that one of his objects 
 
150 ENGLAND AND BUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Cm III. 
 
 was " to strengthen in that part of Asia the lawful influence to 
 which Eussia has a right, and which alone can ensure the 
 maintenance of peace;" but in the Eussian account of the 
 expedition, translated by Mr. Michell, the sore point is laid 
 bare, without any attempt at diplomatic glozing. The object 
 is there stated to be " to establish, not the dominion, but the 
 strong influence of Eussia in the neighbouring Khanats, for 
 the reciprocal advantages of trade, and to prevent the influence 
 of the East India Company, so dangerous to Eussia, from tak- 
 ing root in Central Asia." In fact, Eussia desired to redress 
 the balance which had been so rudely shaken by our advance 
 to Cabul; and what is still more remarkable, as an evidence ot 
 her morbid apprehension both of the designs and the power of 
 England, she actually anticipated, by several months, the 
 previously arranged date for the departure of the expedition, 
 dreading lest in the interim English agents should penetrate 
 to Khiva, and, like Eldred Pottinger at Herat, should incite 
 the Uzbegs to a more determined resistance.* 
 
 We cannot here afford space to follow out the details of the 
 expedition. The narrative translated by Mr. Michell, and 
 compiled from official sources, is replete with interest, both in 
 a military and political point of view. It is very instructive in 
 the first place to find that a force of 5000 men (3000 infantry 
 and 2000 cavalry), with 22 field guns, and 4 rocket stands, was 
 considered sufficient for the reduction of a country which is 
 said to have a fixed population of about 500,000 souls, and to 
 be supported by an equal number of tributary nomades. And 
 it speaks well again for Eussian providence and humanity that 
 upwards of 10,000 camels should have been provided for the 
 carriage of the camp equipage and the ordnance and commis- 
 sariat stores of this little army, six months' rations for each 
 
 * The object is thus stated in the of any other Central Asiatic rulers 
 
 narrative of the expedition to Khiva. being induced to join Khiva by means 
 
 "It was therefore, of the greatest of threats or promises of reward that 
 
 importance to hasten the expedition might be employed by the English 
 
 for the punishment of Khiva, so as to agents." The departure of the expedi- 
 
 prevent the English from supporting tion was originally fixed for April, 1840, 
 
 the resistance of this Khanat against whereas it actually left Orenburg in 
 
 Russia, and to anticipate the possibility November, 1839. 
 
Oh. HI.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTEAL ASIA. 151 
 
 man, besides a liberal allowance of warm clothing and com- 
 forts, being carried with the force ; although the distance to be 
 traversed was only 1000 miles — about the same distance as the 
 interval between Karachi and Cabul — and the march was not 
 calculated to require more than three months, at most, for its 
 performance. 
 
 In real truth the expedition, considering the season selected 
 for its march, seems to have been too well appointed, and to 
 have broken down in consequence. To have attempted, indeed, 
 to carry with so small a force an unwieldy mass of ten thousand 
 camels across the desolate tract of the Ust-Urt in mid-winter, 
 when the ground was covered with snow, and there was no 
 atom of herbage to be seen for many hundreds of miles, argues 
 the most extraordinary confidence in the power of discipline .to 
 overcome difficulties, or the most culpable ignorance of the 
 physical features of the country to be traversed. As is well 
 known, Perofski's force, after advancing into the middle of the 
 desert, became completely crippled, and was obliged to retrace 
 its steps to Orenburg, with the loss of a very considerable por- 
 tion of its " materiel " and men. The exceptional severity of 
 the season is usually alleged as the cause of this unexpected 
 failure ; but it may be doubted if, under the most favourable 
 circumstances of weather and climate, a force composed as 
 Perofski's was could have crossed the steppe from the Emba to 
 the Khivan frontier. On the other hand, an Indian general, 
 of the school of Sir Charles Napier or of Sir Hugh Eose, 
 would probably have found little difficulty in pushing across 
 the waste, with the assistance of the friendly Kirghiz, a suc- 
 cession of flying columns, equipped in the lightest manner 
 consistent with safety, and capable of holding then- ground 
 after reaching the cultivated land until a sufficient force had 
 been concentrated for an offensive movement in advance ; so 
 that we do not consider the problem of the Eussian subjugation 
 of Khiva by a direct movement either from Orenburg or Orsk 
 to be at all solved by Perofski's failure.* 
 
 * (The views that are hereexpressed expedition against Khiva, the column, 
 have received full confirmation from under General Verefskin, which 
 the experience of the recent Russian marched direct from Orenburg, 
 
152 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh: HI. 
 
 There are officers still living who were on the point of start- 
 ing for General Perofski's camp — where, however, they would 
 hardly have been very welcome visitors — when the report of 
 the Eussian discomfiture first reached the English head- 
 quarters at Cabul ; and they well remember that the news was 
 received, not with exultation, but certainly with a feeling of 
 intense relief; for we were then preparing to occupy Syghan, 
 on the Northern slope of the Hindu-Kush, and a further 
 advance on Bokhara, for the purpose of dislodging Dost 
 Mahomed and his son Ackbar Khan, was being much can- 
 vassed ; so that it really seemed, as Baron Brunnow is said to 
 have remarked to the then president of the Board of Control, 
 "that the Sepoy and the Cossack were about to meet on the 
 banks of the Oxus ; " and a collision of this nature, although 
 not unpleasing to the army, was viewed by sober diplomatists 
 almost with dismay ; since, however it might have terminated, 
 it could not fail to bring on an irretrievable complication of 
 our relations with Central Asia. 
 
 So impressed, indeed, were our authorities at this time with 
 a sense of the importance of preserving the independence of 
 the Uzbeg principalities, in order to prevent the contact of 
 Eussian and English power, that every effort was made to 
 remove those grievances which had drawn the Eussian hos- 
 tility upon Khiva, and which might at any moment involve 
 Bokhara, and even Kokand, in a similar danger. Stoddart 
 had been originally sent to Bokhara by McNeill on the retire- 
 ment of the Persian army from Herat in the summer of 1838, 
 
 through the TJst-TJrt being the only "The Orenburg Expedition, there- 
 portion of the force, whose operations fore, which had been assented to 
 were thoroughly successful. The merely to protect the Steppe against 
 following extract from the report the Turcomans, was the only expedi- 
 of Mr. Schuyler, Secretary to the tion which found a good road, met 
 United States' Legation at St. Peters- with few disasters, beat the enemy, 
 burg, who, although he did not ac- arrived safely and captured the city, 
 company the expedition, was travel- Had the action of the authorities at 
 ling in Turkestan at the time and Orenburg been followed at first, no 
 obtained full information on all other expedition would have been 
 matters of detail, is decisive as to the necessary, and Khiva would have 
 superior advantages of the Orenburg been taken quietly without noise and 
 route over all others for marching the consequent diplomatic unpleasant- 
 troops upon Khiva. ness."— 1874.) 
 
Oh. in.] THE KTTSSIANS IN OENTEAL ASIA. • 153 
 
 upon an errand of this nature. He was to endeavour to per- 
 suade the Amir to liberate the Eussian prisoners still held- 
 in captivity by his subjects, and to abstain from any other 
 provocation, either through unjust exactions upon trade, or 
 through the encouragement heretofore held out to the Turco- 
 mans to pursue their kidnapping practices upon the Caspian 
 and along the Orenburg line, by permitting the purchase of 
 Eussian slaves in the Bokhara Market. Conolly, who followed 
 in 1840, had general instructions of the same nature in regard 
 to the Khanats of Khiva and Kokand, to which, however, he 
 superadded a certain philanthropic policy of his own ; for being 
 naturally of an enthusiastic nature, and having a confidence in 
 the force of a just cause, which the Uzbeg character hardly 
 justified, he seriously proposed to bind the respective Govern- 
 ments of Khiva, Kokand, and Bokhara, by a tripartite obliga- 
 tion to each other, to abandon the slave-trade altogether, and to 
 cultivate friendly relations both with the Eussian and the 
 Persian Governments. It was in Khiva, however, that the 
 danger of a renewed Eussian intervention appeared especially 
 imminent, since the grievances which had led to the late attack 
 remained unredressed ; * and thither accordingly were succes- 
 sively despatched by Major Todd, Envoy at Herat, the British 
 officer nearest to the scene of action, his two assistants, James 
 Abbott and Eichmond Shakespeare. James Abbott appears to 
 have exceeded his instructions, which only referred to the 
 liberation of the Eussian slaves, and to have given just cause 
 of umbrage to a friendly Power, by proposing, after the fashion 
 of the days of Malcolm and Elphinstone, that Eussians should 
 
 * (Russia, however, appears to have the countries conterminous with 
 
 been so disheartened by the Khiva Russia on the South-East. Abetter 
 
 failure, that she really formed an ex- acquaintance with the regions of 
 
 aggerated estimate of the difficulty of Central Asia must long since have 
 
 extending her frontier in this direc- shown the world the impracticability 
 
 tion. The official narrative at any of all ideas of conquest in this quarter, 
 
 rate of Perofski's Expedition termi- even if they ever existed." Subse- 
 
 nates with these remarkable words : quent events have shown how entirely 
 
 " The cause of the jealousy and mis- the Eussian Government mistook or 
 
 trust with which the conduct of misstated the real bearing of the 
 
 Russia was received in Europe, pro- question.— 1874.) 
 ceeded from a complete ignorance of. 
 
154 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. in. 
 
 be permanently excluded from the province, an offensive and 
 -defensive alliance with England being suggested as a reward 
 for thus breaking with the common enemy. Of course any 
 such extreme measures were repudiated as soon as reported to 
 head-quarters, and the Mission of Kichmond Shakespeare was 
 undertaken mainly to repair Abbott's mistake. Shakespeare, 
 however, arriving at Khiva at a very favourable moment, when 
 the Khan had, for the first time, begun to realize the extent of 
 the danger he incurred in continuing to brave the power of 
 Russia, succeeded in bringing about the long-pending restora- 
 tion of the slaves, and himself escorted the liberated band, 
 numbering four hundred men, from Khiva to Orenburg.* 
 Now it would be difficult to find anything in these proceedings 
 injurious, or even derogatory, to Russia. With the exception, 
 indeed, of Abbott's unauthorised overtures, there was nothing 
 that a friendly Power might not with perfect propriety have 
 undertaken in relation to its Ally ; yet Russia took grievous 
 offence at the whole train of negociation. She seemed to 
 consider that the interposition of England in her behalf was 
 almost an insult ; that she was humiliated by accepting of any 
 favour at our hands ; and she thus refuses to the present day 
 to admit that she was indebted to Shakespeare's intercession 
 for the recovery of her kidnapped subjects. f The extreme 
 
 * (It is worthy of special remark, which numbered 5000 men, had the 
 
 that in the official Russian report of effect of bringing the Khan to his 
 
 Perofski's Expedition translated by senses, though temporarily. In the 
 
 Mr. Michell, the name even of summer of 1840 he released all the 
 
 Shakespeare is not mentioned, the Kussian prisoners. Shakespeare, an 
 
 liberation of the Russian prisoners English officer, who had arrived at 
 
 being ascribed solely to the Khan Khiva from Cabul in 1839, undertook 
 
 Hazrat's fears, and Cornet Aitof to conduct the prisoners to Russia ; " 
 
 being given the exclusive credit of ("Russians in Central Asia, : ' p. 549); 
 
 conducting the party to Orenburg. and in a still more disparaging spirit, 
 
 The only published account of Mr. MichelTs second volume says 
 
 Shakespeare's journey is in the June '"Both these agents (Abbott and 
 
 number of Blackwood's Magazine for Shakespeare) strove to take an active 
 
 1842 —1874 ) P ar * * n *k e R uss i an affairs with 
 
 t Mr. Ktihlewein, who was Secre- Khiva ; especially Shakespeare, who 
 
 tary to General Ignatief's Mission to wished to take credit for the release 
 
 Khiva in 1858, thus refers to Pe. of the Russian prisoners. These, 
 
 rof ski's Expedition. " The expedition however, prior to his arrival at 
 
Oh. Ill;] 
 
 THE EUSSIANS IN CENTEAL ASIA. 
 
 155 
 
 sensitiveness, indeed, which she has betrayed upon this sub- 
 ject can only be explained by her pretension to exclusive 
 relations with the Uzbeg principalities, both commercial and 
 political ; a pretension which of course has never been recog- 
 nised by England, and which it may yet be of national import- 
 ance to us distinctly to disavow. 
 
 Among the many curious revelations in Mr. Michell's 
 volume on Khiva, there is one of unusual interest at the 
 present time from its bearing on passing events. It is stated 
 to have been determined by the Emperor, in the event of 
 Perofski's complete success, not to bring the country under 
 the direct jurisdiction of Kussia, but merely to rule vicariously 
 through a Kirghiz nominee.* There are, it appears, several 
 families among the Kirghiz-Kazzaks of the Little Horde 
 dependent upon Eussia which claim to be of the "White bone" 
 as lineal descendants of Jenghiz Khan, and these families, 
 
 Khiva, had been collected and regis- 
 tered by the Russian Cornet Aitof." 
 Now Shakespeare was doubtless 
 favoured by circumstances, but still 
 it was mainly owing to his individual 
 energy, tempered by discretion, that 
 the Russian prisoners were allowed to 
 leave Khiva ; and he is fully entitled 
 therefore to the credit of having 
 effected their liberation. 
 
 * It seems that a special commis- 
 sion was appointed to consider and 
 report on an Expedition to Khiva; 
 and that the Emperor on March 24, 
 1839, approved of the following 
 measures which had been recom- 
 mended by the committee. 
 
 " 1. To commence at once the orga- 
 nisation of an expedition against 
 Khiva, and to establish the necessary 
 depSts and stations on the route 
 without delay. 
 
 "2. To conceal the real object of 
 the expedition, which should be given 
 out as a scientific expedition to the 
 Aral Sea. 
 
 "3. To postpone the departure ot 
 the expedition until after the settle- 
 
 ment of English matters in Afghan- 
 istan, in order that the influence and 
 impression of the Russian proceedings 
 might have more weight in Central 
 Asia ; and that England, in conse- 
 quence of her own conquests, might 
 no longer have any ground for calling 
 on the Russian Government for expla- 
 nations. On no account, however, to 
 delay the expedition later than the 
 spring of 1840. 
 
 "4. In the event of the expedition 
 terminating successfully, to replace 
 the Khan of Khiva by a trustworthy 
 Kazzak Sultan ; to establish order 
 and security as far as possible ; to re- 
 lease all the prisoners and to give full 
 freedom to the Russian trade. 
 
 "5 To assign 425,000 silver rubles 
 and 12,000 gold ducats for the ex- 
 penses of the expedition." 
 
 It is further curious to compare the 
 estimated expenses of the Russian ex- 
 pedition, which are here given at 
 about 70,0002., with the actual ex- 
 penses of our own Afghan expedition, 
 amounting from first to last to about 
 15,000,000?. sterling, 
 
156 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. III. 
 
 which had supplied Governors to the Khivan territory in the. 
 last century, still retain a powerful hold on the respect and 
 veneration of the Nomades. If one of these Sultans, then, 
 combining the requirement of undoubted fidelity to the Em- 
 peror with an hereditary claim on the affections of the 
 Khivans, had been raised to the "White felt" ("Vambery's 
 Travels," p. 387), it would have been a wise, and probably a 
 successful, solution of the difficulty; inasmuch as it would 
 have secured to Russia the full advantage of political supre- 
 macy without the expense or the danger of a permanent 
 military occupation. And arguing from the known to the 
 unknown, it may ' thus fairly be inferred that, should the 
 Russian arms in Central Asia attain that dominant position 
 which is promised by their hitherto unchecked career, there is 
 reserved for all the three Uzbeg States an intermediate stage 
 of tributary dependence upon Russia under Kirghiz rulers, 
 before their final incorporation in the Empire.* 
 
 There can be no doubt that these demonstrations and 
 counter-demonstrations of the great European Governments 
 powerfully affected the Uzbegs. Bokhara had ever been less 
 inimical to Russia than the sister States of Khiva and Kokand. 
 While she continued, indeed, to overtax Russian trade, and 
 even held Russian subjects in slavery, she still kept up an 
 appearance of friendliness, and despatched frequent Envoys to 
 St. Petersburg. It thus happened that, in compliance with an 
 urgent appeal from the Amir, who was seriously alarmed at 
 the position of the English in Cabul, a singularly well-appointed 
 Russian Mission found itself at Bokhara in 1842. The real 
 object of this Mission — which was presided over by Colonel 
 Butenef, and which numbered among its members Mons. Nic. 
 
 * (During the nine years which have through the instrumentality of the 
 
 elapsed since this forecast of Russian native chiefs than to introduce foreign 
 
 policy was sketched, all its anticipa- rulers from the Kirghiz tribes. At 
 
 tions have been realized, except in one the same time this condition of affairs 
 
 particular. Russia has obtained a, is avowedly provisional, and will ter- 
 
 dominant position in all the Khanates, minate when the war party at St. 
 
 and has reduced them to a state of Petersburg is strong enough to carry 
 
 tributary dependence, but she has out its programme of annexation 
 
 found it more convenient to govern —1874.) 
 
Oh. III.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 157 
 
 de Khannikof, who was even then an accomplished Orientalist, 
 together with Lehrnann the naturalist,* and special officers 
 for the contemplated mining and exploring operations, — was 
 to repair the damage caused by Perofski's failure. Bokhara, 
 in fact, was to be made, through political influence, to subserve 
 — though, perhaps, in a minor degree — the same purpose in 
 regard to Russia, as Afghanistan had been made to subserve 
 in regard to British India, by military power ; and it is not 
 improbable, if all had gone on smoothly at Cabul, that Butenef 
 might have succeeded in his object. But storms were now 
 gathering around that city, and the effect at Bokhara was to 
 involve English and Russians in a common disgrace. No 
 sooner, indeed, was the news of the murder of Burnes and 
 Macnaghten and the insurrection at Cabul known at Bokhara, 
 than Stoddart, and Conolly, who had recently joined him, 
 were consigned to a rigorous imprisonment, from which, 
 after months of suffering, they were led forth to public 
 execution; while, the necessity of Russian mediation or 
 support having passed away with the danger of an English 
 invasion, Butenef was in the mean time dismissed with studied 
 disrespect, and the various proposed arrangements which were 
 " to strengthen Russian influence and to develope Russian 
 trade in this part of Asia," were one and all scattered to the 
 winds. 
 
 One of the most remarkable portions of Mr. Michell's 
 miscellaneous volume is the 11th chapter, containing M. 
 Zalesoff's account of the diplomatic relations between Russia 
 and Bokhara from 1836 to 1843. The narrative of Colonel 
 Butenef's mission, in 1841, is of especial interest, for it not 
 only places us, as it were, behind the Russian scenes during 
 the most eventful phases of our own Afghan occupation, but it 
 also presents us with a report by an eye-witness of many 
 details relating to the captivity of Stoddart — that most me- 
 
 * (Khannikof and Lehmann both had appeared previously, and was 
 
 published papers, giving the scientific afterwards published in London in an 
 
 results of their Bokharian experiences English version by the Baron de Bodg, 
 
 at St. Petersburg in 1851, but a under the title of "Bokhara: its 
 
 popular work of the former author Ameer and its People. 1845."— 1874) 
 
158 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. HI. 
 
 lancholy episode of a period fraught with error and misfortune 
 — which were before but imperfectly known to any of us, and 
 which are now for the first time rendered accessible to the 
 ordinary English reader. That the Eussian Government had 
 throughout exerted itself to the utmost to obtain Stoddart's 
 release has been frequently stated on the best authority, and 
 that Col. Butenef would, on his arrival at Bokhara, carry out 
 his renewed instructions on this head with loyalty and firm- 
 ness, was no more, perhaps, than might be expected ; but the 
 terms in which the Eussian envoy notified his success to his 
 colleague at Khiva are entirely new to us, and deserve to be 
 specially recorded, because they convey a spontaneous and 
 most favourable tribute to the personal qualities of the British 
 officer, a tribute indeed all the more 'striking, that the two 
 agents, representing adverse systems of policy, must neces- 
 sarily have regarded each other with feelings of official mis- 
 trust.- " Lieut.-Colonel Stoddart," says the Eussian envoy, in 
 his Eeport to Nikiforof, at Khiva, " a very clever, well- 
 educated, and agreeable man, has, to my great pleasure, been 
 removed this day to the house we occupy; " and in this house, 
 as the honoured guest of the Eussian mission, did Colonel 
 Stoddart dwell for a period of two months, during which time 
 he was at any moment at liberty to have taken his departure 
 to Orenburg.* Lord Clanricarde, indeed, our Ambassador at 
 
 * Mr. Kaye, whose chapter on the Conolly's captivity, which is, to say 
 
 Bokhara tragedy is one of the most the least of it, embarrassing. Kaye, 
 
 thrilling portions of his classic work calculating from Conolly's letter of 
 
 on the Afghan war, was evidently not March, 11, 1842, which is stated to 
 
 aware of this intimacy between the be the 83rd day of the captivity, 
 
 Eussian and English envoys. The only shows that the two officers must have 
 
 evidence, indeed, which he could ob- been thrown into prison about the 
 
 tain on the subject was the statement 17th of December ; whereas Butenef 
 
 of a servant that "There was an am- would antedate the event by at least 
 
 bassador at this time from the Russian a month; but in truth the Russian 
 
 Government at Bokhara, who came dates are not only irreconcilable with 
 
 twice to see the English gentlemen the English dates, but with each 
 
 who also visited him." ("Afghan other; for Butenef reports in one 
 
 War " Vol II. p. 506). We may also letter that " ConoUy was arrested on 
 
 notice a discrepancy between the dates his arrival at Bokhara in October," 
 
 riven by the two authorities for the whilst in other Reports he says that 
 
 commencement of Stoddart and the Amir only returned from Kokand 
 
Oh. HI.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 159 
 
 St. Petersburg, had urged him to adopt this mode of escape 
 from the country; but a nice — most persons will say an 
 exaggerated — feeling of honour forbad him to acquiesce. It 
 was inconsistent, he thought, with the dignity of England, 
 and consequently with his own duty as a British officer, that 
 he should owe his liberation to the intercession of a foreign 
 Government. He preferred to wait until the British Govern- 
 ment could interfere directly in his behalf; but that oppor- 
 tunity never occurred. In the middle of November, as already 
 stated, he was, on receipt of the Cabul news, a second time 
 thrown into prison, and although the sojourn of the Bussians 
 at Bokhara was prolonged till the following April, they never 
 again could obtain access to the English prisoners, nor exert 
 any influence on their fate. During the latter part of their 
 stay, indeed, they were even apprehensive of sharing Colonel 
 Stoddart's captivity. 
 
 For several years subsequent to the Afghan war there was a 
 lull in Central Asia. Nikiforof had visited Khiva at the same 
 time that Butenef had been despatched to Bokhara, and they 
 had both sought to place the Uzbeg States under treaty obli- 
 gations to Bussia ; but the moment was not propitious. A 
 year later, that is in 1842, — while " the avenging army " was 
 doing its work at Cabul, Colonel Danilevski made another 
 attempt ; and on this occasion he succeeded in concluding, 
 for the first time, a direct treaty between Bussia and Khiva. 
 The precise terms of the Danilevski treaty are nowhere given, 
 but it is understood to have provided for the due protection of 
 the Bussian trade ; for an entire cessation of slave dealing, 
 and for restraining the Turcomans, Kara-Kalpaks, and 
 Southern Kirghiz, from all inroads on the Bussian territory 
 or molestation of Bussian subjects ; and it is only fair to say 
 that until Bussia, five years later, proceeded to establish a 
 military station on the Sir-Daria, or Jaxartes, and thus under- 
 took to exercise a control over tribes, hitherto dependent 
 
 on November 7 ; and that he then Russia. These perhaps are small 
 
 promised the Russian envoy, before points, but they are important as tests 
 
 the arrest of the British officers, that of trustworthiness, 
 they should accompany him back to 
 
160 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. in. 
 
 upon Khiva, the Uzbegs of the Oxus observed with suf- 
 ficient fidelity the stipulations that had been imposed on 
 them. During this same period, too, commenced that 
 internecine conflict between Kokand and Bokhara, which, 
 up to the present time, has raged with varying intensity, 
 and in more ways than one has facilitated the Eussian 
 advance. 
 
 3. We have now arrived at a point in the recent history of 
 Central Asia, where a more careful record must be observed 
 of facts, and a more careful consideration must be given, both 
 to -motives and results, than have been attempted in the 
 earlier stages of the inquiry. It was in 1847, contempor- 
 aneously with our final conquest of the Punjab, that the cur- 
 tain rose on the aggressive" Eussian drama ha Central Asia, 
 which is not yet played out. Eussia had enjoyed the nominal 
 dependency of the Kirghiz-Kazz£ks of the Little Horde, who 
 inhabited the western division of the Great Steppe, since 
 1730 ; but except in the immediate vicinity of the Orenburg 
 line she had little real control over the tribes. In 1847-48, 
 however, she erected three important fortresses in the very 
 heart of the Steppe ; the Karabutak and Ural forts on the 
 Irghiz river, intermediate between. Orsk and the Aral Sea, 
 and the Orenburg Fort on the Turgai river, where the 
 great caravan route from the Jaxartes bifurcates to Orsk 
 and to Troitska. These important works., the only per- 
 manent constructions which had been hitherto attempted 
 south of the line — excepting the Mangishlak Fort, on the 
 Caspian, and the Emba and Ak-Bulak entrenchments 
 thrown out as supports to the expedition against Khiva, 
 and afterwards abandoned — enabled Eussia for the first 
 time to dominate the western portion of the Steppe, 
 and to command the great routes of communication with 
 Central Asia; but the Steppe forts were after all a mere 
 means to an end ; they formed the connecting link between 
 the old frontier of the empire and the long-coveted line 
 of the Jaxartes, and simultaneously therefore with their 
 erection arose the fortification of Eaimsk, near the em- 
 bouchure of the river, subsequently called Aralsk, or " the fort 
 
CH.ni.] THE ETJSSIANS IN OENTEAL ASIA, .161 
 
 of the Aral," and now bearing the official designation of 
 Fort No. 1.* 
 
 In the manifesto which Eussia has lately presented to the 
 various Courts of Europe in explanation of her Central-Asian 
 policy, she has traced with some ingenuity the successive steps 
 by which a civilized Government, in contact with nomadic 
 tribes, may be compelled to advance in the mere interests of 
 order, and without any aggressive tendency whatever. She 
 undertakes to show that the territory inhabited by a migratory 
 population is an impossible frontier for a fixed Government ; 
 that there is no resource, indeed, but to push on, until a point 
 is reached where the limitary nations are sufficiently advanced 
 in social organization to admit of definite relations being estab- 
 lished with them. The argument seems to be made for the 
 occasion, rather than to be of general application, and is, 
 besides, strained to an extreme point to furnish the required 
 ground of justification. It is quite conceivable that the occu- 
 pation of the valley of the Jaxartes may have been judged by 
 the Emperor Nicholas to be indispensable to the due develop- 
 ment of Russian power in Central Asia, and indeed it is well 
 known that this has been the traditional creed of the empire 
 since the days of Ivan Vasilevitch ; but it is impossible to 
 admit that the southern skirt of the Great Steppe is in reality 
 a more defensible barrier against aggression than the northern 
 skirt ; and it is really pushing the prerogative of civilization to 
 an absurd extent to pretend that it was necessary for the legi- 
 timate exercise of trade, or in the general interests of humanity, 
 to assume the goverment of 2,500,000t independent Kirghiz. 
 
 * (Fort No. 1 does not occupy the he includes the Kara-Kirghiz, or 
 
 exact position of the original fortified Buruts, whom he persists in regarding 
 
 work of Aralsk, but is in the imme- as a portion of the Great Horde, 
 
 diate vicinity. — 1874.) though the Russians have cod clusively 
 
 + Humboldt in his "AsieCentrale," shown that no such connexion exists, 
 
 torn. ii. p. 129, note 2, has collected In collating the English and Russian 
 
 and compared all the most reliable accounts of Turkestan it must be 
 
 evidence with regard to the strength borne in mind that we apply the 
 
 of the Kirghiz population, and the name of Kazzak alone to the Kirghiz 
 
 result of his calculation is a total of of the three hordes, called by the 
 
 2 400 000 for the aggregate of thetribes Russians Kirghiz-Kaisak ; and that 
 
 jn 1843. In this estimate, however, when we speak of the Kirghiz we 
 
 M 
 
162 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. III. 
 
 At any rate the recent British annexations in India, which are 
 alluded to in the manifesto as parallel cases, repose avowedly 
 on very different grounds, the Punjab having been forfeited, in 
 retribution for the invasion of our territory by the Sikhs, and 
 the treachery of the Amirs having, as it was always maintained, 
 led to their expulsion from Sinde. 
 
 Before tracing the Russian progress up the course of the 
 Jaxartes it may be as well to glance at the previous condition 
 of this country. At the end of the last century the Kara-Kal- 
 paks (or "black bonnets"), then a very powerful tribe, who 
 had proffered then 1 allegiance to Russia at an earlier period 
 (1723), and had furnished a ruler to Khiva, Khan Kaip, a Sul- 
 tan of the " white bone," in 1770, pitched their tents on both 
 sides of the lower portion of the river, and were regarded as 
 masters of the region. The Kirghiz of the Little Horde, who 
 were Russian subjects in name, though certainly not at that 
 time in reality, gradually dispossessed the Kara-Kalpaks, and 
 these Kirghiz were in their turn subjugated by theUzbegs of 
 Kokand, who, between the years 1817 and 1847, erected a 
 series of forts along the river from Turkestan as low down as 
 the 64th degree of longitude, from whence they levied black 
 mail on passing caravans, and exacted tribute from all the 
 nomads in the vicinity. The Khivans, too, who had always 
 claimed a right of sovereignty over the country adjoining the 
 Aral and intermediate between the mouths of the Jaxartes and 
 
 mean the Buruts, or Kara-Kirghiz, of the Kipchaks and Kirghiz. (The 
 
 usually named by the Kussians Diko- War Office Confidential Report of 
 
 kameni. It is worth observing, too, 1873 has the following passage on the 
 
 that the Kipchaks, who, according to Russian subjugation of the Kirghiz 
 
 Vambery, confirmed as he is by. the tribes. " In a work of much research 
 
 reports of the recent English envoys, on the subject by L. Oliphant, he 
 
 form the most influential section of states as the result of his investiga- 
 
 the Kokand community, are hardly tions, that the Little and Middle 
 
 mentioned by the Kussians as an in- Hordes gave in their allegiance in 
 
 dependent body ; in fact, Valikhanoff 1730-40 ; that the Middle Horde 
 
 asserts ("Kussians in Central Asia," revolted at the beginning of the reign 
 
 p. 103) that the Kipchaks, together of Catherine about 1760-70; and again 
 
 with the NaimaDS and Kitais, have to submitted towards the end of her 
 
 a great extent become incorporated reign, about 1790 ; and that the Great 
 
 with the Kara-Kirghiz, or Buruts. Horde was first subjugated during the 
 
 See also p. 89 for the common origin reign of that Empress."— 1874.) 
 
Oh. in.] THE EUSSIANS IN OENTEAL ASIA. 163 
 
 the Oxus, established, in 1846, a strong position on the Kuvan- 
 Daria, one of the chief southern arms of the Delta of the Jax- 
 artes, which took the name of "the Fort of Khoja-Niaz," from 
 its first Governor, and which besides commanding the two 
 routes through the Kizil-kum (or " red sand ") desert, lead- 
 ing respectively from the Russian frontier to. Khiva and Bok- 
 hara, also effectually controlled the Kirghiz in their migrations 
 to the south of the river. "When the Russians, therefore, by 
 direction of General Obruchev, Governor- General of Oren- 
 burg, first planted their foot on the Jaxartes, both the Khivans 
 and the Kokandis at once took the alarm and commenced a 
 series of desultory hostilities, sometimes against the Russian 
 detachments traversing the Steppe from Orenburg and Orsk, 
 sometimes against the Kirghiz who assisted their advance. 
 In fact, from this time, Danilevski's treaty of 1842 must be 
 considered to have been virtually abrogated, the Khivans on 
 the Kokand frontier resorting to every sort of opposition short 
 of an open declaration of war. 
 
 In the meantime the Russian progress was necessarily slow. 
 Notwithstanding the support afforded to troops crossing the 
 Steppe from the Orenburg line, by the Ural Fort upon the 
 Irghiz, there was still a tract of considerable difficulty to the 
 southward of that point, and skirting the north-eastern shores 
 of the Aral, across which all the Russian convoys and detach- 
 ments must necessarily pass in their onward march to the 
 Jaxartes. This tract has been hitherto but very imperfectly 
 understood. By some it has been supposed to be almost im- 
 passable : by others it has been deemed so easy as to be 
 called "the highway to India." In reality the road across it 
 is in no way comparable, either in length or in difficulty, to the 
 desert portion of any of the other Steppe routes, leading to 
 Khiva westward of the Aral, or more to the eastward to Fort 
 Perofski or Tashkend. The Kara-kum, or "black sands," 
 which enclose the Aral to the north-east, are not traversed on 
 this line from north to south, but are merely skirted on their 
 •western border, and the worst part of the road, — the only 
 really bad part indeed — is its lower portion which crosses the 
 saline Steppe from the extreme corner of the Aral to the bed 
 
 M 2 
 
164 ENGLAND AND BUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Cn. III. 
 
 of the Jaxartes. The utmost extent, moreover, of this difficult 
 portion, bordering the Kara-kum Desert, is under two hundred 
 miles ; and even here, according to the Russian description of 
 the route, translated by Mr. Michell, "wells exist at every 
 stage in sufficient numbers for the supply of considerable cara- 
 vans."* While therefore, owing to the limited supply of water 
 and to a general scarcity of forage along the entire route, it 
 may be held to be impassable to any large number of troops 
 marching in a united body, there would not seem to be any 
 serious hindrance to the passage of detachmemts of moderate 
 strength ; and in fact it is along this track, which is every- 
 where practicable to wheeled carriages, that have passed, not 
 only the troops, supplies, artillery, ammunition, and stores 
 belonging to the Russian field-force and garrisons now serving 
 on the Jaxartes, but also the boilers, iron plates, machinery, 
 and heavy armament of the steamers and vessels of war that 
 were put together at Fort Aralsk. 
 
 Simultaneously with the erection of the fortress of Aralsk 
 the Russians prepared to launch a small flotilla which might 
 occupy the sea of Aral and facilitate the further ascent of the 
 Jaxartes. Three small vessels, accordingly, which were built 
 at Orenburg and afterwards taken to pieces and transported 
 overland to the Jaxartes, first carried the Russian flag upon 
 this inland sea in 1847-48. They were followed in due course 
 by two iron steamers, which, being constructed originally in 
 Sweden, were then passed on in pieces via Petersburg to 
 Samara, on the Wolga, and ultimately to Aralsk, where they 
 were put together and launched in 1852 ; the total cost of the 
 two vessels, including their conveyance to the Jaxartes and 
 the salaries of the artisans employed in constructing them, 
 amounting to no more than 7400Z. Having thus prepared a 
 secondary base of some strength on the Sea of Aral, Russia 
 proceeded to put in execution her great scheme of occupying 
 
 * "Russians in Central Asia,'' p. Fort or Aralsk near the mouth of the 
 
 130. In tracing the routes and Jaxartes ; for, throughout the work 
 
 marches described in Mr. Michell's in question, the orthography of Aralsk 
 
 work, great care must be taken to. is employed for both positions indiffer- 
 
 distin'guish between the Ural Fort or ently. See particularly pp. 340, 370, 
 
 Uralsk, on the Irghiz, -and the Aral and 391, 
 
Oh. III.] THE EUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA.' 165 
 
 the lower portion of the valley of the Jaxartes, her avowed 
 object being to establish, in the first place, a line of fortresses 
 along the river as far as the point where the Kara-tau range 
 sinks into the desert, and from thence to supply other links, 
 either along the old frontier of the Chu or by the more 
 southern line of the Talas, which should connect the Jaxartes 
 chain with the eastern settlements about the Issi-kul. In this 
 arrangement she professed to recognise-no territorial encroach- 
 ment, as her own Kirghiz already camped on the right bank of 
 the Jaxartes, and the Chu had been adopted long previously 
 as the .southern frontier of the Steppe ; but, nevertheless, 
 there is no doubt that the Uzbegs of Kokand, who were then 
 in possession of the great river, considered the Eussian 
 approach as a direct invasion, while the despair of the 
 Khivans on the southern bank found vent in their piteous 
 exclamations that " if the Russians were to drink the waters 
 of the Sir-Daria with them they could no longer exist." 
 
 The principal fort on the Jaxartes, which had been con- 
 structed by the Kokandis in 1817, and had ever since domi- 
 nated the river, was named Ak-Mesjed (or the " White 
 Mosque").* It was situated at the distance of about three 
 hundred miles from the mouth of the river, and in Uzbeg esti- 
 mation was a place of very considerable strength. The first 
 offensive movement of the Russians was a reconnaissance in 
 strength against this place, an expedition being organised for 
 the purpose, the details of which are calculated to impress the 
 military reader with a very high opinion of Russian daring. 
 That a small detachment, indeed, of four hundred men, with 
 two field-pieces, should have been sent forth into an unknown 
 country, and have been directed to penetrate to a distance of 
 
 * In the Russian maps and geo- where the Imam Kaza was martyred, 
 
 graphical papers this place is usually &c. ; but Mesjed (from whence the 
 
 called Ak-Meshed, which is nonsense. corrupted form of Mosque) simply 
 
 Meshed signifies " the place of martyr- means "the place of worship," being 
 
 dom," being the locative noun of the the locative noun of the root "sajad," 
 
 root sluihad, to witness, and the name "to bow down," or "make obeisance,'' 
 
 thus very properly applied to places and is thus of much more general 
 
 like Nejjef, the scene of the martyr- application. 
 dom of Ali, Meshed in Kliorassan. 
 
166 ENGLAND AND ETJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. III. 
 
 220 miles from their base, with no support in the interval, and 
 liable to be attacked at any point of the march by overwhelm- 
 ing numbers of the enemy, would have been considered an act 
 of foolhardiness, had not the expedition been crowned with 
 signal success. The detachment being unprovided with heavy 
 guns, or scaling ladders, was unable indeed to capture the 
 inner citadel of Ak-Mesjed, which was defended by stout mud 
 walls, twenty feet high ; but it made a complete reconaissance 
 of the locality, destroyed and burnt all the outer works and 
 buildings, and, on its return-march, demolished three auxiliary 
 forts which the Kokandis held lower down the river. The 
 temper of the enemy having been thus tried, and found to be 
 far from formidable, in the summer of the next year, 1853, a 
 second expeditionary column, amounting to 1500 men, with 
 ten pieces of artillery and three mortars, — being part of a 
 much larger force which had been sent from Orenburg, 
 especially for the reduction of the Jaxartes valley,— marched 
 again from Aralsk up the river, supported on this occasion by 
 the steamer "Perofski." When the column reached Ak- 
 Mesjed, the place was found to have been so much strength- 
 ened since the reconnaissance of the previous year, as to be 
 only assailable by regular approaches. The first battery was 
 accordingly erected on July 5th, and, after three weeks labour, 
 a covered sap having been run across the ditch, and a breach 
 effected by springing a mine, the place was stormed and taken 
 by assault on the 27th of the month ; — 230 bodies of the 
 Kokandis, which were counted in the ditch and about the 
 breach, testifying to the obstinacy of the defence.* At the 
 same time that Ak-Mesjed was captured, a small detachment 
 from the Russian column took and destroyed the fort of Julek, 
 one hundred versts higher up the river ; and this was the 
 extreme point of the Russian advance for the next eight fol- 
 
 * (The first expedition against Ak- Khan, the present Amir of Kashgar 
 
 Mesjed in July 1852, was commanded is understood to have belonged to the 
 
 by Col. Blaremberg. The second ex- Ak-Mesjed "garrison, when the place 
 
 pedition, which took place a year was stormed by the Russians, and to 
 
 later (July 1853), was led by Perofski have escaped with difficulty from 
 
 in person, who imposed his own name their hands. — 1874.) 
 on the fort after its capture. Yacub 
 
Oh. III.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 167 
 
 lowing years. The object of the Eussians, indeed, seems to 
 have now been to consolidate their position, which at first was 
 far from secure, instead of attempting further conquests. For 
 some months after the loss .of Ak-Mesjed, repeated efforts were 
 made by the Kokandis to recover the place ; and on one occa- 
 sion (December 14, 1853), a pitched battle was fought under 
 the walls of the fort, in which the Kokandis were said to have 
 lost two thousand men. The Khivans also, — without avowedly 
 breaking with the Eussian authorities, — from the fort of Khoja- 
 Niaz, which flanked the Eussian line, were continually threat- 
 ening the detached forts between Aralsk and Ak-Mesjed, until 
 at length General Perofski (in 1857) deemed it necessary to 
 send a detachment to destroy the fort. Even the Bokharians, 
 although at war with Kokand, showed great dissatisfaction at 
 the Eussian advance. But the most serious impediment to 
 further progress, which assailed Eussia at this time, was the 
 unsettled state of the Steppe. A Kirghiz leader of the name of 
 Izzet Kutebar, an hereditary robber, threw the whole country 
 into disorder from the Orenburg line to the Aral ; and, for 
 five years, from 1853 to 1858, set at defiance all the Eussian 
 efforts to capture or expel him. During this interval, too, the 
 exhaustive effects of the Crimean war were felt, even at such a 
 remote point as the Jaxartes, and Eussia was only too well 
 satisfied to hold her ground, without provoking the further 
 active hostilities of the Uzbegs. Instead of extending her line 
 of forts, therefore, she merely gave them a fresh distribution 
 with a view to then - better mutual support. Fort Aralsk was 
 thus transferred to a more convenient position, at the point 
 where the Cazala branch of the Delta left the main river, and 
 was officially named, Fort No. 1, retaining, however, in the 
 country its more correct geographical title of Cazala, under 
 which name it will now be found at the passage over the Jaxartes, 
 in all the itineraries leading from Orenburg, either to Khiva or 
 Bokhara.* A second fort, called No. 2 (originally Fort Kar- 
 makchi), connected Cazala with Ak-Mesjed, which, under the 
 Eussian rule, took the name of Fort Perofski in honour of the 
 
 * See for instance the pamphlet merchants, relating their captivity at 
 published last year by the Italian silk Bokhara. Pp. 4 and 5. 
 
168 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. IN THE EAST. [Oh. IH. 
 
 Governor-General of Orenburg, who in 1853 led the famous 
 expedition against it.* Above Fort Perofski, also, another 
 position was established as late as 1861, at the old Kokandi 
 settlement of Julek ; and it is these four fortifications only, 
 Which form at the present day the Eussian line of posts along 
 the desert portion of [the Jaxartes valley. It must be remem- 
 bered, indeed, that the physical features of this river are some- 
 what remarkable. Watering with its numerous affluents in the 
 upper part of its basin one of the most fertile and delightful 
 countries in the world, and frioged throughout its course with 
 the richest cultivation, it debouches below the town of Turk- 
 estan upon a saline steppe, and its character becomes entirely 
 altered. Where the banks are high, a thin belt of jungle 
 alone separates the river from the desert ; where they are low, 
 inundations, forming reedy lagoons and impassable morasses, 
 spread for hundreds of miles over the face of the plain ; in the 
 intermediate portions alone, where the banks admit the river 
 over the adjacent lands at the time of flood, but cut off the 
 supply of water at other seasons, is there at present much cul- 
 tivation or pasturage. In such positions the lands are said to 
 be still exceedingly fertile, the irrigating waters overlaying the 
 surface with a rich alluvial loam, which, in combination with 
 the saline soil, is found to be peculiarly favourable to agricul- 
 ture. Whether Eussian engineering science, by a skilful 
 management of the waters of the river, will be able to conquer 
 the general sterility of the adjoining steppe to any appreciable 
 extent remains to be seen ; but it is certain that in all history 
 the lower basin of the river has been regarded as an irreclaim- 
 able desert, the town of Otrar, the scene of the great Timour's 
 death, and situated a short distance from Turkestan, at the 
 confluence of the Arys with the Jaxartes, being the last in- 
 habited place in the descent of the river towards the Aral.t 
 
 * (A third fort, called No. 3, had graphers for his admirable survey of 
 
 also been established at Komish- the Sea of Aral in 1849-50, recently 
 
 Kurghan, between Ak-Mesjed and submitted to the Socigte' Imperiale 
 
 No. 2, but was abandoned in 1855. — G&ographique de Bussie (December 2, 
 
 1874.) 1864) a most interesting report of his 
 
 + Admiral Boutakoff of the Eussian ascent of the river Jaxartes, for a dis- 
 
 Navy, already well known to geo- ance of 1505 versts, above 1000 milesy 
 
Ch. m.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 169 
 
 The Emperor Baber, indeed, who, as the king of the country 
 and a man of singular intelligence, ought to have been well 
 acquainted with its geography, states positively that <( the river 
 is wholly swallowed up in the sandy desert below Turkestan, 
 and disappears." 
 
 4. We must now briefly trace the march of events to the east- 
 ward. It was not merely in the country of the little Horde 
 that Eussian power had been making its way since Perofski's 
 expedition of 1839. Similar success had attended the efforts 
 made from the Siberian line to bring under control the 
 Kirghiz of the Middle Horde in the northern division of the 
 Steppe, and of the Great Horde, around Lake Balkash. The 
 Russian occupation, however, of Zungaria or the Trans-Ili 
 region, as it is usually called by them, to the south-east of 
 Lake Balkash, is of quite recent date. Fort Verno£, on the 
 site of the old Mongolian city of Ahnaty, was founded in 1854, 
 and the extension of the line to the westward, by Kastek and 
 Tokmak to the Uzbeg fort of Pishpek, was only gradually 
 effected between that time and 1862. Vernoe is one of those 
 military-agricultural colonies which Russia provides for her 
 veteran soldiers, and which, wherever they can be planted, 
 under favourable circumstances of soil and climate, give so 
 much solidity to the frontier. Between four and five thousand 
 colonists were here congregated at the outset, and their numbers 
 have since much increased, as the two great commercial routes 
 from Kokand to Kulja, west and east — and from Kashgar to 
 Semipolatinsk, south and north cross each other at this point 
 and thus attract traders to the spot. In the vicinity of Fort 
 Vernoe" and Lake Issi-kul, which is immediately to the south,* 
 
 from its embouchure to the vicinity lake ") has attracted much interest in 
 
 of Tashkend. He was unable to modern times, from the singular faot 
 
 ascend higher on account of the ex- thatinthefamousCatalanMapof 1374, 
 
 haustion of his fuel, but understood which gives the caravan route pursued 
 
 that the river continued navigable for by the Genoese traders from the 
 
 several hundred miles further on. northern shore of the Caspian to 
 
 Admiral BoutakofFs tracing of the China, an Armenian monastery is 
 
 river, verified throughout by astro- noticed to the north of the lake, ap- 
 
 nomical observation, is being now parently in the position of Almaty 
 
 published at St. Petersburg. (the modern Fort Vernoe), which ia 
 
 * Lake Issi-kul (or "the warm said to contain the body of St. Mat" 
 
170 
 
 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. III. 
 
 the Kussians first came in contact with the Kara-Kirghiz 
 or Buruts (usually named by the Kussians Dikokameni) ; 
 but neither from this tribe, whose wanderings extend from 
 Fort Vernoe over the whole Kokand territory of Badakhshan, 
 nor from the Kirghiz of the Great Horde, who, throughout the 
 south-eastern part of the steppe, are a good deal mixed up 
 with the Buruts, was any serious opposition experienced in the 
 establishment of the authority of Kussia in this remote and 
 almost unknown region. Her officers, combining the zeal of 
 explorers with the national passion for fresh acquisition, 
 surveyed and mapped, and took possession,* until the frontier 
 of the empire attained in one direction the crest of the Tian- 
 
 thew. Modern criticism is not dis- 
 posed, in default of other evidence, to 
 recognise this isolated settlement of 
 Armenian monks at a distance of 
 nearly 3000 miles from Echmiadzin, 
 but no other reasonable explanation 
 has been offered of the old Spanish 
 notice. We would suggest, however, 
 that the monastery alluded to was 
 Buddhist and Thibetan, similar to, or 
 perhaps identical with, that visited 
 by Semenoff in 1857 at Alma-Arassan, 
 near the southern shore of the lake, 
 where he found "inscriptions in 
 Thibetan characters still in excellent 
 preservation." (See " Journal of the 
 Royal Geographical Society," vol. 
 xxxi. p. 362.) (It is not impossible 
 that the story of St. Matthew brought 
 back by the Genoese traders to Europe, 
 may have originated in the name 
 of Almaty, which however in reality 
 is derived from " alma," an apple." — 
 1874.) 
 
 * A series of very excellent papers on 
 the geography of this part of Asia, by 
 Semenoff, Golubef, Abramof, and 
 Veniukof, have been translated from 
 the Russian by J. Michell, Esq., and 
 published in the 31st and 32nd volumes 
 of the Eoyal Geographical Society's 
 Journal; and others of still greater 
 interest remain untranslated. The 
 
 travels, indeed, of Wilyaminow-Ser- 
 mow (written by Michellas Veliaminof- 
 Zernof), who appears, from the ex- 
 tracts in Mr. Lumley's Trade Report, 
 to have visited most of the cities of 
 Kokand ; and the routes by which 
 Valikhanoff— the Russianised Kirghiz 
 whose adventures form the most 
 curious portion of Mr. Michell's 
 volume — passed to and fro, between 
 the Thian-shan Mountains aud 
 Kashgar, would be of surpassing 
 interest at present to the English 
 reader. It is to be hoped, also, that 
 we shall be favoured with an English 
 version of Boutakoffs survey and map 
 of the Jaxartes. (As the papers of 
 Wilyaminow-Sermow, which were 
 published at St. Petersburg in 1859, 
 have been superseded in interest by 
 the later publications of Fedchenko, 
 Schuyler and other travellers who 
 have visited Kokand under more 
 favourable circumstances, so on the 
 Kashgar frontier the scientific reports 
 of Osten-Saken and Colonel Gordon 
 have ably supplemented the easier 
 and lighter narratives of Reinthal 
 and Valikhanoff. Boutakoffs survey 
 of the Jaxartes continues however to 
 be the best, and almost the o:ily 
 authority on the subject. — 1874.) 
 
Oh. III.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 171 
 
 shan or " Celestial Mountains " overlooking Chinese Turkestan, 
 and abutted in another upon the line of forts with which the 
 Kokandis had tesselated their north-east border. 
 
 5. According to the original programme which Russia had 
 put forth, the work of reconstruction was now complete without 
 any further dislocation of territory. As her position had been 
 consolidated to the East by the settlement of Kopal, Fort 
 Vernoe, and Kastek, between the Chinese border and the 
 Kokandi outpost of Tokmak on the Chu ; and as a chain of 
 forts had been also constructed to the west, along the Jaxartes 
 from the Aral to Julek, it merely remained to establish a 
 cordon of outposts along the valley of the Chli, which should 
 connect these two flanking portions of the frontier together, in 
 order to possess the great desideratum of a continuous military 
 line to the south of the Steppe, in substitution of the old 
 Siberian line to the north. It was hardly to be expected, how- 
 ever, that Russia would remain content with the arid and 
 inhospitable line of the Chti, when, at a short distance to the 
 south beyond the Talas, which runs parallel to the Chu, and 
 along the northern slopes of the Kara-tau and Boroldai ranges, 
 a chain of forts were ready to her hand, which the Kokandis 
 had constructed to protect their own frontiers from invasion 
 from the Steppe, and to curb the predatory Kirghiz. These 
 fortresses, indeed, bearing the name of Suzak, Cholak-Kurgan, 
 Avliata,* Merke, and Pishpek, were so conveniently situated 
 for the Russian purpose as almost to invite attack. Although 
 nearly isolated from support, in no case did they surrender 
 without a struggle. At Pishpek, indeed, in October, 1862, and 
 at Avliata early in 1864, the garrisons offered a most deter- 
 mined resistance ; but eventually they one and all succumbed 
 to the Russian power. Even this advanced position, however, 
 did not now satisfy the Russian requirements. The line within 
 the Talas was still too near the desert. It failed also to 
 
 * This name is usually written in laid down by the missionaries Aroohi, 
 
 the maps Avlifi-Ata, but in the Rub- Espigny, and Hallerstein, in their 
 
 siaa official papers it appears as a astronomical survey of Turkestan, 
 
 single word, Avliata. It is supposed conducted under the orders of the 
 
 to mark the site of Taraz or Talas, Chinese Emperor in 1759. 
 which was the most westerly poiut 
 
172 ENGLAND AND BTJSSIA' IN THE EAST. [Oh. III. 
 
 furnish the troops with sufficient supplies, and, above all, it did 
 not circumscribe the unruly Kirghiz tribes who had sought 
 refuge in the fastnesses of the Kara-tau and Boroldai moun- 
 tains. The Eussians, therefore, seem to have now laid aside 
 all further scruple ; and having already cleared away in 1860- 
 61 the two intermediate outposts of Yani-Kurgan and Din- 
 Kurgan, which the Kokandis had erected beyond the last 
 Eussian settlement of Julek, to cover the approach to the town 
 of Turkestan, they boldly continued their advance up the valley 
 of the great river, so as to include within their frontier the 
 ranges north of Kokand, and intervening between that fertile 
 region and the desert. The bulwark of Kokand, on this side, 
 was the town of Hazret-i- Turkestan, so called from the tomb 
 of a famous saint, otherwise known as Khoja Ahmed ;* and 
 this place surrendered to the Eussians early in 1864. t The 
 Kokandis then fell back on their next defensible position, 
 Chemkend, a city about 100 versts in the rear, J which they 
 proceeded to fortify to the best of their ability, and from 
 whence they directed a series of attacks on the Eussian out- 
 posts, intended to impede their further advance. In repelling 
 such attacks, the Eussians assert that they were led on to the 
 town of Chemkend itself, the capture of which in the month of 
 October closed the campaign, and placed them in command of 
 one of the richest districts of the provinces, a district, indeed, 
 which the "Invalide Eusse" describes from the official reports 
 as " le grenier de toute la contre'e entre le Tchou et le Syr- 
 Daria." 
 
 * The Russians usually name this tion of Tchernaiyef from Fort Vernoij 
 plaoe Asretior Hazret ; but Hazret or against Avliata, and the expedition 
 HazretSultanismerelyatitleof honour of Verefkin from Fort Perof ski against 
 which was borne by the famous Saint, Turkestan were simultaneous, and 
 Khoja Ahmed, who was buried at formed parts of the same general plan 
 Turkestan. Turkestan is constantly of operations, the two columns sub- 
 mentioned in the memoirs of Baber, sequently combining in the attack on 
 as the chief place of a district of the Chemkend. —1874.) 
 same name beyond Ferghaneh and on t Chemkend is also a new name, 
 the confines of the desert ; but the the town having apparently risen into 
 name is not old, and is not found in note since the day of Baber. The 
 the Arabic geographers. chief place of this very fertile district 
 
 t (It would appear from the Russian was anciently Seiram, which is now 
 
 published accounts, that the expedi- stated to be a mere village. 
 
Oh. in.] . THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 173 
 
 So grave a violation as this invasion of Kokand and capture 
 of its chief cities involved of the principles on which Russia 
 had hitherto professed to he acting, and which merely regarded 
 the strategic requirements of her southern frontier, could not 
 fail to attract the serious consideration of England, interested 
 — and very properly so — as we always had heen in the preser- 
 vation of the independence of the Uzbeg states. The circular 
 letter, already alluded to, which was in November last 
 addressed to the " Legations and Embassies of the Russian 
 Emperor in Foreign Countries," and which professed to place 
 before Europe in its true light the Asiatic Policy of Russia, — 
 this letter, although somewhat grandiloquently expressed, was 
 nevertheless to a certain extent reassuring ; for it explained 
 how the late territorial acquisitions had beer, brought about 
 " by imperious necessity," and in opposition to the wish of the 
 Emperor ; and it further asserted, with categorical precision, 
 that the expansion of the Empire in Central Asia had now 
 reached its limit. The only unsatisfactory part of the explana- 
 tion was the doubt which it seemed to imply, whether, in spite 
 of the best intentions on the part of the Russian Government, 
 the peace of the East was not liable to be compromised at any 
 moment by the indiscreet or over-zealous conduct of a military 
 commander. 
 
 There will probably be abundant opportunity in the sequel 
 for testing the value of Prince Gortchakoff's Circular ; indeed 
 the prosecution of the Kokand campaign during the present 
 year has already furnished an instructive commentary, having 
 completely stultified the Russian assurance of a finality of 
 conquest. The peroration of Prince Gortchakoff's Circular, 
 however, is so important, and is so likely to become the subject 
 of future reference, that we make no excuse for quoting it in 
 extenso : — 
 
 " En effet, la ligne primitive de nos frontieres le long de la Syr-Daria 
 jusqu'au fort Perovsky d'un cote, et do l'autre jusqu'au Lao Issyk-Koul, 
 avait l'inconvenient d'etre presque a la limite du desert. Elle etait 
 interrompue sur un immense espace entre les deux points extremes ; ello 
 n'offrait pas assez de ressources a nos troupes, et laissat en dehors dos 
 tribus sans cohesion ayec lesquelles nulls stability n'e'tait possible," 
 
Hi ENGLAND AND EUSSIA LN THE EAST. [Oh. III. 
 
 " Malgre notre repugnance a donner a nos frontieres une plus grande 
 etendue, ces motifs ont ete assez puissants pour determiner le Gouverne- 
 ment Imperial a etablir la continuity de cette ligne entre le Lac Issyk- 
 Koul et la Syr-Daria, en fortifiant la ville de Tchemkend, recemment 
 occupee par nous. 
 
 " En adoptant cette ligne nous obtenons un double resultat ; d'un c6te, 
 la contree qu'elle embrasse est fertile, boisee, arrosee par de si nombreux 
 cours d'eau ; elle est habitee en partie par des tribus Kirghises, qui ont 
 deja reconnu notre domination ; elle offre done des elements favorables a 
 la colonisation et a l'approvisionnement de nos garnisons. De l'autro, 
 elle nous donne pour voisins immediats les populations fixes, agricoles, et 
 commercantes du Kokand. 
 
 " Nous nous trouvons en face d'un milieu social plus solide, plus 
 compacte, moins mobile, mieux organise ; et cette consideration marque 
 avec une precision geographique la limite ou l'interet et la raison nous 
 prescrivent d'arriver et nous commandent de nous arreter, parce. que, 
 d'une part, toute extension ulterieure de notre domination rencontrant 
 desormais, non plus des milieux inconstants comme les tribus nomades, 
 mais des Etats plus regulierement constitues, exigerait des efforts con- 
 siderables, et nous entratnerait, d'annexion en annexion, dans des 
 complications infinies ; et que, d'autre part, ayant ddsormais pour voisins 
 de pareils Etats, malgre' leur civilisation arrieree et l'instabilite de leur 
 condition politique, nous pouvons neanmoins assurer que des relations 
 regulieres pourront un jour se substituer, pour l'avantage commun, aux 
 desordres permanents qui ont paralyse jusqu'ici l'essor de ces contrees. 
 
 " Tels sont, Monsieur, les int6rets qui servent de mobile a la politique 
 de notre auguste maitre dans l'Asie Centrale, tel est le but final quo 
 les ordres de Sa Majeste Imperiale ont trace a Taction de son Cabinet."* 
 
 6. Now the ink was hardly dry with which this Manifesto 
 was written when hostilities had been resumed on the Jaxartes 
 with greater bitterness than ever. According to Russian 
 accounts the Kokandis were again the aggressors, and it is 
 possible that, exasperated by ' the loss of Turkestan and 
 
 * (As there is no couceivable reason a mere expression of the will of the 
 
 why Prince Gortchakoff should have Emperor. In reality when Russia 
 
 advisedly put forth a mendacious had once crossed the Steppe there 
 
 manifesto, to be contradicted imme- could be no substantial or permanent 
 
 diately afterwards by the inexorable check to her expansiou, until she was 
 
 logic of facts, we cau only believe him arrested by the barrier of British-In- 
 
 to have been guilty of an entire want dian influence, "neutral zones " or 
 
 of political foresight in supposing that intermediate independent states being 
 
 he could thus control the course of mere temporary expedients to lessen 
 
 events, and impose an arbitrary limit the friction of impact. — 1874.) 
 to the extension'of Russian power by ■■_ 
 
Oh. ni.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 175 
 
 Chenikend, they were determined to keep the Russian lines in 
 a constant state of alarm. Skirmishes seem to have been 
 incessant, and one very serious affair occurred near the close of 
 the year, in which a " Sotnia" of Cossacks, which threw itself, 
 at Ikhaneh, in the way of an Uzbeg army marching from 
 Tashkend upon Turkestan, was almost annihilated. With the 
 new year was promulgated an Imperial decree, constituting 
 " the Province of Turkestan " which was^to be subordinate, ac- 
 cording to the official statement, both in civil and military 
 government, to Orenburg, but which in reality seems to have 
 exercised, ever since, that autonomy which belongs of 
 necessity to an exposed frontier territory. Turkestan com- 
 prised the whole country stretching west and east from the 
 Aral to Lake Issi-kul and north and south from the Chu to 
 the Sir-Daria; but it seems to be still a matter of doubt 
 whether the name was given with a view to its general 
 geographical propriety, the province in question forming one of 
 a group with Uzbeg Turkestan and Chinese Turkestan, or 
 whether, as in the time of Baber, the chief place in the district, 
 Hazret-i-Turkestan, was allowed to impose its name on the 
 surrounding region.* General Krishanovski of Orenburg was 
 nominally at the head of the civil administration of this 
 territory, but General Tchernaieff, who continued comm toand 
 the army, was virtually the governor. In April last, the 
 Bokharians, having again invaded Kokand, and possessed 
 themselves of Khojend, according to the normal routine of their 
 
 * The ' Journal de St. Pgtersbourg ' region qui fait depuis longtemps partie 
 
 of Feb. 26, 1865, in replying to the de l'Empire. Pour ne pas voir dans 
 
 criticism of the 'Morning Post' on the une simple mesure administrative qui 
 
 creation of this new Government of s'explique d!elle-meme, un motif 
 
 Turkestan, has the following passage : d'alarme on d'apprehension, i suffirait 
 
 — " C'est a cette meme insuffisance de de jeter un coup d'ceil sur la carte de 
 
 notions ggographiques qu'il faut sans l'Asie Centrale. On y verrait que le 
 
 doute attribuer les communications nom de Turkestan est donnS d'une 
 
 du ' Morning Post ' sur la nouvells part il la contree qui s'£tend dcs rives 
 
 denomination An province de Turkestan meridionales de la mer Caspienne au 
 
 que le Gouvernement Russe vient de frontieres de la Chine, et de l'autre a 
 
 donneralaregioudesSteppesKirghises cette partie de l'Empire Chinois lui- 
 
 ayant pour chef lieu et point central mihne qui se trouve enclavee entre le 
 
 la ville de Tourkestan on de Hasrett, Thibet et les Montagnes Celestes." 
 
176 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN .THE EAST. [Ch. III. 
 
 campaigns, Tchernaieff marched out of Chemkend, as is alleged, 
 " to observe the Bokharian proceedings." He had a preliminary 
 skirmish with the Kokandis at Niaz Beg, on the river Chirchik, 
 upon the 27th of April, and fought a pitched battle with them 
 on May 9th, in the immediate vicinity of Tashkend, the 
 Kokandi leader, Alim Kul, who was Begent of the State during 
 the minority of the Khan, Sultan Sahib, falling in the fight 
 with three hundred of. his followers. It would have been only 
 natural that the Bussians, after this signal victory, should 
 have marched at once to the assault of Tashkend ;* and indeed 
 why they remained for another five weeks, hesitating to pluck 
 the pear which was ready to fall into their hands, can only be 
 a matter of conjecture. According to their own reports, they 
 expected that the inhabitants of Tashkend, a commercial race 
 who ardently desired, as it is said, to come under Bussian pro- 
 tection, would themselves rise and expel the Kokandi garrison; 
 and it was only when they found this to be impracticable, and 
 that in default of Bussian assistance the Tashkendis were pre- 
 pared to call in the aid of the Bokharians from Khojend, 
 that Tchernaieff decided to avoid this threatened complication 
 by leading the Bussians to the assault. The place was ac- 
 cordingly stormed on the night of June 15th, 1865, and from 
 that hour the fate of Kokand may be considered to have been 
 sealed ; for although it has been stated that the conquest of 
 Tashkend is exceptional, and, being directed to a temporary 
 political purpose, will not be persevered in beyond the period 
 required for the rectification of the military frontier, and for 
 assuring the future independence of the city as a free 
 emporium for the trade of Central Asia, there is in reality, as 
 far as can be seen, no possible reason for the abandonment of 
 Tashkend, that would not equally apply to Turkestan and 
 Chemkend. The loss of Tashkend is in fact a death-blow to 
 the independence of Kokand. It places the commerce of the 
 country, on which its prosperity depends, entirely at the com- 
 
 * Tashkend is the ancient Sliaeh, a p. 384 ; and Lumley's Report on the 
 
 place of great celebrity from the very Russian Trade with Central Asia, 
 
 earliest times. Fora good account of its p. 233, 
 modern state see Varabery's Travels, 
 
Oh. in.] 
 
 THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 177 
 
 mand of Russia, since all the great lines of communication 
 from the north concentrate at this place, and the only question 
 therefore for the consideration of the Emperor's Government 
 would now seem to he, whether the new province of Turkestan 
 should be made to comprise at once the whole Khanat of 
 Kokand, or whether it may not be more prudent to employ a 
 friendly Kirghiz Sultan* — and there are many such who have 
 strong family claims on the allegiance of the Kokandis — in 
 the administration of the country, until Russia may be prepared 
 to enter on the direct government of this noble principality, 
 which stretches north and south from the Kirghiz Steppe to 
 the mountains of Badakhshan,t and west and east from the 
 Aral Sea to the Chinese border at Kashgar. I Before we pro- 
 
 * (Kokand has in fact been ad- 
 ministered for the last nine years by 
 an Uzbeg Chief, named Khodayar 
 Khan, -who was first placed in power 
 by his son-in-law, the Ameer of 
 Bokhara, but who has ever since con- 
 ducted himself with • tbe strictest- 
 loyalty in his relations with Eussia. 
 He represents the Kirghiz faction in 
 Kokand as opposed to the KipcMks, 
 and is understood to be now in danger 
 of losing Ms crown, through the pre- 
 ponderance of the latter tribes. — 
 1874.) 
 
 + (The Southern frontier of Kokand 
 is not very clearly defined. The 
 Murghabi river, however, a branch 
 of which flows from Karakul, is the 
 boundary in the Pamir Steppe be- 
 tween Kokand and Wakhan ; and 
 further west, Shignan and Darwaz, 
 belonging respectively to Badakhshan 
 and Bokhara, enclose the Kokandian 
 district of Kara-tegin to the south. — 
 1874.) 
 
 t There is one other point in Cen- 
 tral Asia to which Russia has been 
 directing her attention with some 
 earnestness, and upon which, there- 
 fore, it behoves us to bestow a passing 
 notice. We allude to the city of 
 the northern capital of 
 
 Chinese Turkestan. Russia acquired 
 a right, by the late Treaty of Pekin, 
 to establish a factory and nominate a 
 Consul at Kashgar, but she has not 
 yet attempted to realize that right. 
 Her persistent declaration, however, 
 throughout the Turkestan discussions, 
 that Kashgar is the aim and limit of 
 her commercial policy in Central Asia, 
 betrays her real anxiety on the subject ; 
 and such anxiety — as in the case of 
 Tashkend— but too often foreshadows 
 military occupation. Now Kashgar, 
 with some rare intervals of indepen- 
 dence, has been for the last century 
 in the position of" a conquered state, 
 held in subjection by the presence o 
 a foreign garrison ; and notwithstand- 
 ing, therefore, the great size of the 
 city— containing 16,000 houses — and 
 notwithstanding the fanatical disposi- 
 tion of its Mahomedan inhabitants, 
 the transition from Chinese to Russian 
 rule would not be likely to be of a 
 very violent character. Nor, we pre- 
 sume, would there be much difficulty 
 in establishing a direct military com- 
 munication between Kashgar and the 
 new Russian settlements on the 
 Upper Naryn (Kurtka, Truz, &c. ), and 
 through them with. Fort "VernoS and 
 the districts beyond the Thian-Shan 
 
178 
 
 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. III. 
 
 ceed, however, to show the probable course which the Russian 
 policy will take in the new field now opening out to her 
 ambition, it is important to review the position of England 
 in regard to Central Asia, and especially in regard to 
 Afghanistan, — the portion of Central Asia which most 
 concerns us — during the period of this great development of 
 Russian power to the North. 
 
 7. It was not so much our retirement from Afghanistan, in 
 1842, as the circumstances under which that retirement was 
 affected that disparaged our position in Central Asia. Had 
 we remained in the country for another year after the recovery 
 of the -prisoners ; and had we then withdrawn in an orderly 
 and honourable manner, and in pursuance of an arrangement 
 with the parties into whose hands we had committed the 
 Government of the country, the effects of our previous 
 disasters would have been mitigated, if not entirely removed ; 
 but retiring as we did, without any understanding with the 
 Doorahi chiefs, and pursued by an implacable foe down to the 
 
 range. Again, it is probable that 
 Kashgar in the hands of Russia would 
 become a great emporium of trade, 
 being centrioally situated, with China 
 to the east, India to the south, Turke- 
 stan to the west, and Siberia to the 
 north ; and it is further certain 
 that the presence of the Russians, if 
 securely seated in this Tartar capital 
 at the distance of 300 miles from our 
 political frontier, would be sensibly 
 felt in India. But on the other hand, 
 Kashgar, owing to the sterility of the 
 adjoiningterritory, could never become 
 a nucleus of extensive colonization 
 like the rich districts on the Jaxartes; 
 and so long, therefore, as the Russians 
 remained quiescent, and merely oc- 
 cupied with commerce, the advanced 
 geographical position would be of little 
 realmoment, the impassive and prayer- 
 grinding Thibetans, indeed, serving 
 the purpose of a, "buffer" far more 
 effectually than the restless and im- 
 pressible Afghans', who cover the more 
 westernly portion of our northern 
 
 frontier. (Since this was written 
 Kashgar has occupied a large share of 
 public attention, owing to the adven- 
 turous journeys of Messrs. Shaw and 
 Hay ward, and the subsequent missions 
 of Mr. Forsyth. The position is one 
 at present of considerable complexity, 
 Russia and England having both con- 
 cluded treaties with the Amir, Yacfib 
 Khan, and having established com- 
 mercial relations with the country, 
 while China, which is bent on reassert- 
 ing her supremacy, is said to have 
 massed a very large body of troops on 
 the Eastern frontier with a view to 
 immediate invasion. If the Amir 
 should be really in danger, it would 
 seem that his European allies must 
 interfere to protect him, though it 
 would no doubt be very inconvenient 
 to us to afford material aid, while the 
 presence also of a RusBian. auxiliary 
 force at Yarkend would cause excite- 
 ment both in Cabul and Cashmere, 
 and lead, perhaps, to serious results. — 
 1874.) 
 
Ch. in.] THE ETJSSIANS IN CENTEAL ASIA. 179 
 
 last pass debouching on the plains, the previous ill effects on 
 our reputation were no doubt enhanced; the general impression, 
 indeed, being, both in India and Central Asia, that we were 
 fairly driven from .the mountains. It is not unusual, even, to 
 find a belief amongst our own officers, that in retiring from 
 Afghanistan we yielded to superior strength ; whereas in 
 reality the country was more completely in our power at the 
 moment of our retreat than it had been at any previous period 
 of the occupation. If we except, indeed, the fatal winter of 
 1841-42, when by the strangest concatenation of accidents our 
 forces at Cabul had become completely demoralised, there 
 never was an occasion on which the Afghans could stand for 
 an hour against either British soldiers or Indian Sepoys. No 
 officer, we are confident, who served through the Afghan war, 
 would hesitate with a well-appointed brigade of British troops 
 to meet in the field the whole assembled forces of Cabul and 
 Candahar combined; and even in mountain warfare, where the 
 Afghan marksman with his "jezail" had formerly an undoubted 
 superiority over " old Brown Bess," the substitution of the 
 Enfield rifle has now redeemed our only weakness. We make 
 these observations, not by way of encouraging the idea of our 
 again ascending the passes ; for it is hardly possible at present 
 that such a movement — at any rate in the direction of Cabul 
 — could be of political advantage, but in order rather to correct 
 the erroneous impression which is generally entertained of the 
 military strength of Afghanistan, and which, so long as it 
 exists, must vitiate any estimate of the difficulties of a 
 Eussian advance. 
 
 For many years after the Afghan war we studiously avoided 
 all intercourse with the country. Cabul, Candahar, and Herat 
 had resumed their old position of independent governments, 
 and Persia was too much occupied with domestic affairs to 
 attempt any interference to the eastward. It was not indeed 
 until the death of Yar Mahomad Khan, the too famous vizier 
 of Shah Kamran, in 1852, that we were again brought, even 
 indirectly, into connexion with the Afghans. At that time, 
 Persia, reviving her old project of Eastern aggrandisement, 
 would have sent an army against Herat, which, distracted as 
 
 x 2 
 
180 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. HI. 
 
 the city then was, would almost certainly have achieved its 
 conquest ; but we interfered to arrest the march of the troops, 
 and, under the pressure of a threatened suspension of diplo- 
 matic relations, compelled the Shah into a convention, which 
 debarred him from any future attack upon the Afghan terri- 
 tory. This convention was much canvassed at the time, as it 
 was foreseen that it might commit us to hostilities with Persia 
 at an inconvenient moment ; but the importance of rescuing 
 Herat from the risk of dependence on Persia, through which 
 the place might possibly be transferred to Eussia (in exchange, 
 for instance, as it was at one time proposed, for Erivan), was 
 judged to be paramount ; and this doctrine of the necessary 
 maintenance of the independence of Herat, as against these 
 two powers, has remained a standard article of our political 
 faith ever since. 
 
 In due course of time the contemplated contingency came to 
 pass. The troubles at Herat continuing, and the Khorassan 
 frontier being much disturbed in consequence, Persia again 
 sought to bring this outlying Afghan state under her rule ; 
 and as the British Minister, at this partic alar juncture, had 
 already broken off relations with the Court of Teheran on 
 other grounds, there was no further check on her proceedings. 
 In the spring of 1856, accordingly, the Sh ah's troops for the 
 first time occupied Her it ; and as this was done in defiance of 
 England, and in violation of the convention of 1852, it was at 
 once accepted as a "casus belli," and resented on our part by a 
 declaration of war.* The war, however, was neither very long 
 nor very bloody. Persia had no political purpose to subserve, 
 either on her own account or on that of Eussia, in retaining 
 possession of Herat. Her military ambition had been satisfied 
 
 * There were other causes of of- an expeditionary force from India, 
 
 fence, it is true, connected with the and the capture of the chief places on 
 
 notorious Mirza Hashem, and with the sea-board of Persia, for the vindi- 
 
 personal affronts offered to the British cation of the national honour. We 
 
 Minister, which fully justified the say advisedly, then, that the Persian 
 
 suspension of diplomatic intercourse, war was undertaken for the re- 
 
 and which were duly considered covery of Herat, and was directed 
 
 at the conclusion of peace ; but against Russian rather than Persian 
 
 they certainly were not of such im- aggression, 
 portance as to require the despatch of 
 
Oh. HI.] THE KUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 181 
 
 by the conquest of the place ; and she did not scruple, accord- 
 ingly, to purchase peace by its abandonment, after a year's 
 occupation. But in settling the conditions of the treaty con- 
 cluded at Paris in 1857, our traditional dread of Eussian 
 encroachment towards India again showed itself by special 
 provisions about Herat. • Persia was required to bind herself 
 to exercise no interference whatever in the affairs of that state. 
 If she was attacked or threatened in that quarter, she was not 
 even to send troops to the frontier until our good offices had 
 been tried and had failed to preserve peace ; and immediately 
 after invasion had been repelled she was to withdraw within her 
 own limits. It was preposterous to suppose that these precau- 
 tions, which saddled us with a sort of responsibility for the police 
 of the Afghan frontier, could have been adopted merely to pre- 
 vent aggression on the part of an effete government like that of 
 the Shah. Although Persia was alone named in the treaty, the 
 phantom that loomed behind was Eussia, then just beginning 
 to rally after the exhaustion of the Crimean war, and showing, 
 perhaps, her first tendency to retaliate by the increased activity 
 of her movements in Central Asia. There is no reason to 
 imagine that Eussia has been actuated by any direct feelings of 
 hostility to England in her recent aggressions on the Jaxartes. 
 She certainly has not contemplated anything like an invasion 
 of India;* but it would be to convict her of the strangest 
 
 * The question of the invasion of date is not so well known, and has, in 
 
 India has been purposely omitted fact, as we think, been first brought 
 
 from these pages, lest it should dis- to notice in this country in Mr. 
 
 tract attention from the immediate MichelTs work. " While yet First 
 
 subject of inquiry. On two occasions, Consul," it is said, in Mr. Michell's 
 
 however, since the commencement of Khiva volume, "Napoleon I,, in 1800 
 
 the century, British India has been proposed to the Emperor Paul the 
 
 thus threatened. The project of a plan of a combined French and Ttiis- 
 
 joiut invasion by a .French and Rus- sian campaign to India; and as at that 
 
 sian army is well known to have been time a rupture had broken out between 
 
 submitted by Napoleon to Alexander England and Russia, the despatch of 
 
 at Tilsit, in 1807, when it was hoped Don Cossacks to India was agreed on ; 
 
 that Persia, under the inspiration of and the Cossack Hetman, or com- 
 
 Lucien's counsels, who was to be sent mander-in-chief, Count Orloff-Denisof, 
 
 on a special mission to the Shah, received orders to march on India with 
 
 would have also joined in the scheme. all the Don regiments. The rescript 
 
 But a similar proposal of an earlier of the Emperor Paul I, relating to 
 
182 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. HI. 
 
 political blindness to imagine her ignorant of what is patent 
 to all the rest of the world, that if England has any vulnerable 
 heel it is in the East; that, in fact, the stronger may be the 
 position of Eussia in Central Asia, the higher will be the tone 
 she can command in discussing with us any question of 
 European policy. 
 
 So indisputable is this view of the Anglo-Eussian relations 
 in the East that surprise has often been expressed at our 
 unaccountable forbearance during the Crimean war. If we 
 had taken advantage, it is said, of Eussia's crippled condition 
 in 1855 to throw a strong body of British troops into Georgia, 
 supporting them with the auxiliary resources of Persia, and 
 perhaps also with an expeditionary column from India, there 
 can be no doubt but that we could have driven all the Eussian 
 garrisons beyond the Caucasus ; and as Shamil was then un- 
 subdued, and the mountaineers were in a position which 
 admitted of their being organised for permanent defence, the 
 growth of Eussia in this part of the East might have been 
 retarded, perhaps, for a generation ; while a little encourage- 
 ment to the Uxbegs and Turcomans would have cleared off the 
 intruders from the Jaxartes and the eastern shores of the 
 Caspian, and have relegated them to the north of the Kirghiz 
 
 this is inserted in the appendix of points.'' ("Russians in Central Asia," 
 General Milintin's work on Suwar- p. 404.) (A memorandum, it appears, 
 row's campaigns in 1779, published of some importance, "on the Invasion 
 at St. Petersburg in 1853." An of India," was presented to the Em- 
 invasion on this colossal scale would peror Nicholas, by General Duhamel, 
 have been quite impossible at the at the time of the Crimean war. (See 
 commencement of the century. Even Times of January 29, 1873.) The 
 at the present day, with all the appli- success of the scheme was made to 
 ances of modern art, it would be depend mainly on the co-operation, 
 barely within the reach of possibility. or at any rate the connivance of 
 The utmost that Russia proposes at Persia, and it is probable that the 
 present is thus stated by Mr. Michell : Court of Teheran was sounded on the 
 "With respect to a military expedi- subject in the negotiations of 1853, to 
 tion to India, the Amu-Daria (or which allusion has already been made 
 Oxus) may be used for despatching a at page 86 of this work ; but the 
 small force to its upper course ; not Persian Minister who was then in 
 with an idea of conquest, but for power was not favourable to Russian 
 making a demonstration with the aggrandisement, and if appealed to 
 object of alarming the enemy and would certainly have discouraged 
 diverting his attention from other the project. — 1874.) 
 
Oh. III.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 183 
 
 Steppe. Schemes of this nature were, it is well known, before 
 the Government, and, if the war had been continued, might, 
 perhaps, have been put in execution ; but there were counter- 
 balancing considerations of great weight, which prevented their 
 adoption at the time, and which it may not be amiss to glance 
 at, as they partially affect the present question at issue. 
 
 In the first place the Government of the Emperor Napoleon 
 was notoriously sensitive in regard to the Eastern phase of the 
 war, the popular notion in France being that the quarrel with 
 Russia was an Asiatic quarrel which exclusively concerned the 
 English, who made use of their French allies very much as the 
 monkey made use of the cat's paw in the fable. We could 
 thus never reckon on French co-operation in an invasion of 
 Georgia, and had we undertaken the task single-handed it 
 might seriously have imperilled the alliance. In the next place 
 we should have incurred a fearful responsibility had we compro- 
 mised the Georgians and Persians with Russia ; for, although 
 we might have insisted on an amnesty-clause at the conclusion 
 of peace, nations so accessible to attack would assuredly have 
 sooner or later paid to Russia the penalty of their resistance, 
 without the possibility of our rendering them any efficient aid. 
 And, thirdly, we had every reason to wish to avoid a contest 
 with Russia in the far East ; the ground was too dangerous for 
 both of us to be tried except in the last extremity, as it might 
 have led to endless complications and to the gravest con- 
 sequences. It was, in fact, the localisation of our last contest 
 with Russia that deprived the war of all its worst features. 
 Had it spread over the East from the Black Sea to Lake 
 Issi-Kul, its reverberations would be echoing up to this day. 
 
 Whether it was prudent, as a precaution against the possible 
 approach of Russia to Herat, to burden ourselves with a 
 liability at any moment to attack Persia in the event of her 
 marching to the Eastward may well be doubted. Still more 
 open to objection would seem to have been a barren stipula- 
 tion in the Paris treaty against the Shah's interference with 
 the Government of Herat, which, being unaccompanied by 
 any safeguard against the voluntary dependence of the Afghan 
 Governor upon Persia, turned out in practice to be wholly 
 
184 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN -THE EAST. [Oh. Ill, 
 
 inoperative, and in fact led to nothing but our own stultifica- 
 tion. Sultan Ahmed Khan, a nephew of the Amir Dost 
 Mahomed, who was a refugee at Teheran at the time of the 
 conclusion of the Treaty of Paris, and was really the most 
 eligible candidate for the vacant chiefship, was sent by the 
 Shah to assume the reins of government on the withdrawal of 
 the Persian garrison from Herat; and in this position he 
 remained for the next five years in undisguised dependence 
 upon Persia, striking money in the name of the Shah, receiv- 
 ing " Khelats " (or robes of honour), arms and pieces of 
 artillery from Teheran, repairing to Court even to render 
 personal homage, exhibiting in fact every token of direct 
 vassalage, although the British Government and the Shah, in 
 deference to their mutual obligations, continued ostensibly to 
 proclaim his independence. During this transition period, 
 when Herat was thus oscillating between Afghan and Persian 
 nationality, there was some more indirect skirmishing between 
 the two European powers on the Afghan battle-field. A 
 deputation of British officers from the Teheran mission 
 Sought, in the first place, to render Sultan Ahmed Khan 
 virtually, as well as nominally, independent by the moral 
 support of England's recognition and sympathy ; but this did 
 not satisfy the Afghan chief, and the mission therefore may be 
 said to have failed. The Indian Government, indeed, could 
 render no effective aid to Herat without compromising it's 
 relations with Dost Mahomed Khan, of Cabul, who regarded 
 his nephew with intense jealousy ; while Sultan Ahmed, in 
 default of such aid, was compelled to rely on Persia to shield 
 him from his all-powerful uncle. But if our own policy thus 
 miscarried, the Bussian counter-demonstration was hardly 
 more successful. The mission under M. Khannikof, which 
 visited Herat in 1858, may take credit for having confirmed 
 the dependency of Sultan ' Ahmed upon Persia : but. if M. 
 Khannikof proposed, through that dependency, to strengthen 
 Russian influence in Western Afghanistan, or to pave the way 
 to the realisation of the long- cherished scheme of establishing 
 in the city of Herat a permanent factory with exclusive 
 privileges, he must have been grievously disappointexl ;. for 
 
Ch. m.] ■ THE EUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 185 
 
 Persia herself disapproved of beirjg thus enveloped by Russian 
 antennae to the east as well as to the west; and Sultan Ahmed, 
 with the remembrance of the old Cabul catastrophe ever before 
 him, when his uncle had been driven into exile for having 
 given countenance to the interloper Vitkevitch, had no 
 inclination, as he said, to provoke a similar fate. Khannikof, 
 it is understood, was prepared to have sent officers from Herat 
 both to Candahar and Cabul, had he met with any encourage- 
 ment; but we had fortunately at this time preoccupied the 
 ground.* The importance, indeed, of securing the neutrality, 
 if not the active friendliness, of Dost Mahomed Khan during 
 the critical periods of the Persian war and the Indian mutinies, 
 had for once induced us to step aside from our policy of non- 
 intervention in Afghan affairs. In 1857, fifteen years after 
 our withdrawal from Cabul, we again sent a friendly 
 mission to the. country under Major Lumsden; and although 
 our officers were not allowed on this occasion, from prudential 
 considerations, to proceed further than Candahar, we suc- 
 ceeded in purchasing the Amir's good- will at a lakh of rupees 
 (10,000Z.) per mensem for so long as his services might be of 
 use to us. The morality of this bargain may appear question- 
 able, and the price exorbitant to English politicians, but 
 when work is to be done subsidies are still the rule in the 
 East, and experience has ever shown that true economy 
 consists in paying well, or not at all. + 
 
 Revolutions, however, were now imminent in Afghanistan, 
 which had been long foreseen, and the expectation of which 
 had been the main cause of our having so long abstained from 
 any close, or permanent, engagements with the rulers of the 
 country. 
 
 The Candahar chiefs at the commencement of the Herat 
 
 * (The writer had the advantage of port that indicated a hostile feeling 
 
 repeated confidential conversations to .England, though Russian interests 
 
 with Sultan Ahmed Khan, during w ; ere of course mainly consulted in 
 
 this chiefs visit to Teheran in the the Russian Agent's proposals.— 1874.) 
 
 spring of I860, and was fully informed f (For further details as to the 
 
 by him as to Monsr. Khannikof's Cabul subsidy, see ante, p. 92,^ 
 
 proceedings at Herat. There was no- 1874.) 
 thing, he is bound to say, in the re- 
 
186 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. in. 
 
 troubles, and before the Persian occupation of the city, had 
 invaded the territory with a. view to its entire conquest; but 
 their forces proving inadequate to this end, they had con- 
 tented themselves, with taking possession of the outlying 
 district of Farreh and its dependencies, which they attached 
 to their own province. When Dost Mahomed accordingly, 
 some years later, overran the Western Afghan province on the 
 death of Kohandil Khan, the head of the Candahar family,' the 
 Herat district of Farreh fell naturally into his hands as a part 
 of the conquered territory. But Sultan Ahmed had never 
 relinquished his claim to this district as an integral portion of 
 the old kingdom of Herat, and in attempting, therefore, as he 
 did, to recover it on the first favourable occasion, he can hardly 
 be said to have initiated the fatal contest with his uncle. 
 During the continuance of this contest (1862-63) we were 
 placed in a position of some embarrassment. Persia com- 
 plained that we had instigated — or at any rate that we had 
 not discouraged — the advance of Dost Mahomed on Herat, 
 which was fraught with danger to the Khorassan frontier, and 
 was opposed to the spirit, if not to the letter, of the Treaty of 
 Paris. Dost Mahomed, on the other hand, disregarded our 
 counsels and even our protest, which were carried to the 
 length of withdrawing our agent from the Afghan camp ; and 
 showed an inveteracy against his nephew, aggravated probably 
 by the latter's Persian predilections, which was hardly natural 
 to his character. As far as our own interests, too, were con- 
 cerned, it was desirable, on the one hand, that we should be 
 rescued from the undignified position we had occupied, whilst 
 Herat remained a virtual dependency of Persia in defiance of 
 the Treaty of Paris ; and, on the other, we were not anxious — 
 as we never have been, and probably never shall be — to see 
 Afghanistan consolidated under a single chief. * In this 
 
 * iThe question of a united or dis- and consolidate his power in every 
 united Afghanistan is one upon which possible way ; hut what security can 
 there has always been a great diversity we possibly have for Afghan fidelity 
 of opinion among Anglo-Indian politi- beyond the passing interests of the 
 cians. If the ruler of C'abul could be hour ? My own view, therefore, 
 thoroughly depended on, no doubt it rather inclines to the policy of de- 
 would be to our advantage to extend taching Herat and Candahar from 
 
Ch. III.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 187 
 
 dilemma we remained as nearly passive as possible, and the 
 "denouement" was brought about in the summer of 1863— 
 without any participation in it upon our part — by a triple and 
 almost simultaneous catastrophe, the death of Sultan Ahmed by 
 apoplexy, the fall of Herat to the Cabul army, and the crown- 
 ing misfortune of the death of Dost Mahomed himself. Since 
 that period Afghanistan has been torn with convulsions, and 
 we have resisted all appeals to favour one pretender or 
 another. Shir AH Khan, who was designated as heir-apparent 
 by the old Amir before his death, still holds his ground in 
 Cabul, though his position has been successively assailed by 
 his two brothers, Mahomed Afzal and Mahomed Azim, who 
 formerly ruled beyond the Hindu-Kush, and has been further 
 shaken by the recent defection of another brother, Mahomed 
 Amin, at Candahar. What may be the precise position of 
 affairs at the present moment it is impossible to say, since 
 revolution and counter-revolution follow each other with the 
 rapidity of the shifting scenes of a pantomime. A battle was 
 fought at Candahar during the summer, in which the son of 
 Shir Ali Khan, who led the Cabul forces, engaged in a hand- 
 to-hand combat with his rebellious uncle, and the two warriors, 
 like Paladins of old, fell dead upon the field. The action, 
 however, seems to have been indecisive, and it may be pre- 
 sumed, therefore, that Candahar is still struggling for indepen- 
 dence under a brother or nephew of the slaughtered chief; but 
 if Candahar is thus broken off from Cabul, it will be morally 
 impossible that Shir Ali Khan can retain an efficient hold 
 upon Herat. Up to the date of the last accounts the young 
 Sirdar, Mahomed Yactib, who had been left by his father Shir 
 Ali at Herat when the latter hastened to Cabul to seize the 
 "musnud" on the Amir Dost Mahomed's death, was still in 
 power, and seemed to show some capacity for government ; 
 but in the present distracted state of Afghanistan, and con- 
 sidering that the Persian element has now overpowered and 
 almost displaced the Afghan in the population of Herat, it seems 
 
 Cabul, and of confining our attention in providing for the security of our 
 to the Western Afghan states, which Indian frontier from attack. — 1874.) 
 indeed are alone of importance to us, 
 
18S ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. III. 
 
 only natural to expect that the influence of the Shah will 
 gradually resume its sway, and that our treaty obligations with 
 Persia will thus again force us to intermingle in the fray. So 
 long, indeed, as the Treaty of Paris remains in force on the 
 one side, while on the other we have no co-ordinate treaty 
 with the Afghans enabling us to control or guide their policy> 
 we must remain in a false position, liable at any moment to be 
 circumvented by intrigue, or to be outraged by a violation of 
 engagement. 
 
 8. With Turkestan we have had no regular diplomatic com- 
 munication since the period of Thomson's return from 
 Khiva in 1842 ; but complimentary correspondence has been 
 nevertheless almost uninterruptedly maintained between the 
 Teheran mission and the Khan Hazret of Khiva, either by 
 direct -messenger or through the British Agent at Meshed, 
 ever since the time of the Afghan war; and even from Bok- 
 hara we have been supplied with intelligence of passing events, 
 though we have never had an accredited agent at the Court. 
 In respect to Kokand, too, from the date of the capture of Ak- 
 Mesjed by the Bussians the appeals to India by the Uzbeg 
 rulers for mediation or assistance have been incessant. In 
 1854 a special envoy came from the Jaxartes across the table- 
 land of Pamir to Badakhshan, and thence, as the Cabul road 
 was closed, by the difficult and almost unknown route through 
 Kafefistan and the Upper Kuner and Bajour valleys to 
 Peshawer. The next communication with Kokand took place in 
 1858, through the agent Mahomed Ainfn, who was despatched 
 by the Indian Government to ascertain the fate of Adolphe 
 Schlagentweit ; but this agent travelled to the Jaxartes by way 
 of Thibet, Yarkend, and Kashgar, and returned along the high 
 road through. Bokhara and Cabul; so that the narrative of his 
 journey, which has been printed for the Becords of the 
 Political Department in India, differs but very little from the 
 original itinerary of Mir Izzet Ollah in 1812, which first made 
 us acquainted with the physical geography of Chinese and 
 Uzbeg Turkestan.* In 1860 a second envoy of the name of 
 
 * Mir Izzet Ollah's journal has been brought to the notice of geographers 
 repeatedly published, It was first in 1816, by Lieutenant Waddington, 
 
Oh. m.] 
 
 THE RUSSIANS IN OENTEAL ASIA. 
 
 189 
 
 Khodai Nazar appeared at Peshawer with renewed supplica- 
 tions for British aid to stop the advancing- Kussians, who were 
 then first threatening Turkestan ; and the return mission under 
 Moola Abdul Mejid, which carried back a letter and presents 
 from the Governor-General to Mulla Khan, the reigning 
 Prince of Kokand, if barren of political results, rendered at any ■ 
 rate important service to geography. The detailed itineraries, 
 indeed, which Abdul Mejid has supplied of his journey from 
 Badakhshan across the Pamir Steppe to Kokand, and of his 
 return to the same point by Kara-tegin, Derwaz, and Kolab, fill 
 up a blank in the map of Asia,* which has often been 
 deplored, and which could have been remedied in no other 
 way. The loss of Turkestan and Chemkend wrung forth a 
 third and still more bitter cry of distress, which was borne to 
 India by the Uzbeg Ambassador who appeared in Sir John 
 Lawrence's Lahore Durbar of last winter, and who recounted 
 
 of the Bombay Engineers, who mainly 
 relied on its authority for the con- 
 struction of his map of Ferghaneh, 
 to illustrate Leyden's " Memoirs of 
 Baber." The journal was then pub- 
 lished in extenso in the "Calcutta 
 Quarterly Magazine " for 1825 ; and 
 later Professor Wilson republished 
 it, in an enlarged form, with copious 
 notes, in the Royal Asiatic Society's 
 Journal for 1843, p. 283. It affords 
 a very favourable specimen of what 
 an intelligent native of India may ac- 
 complish in the way of extending our 
 geographical knowledge of countries 
 into which a European cannot pene- 
 trate except at great personal risk. 
 (The Government of India has recently 
 (1872) published in Calcutta a new 
 translation of Mir Izzet Ollah's travels 
 by Captain Henderson, in apparent 
 ignorance that any previous version 
 had appeared in print. It may be 
 added that the first complete transla- 
 tion of the MS. in a European lan- 
 guage was given in i824 by Klaproth 
 in the "Magasin Asiatique," tome ii. 
 p. 1.— 1874.) 
 
 * We would recommend to the 
 special consideration of the Boyal 
 Geographical Society Major James's 
 "Beport," No. 83, of October 19, 
 1861, which extends to fifty para- 
 graphs, and gives a most interesting 
 detail of Moola Abdul Mejid's out- 
 ward and return journey through the 
 regions between the Upper Oxus and 
 Kokand, which regions in the best 
 and latest published map, that of 
 Stanford, accompanying Mr. Michell's 
 volume, are marked as "unexplored." 
 (The most important portions of this 
 "Beport" have been since published 
 in the ' ' proceedings " of the Boyal 
 Geographical Society, vol. x. p. 149 ; 
 and convey the only information yet 
 available of the track across the Pa- 
 mir plateau from South to North. 
 The high road, however, from West to 
 East has been repeatedly followed 
 and described of late years by Md. 
 Amin, Major Montgomerie's Mirza, 
 Feiz Bakhsh, Ibrahim Khan, and 
 finally by Col. Gordon's party, whose 
 survey of the route on two lines leaves 
 nothing to be desired. — 1874.) 
 
190 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Gh. III. 
 
 his country's wrongs to the assembled nobles of the north-west 
 frontier. It was proposed, we believe, by the Government of 
 the Punjab that certain English officers should accompany this 
 Ambassador on his return to Kokand, not in any official 
 character, but merely as travellers visiting the dominions of a 
 friendly power and desirous of information as to passing 
 events ; but in the present state of the Anglo-Eussian negocia- 
 tions respecting Central Asia, there were obvious objections to 
 such a course, which would have been aggravated by the sub- 
 sequent capture of Tashkend ; and we are glad, therefore, that 
 Sir John Lawrence, on mature consideration, put his veto on the 
 expedition.* We have alluded to these repeated journeyings 
 between Peshawer and Kokand of late years, not so much for 
 their intrinsic interest — though no doubt they have a very high 
 interest in the additions which they have furnished to our 
 geographical knowledge — as in order to show on the one hand 
 the feeling which animates the Uzbeg Princes, and which leads 
 them to look to British India as their natural protector, and to 
 explain on the other the manner in which the conquests of the 
 Eussians on the Jaxartes have come to exercise a disturbing 
 influence over the native mind in the north of India, that 
 justifies, if it does not demand, our protest against further 
 encroachment. 
 
 9. Our retrospect is now complete. We have traced, in more 
 or less detail, the progress of Kussia from her first pioneering 
 movement in the Steppe to her final capture of Tashkend, and 
 we have compared the synchronous action of England in 
 Turkestan, in Afghanistan, and in Persia. It remains to 
 consider what is the most probable issue to passing events, 
 and what line of policy it will best suit the interests of England 
 to adopt. 
 
 * We cannot mention the name of the recent juncture there is at the 
 
 this distinguished officer without pay- head of our Indian empire a man who 
 
 ing a passing tribute of respect to the is so thoroughly conversant with its 
 
 solid judgment, the untiring energy, external as well as its internal rela- 
 
 and the high moral conscientiousness tions, and who is thus so capable of 
 
 which have ever characterised his pub- appreciating and meeting any dangers 
 
 lie administration. The country is, that may arise from the growth of 
 
 we think to be congratulated that in Eussian power in Central Asia. 
 
Ch. HL] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTEAL ASIA. 191 
 
 We have no intention of impugning the good faith of the 
 Eussian Government in its recent proceedings; It may be 
 assumed that Prince Gortchakoff's manifesto of last November 
 did really express the Emperor's views as to the danger and 
 inexpediency of any further extension at present of the Eussian 
 frontier in Central Asia ; but experience has proved, as indeed 
 might have been perceived pretty clearly before, that Eussia 
 cannot stop midway in the career on which she has now 
 entered. If she merely desires a continuous military line for 
 her southern frontier, she must abandon Turkestan and 
 Chemkend, as well as the more advanced position of Tashkend, 
 and fall back on the forts beyond the mountains. If, on the 
 other hand, she determines to sever Tashkend from Kokand, 
 either holding it as her own frontier city, or maintaining it as 
 a free town for the general resort of traders, she will encounter 
 the very same — so-called aggressive — provocations which com- 
 pelled her to advance beyond her former line. Khojend and 
 Kokand itself will be a standing menace against Tashkend, 
 precisely as Tashkend was against Chemkend, and still earlier 
 Chemkend was against Turkestan. Indeed, the further she 
 advances the more imperative will it become for her to take 
 complete possession of the country, since the governmental 
 power, which is nominally vested in the boy, Sultan Sahib, will 
 be usurped in the different districts by Kara- Kirghiz and 
 Kipch£k chieftains, and universal anarchy will be the result.* 
 A further element of strife is also being now introduced upon 
 the scene, which will assuredly acquire grave dimensions as the 
 drama advances towards a climax, and by which, in fact, public 
 interest will probably in future be pretty well engrossed. This 
 element of danger is the position of Eussia relatively to Khiva, 
 and especially to Bokhara. 
 
 *(The transition period, as it however, that revolution is now immin. 
 
 avowedly is, of Kokand semi-inde- ent, and that strong pressure will be 
 
 pendence, has lasted much longer exerted to compel the direct interfer- 
 
 than was expected, JKhodayar Khan ence of the Russian Government. To 
 
 the Chief having ruled, during the cany out the military occupation of 
 
 last nine years, with exemplary skill Kokand, 10,000 men would probably 
 
 and prudence, while Eussia, notwith- be required to be added to the army 
 
 standing much provocation, has reso- of Turkestan. — 1874.) 
 lutely held aloof. It is xinderstood, . 
 
192 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch.IIL 
 
 In tracing the advance of Russia along the Jaxartes towards 
 Kokand, we have only incidentally alluded to the condition oi 
 the two other Uzheg States ; nor, indeed, was a more detailed 
 notice required ; for, with the exception of General Ignatief 's 
 mission in 1858, which at length effected the" release of the 
 Russian prisoners at Bokhara, and ■ confirmed the salutary 
 terror with which the uniform success of the Russian arms on 
 the Jaxartes had inspired the Khivans, there was no political 
 intercourse between Orenburg and the southern Uzbeg States 
 for a period of upwards of twenty years. During this long 
 interval most of the grievances of which Russia had formerly 
 complained had been redressed. Her subjects were no longer 
 kidnapped, nor were her caravans plundered, except within the 
 range of the Jaxartes hostilities. Bokhara, indeed, had profited 
 so much by the sustained Russian pressure upon Kokand, that 
 she was inclined to overlook the ultimate danger to herself, and 
 Khiva was only too glad to see the military strength before 
 which she formerly quailed diverted to another quarter. The 
 time of trial appeal's, however, to be now approaching for both 
 of these states. As regards Khiva, indeed," the Aral flotilla is 
 considered to have taken possession of the mouth of the Oxus ; 
 and on several occasions the Russian steamers have certainly 
 ascended, without questioning, as far as Kungrad, though no 
 permanent settlement has, we believe, been yet formed upon 
 either bank of the river. What this will probably lead to we 
 shall presently see by a quotation from the last Russian work 
 on the subject. 
 
 But the more immediate question concerns Bokhara. Here 
 the Russian and Uzbeg forces are at present actually in face of 
 each other, and a collision may at any moment occur between 
 the advanced pickets thrown out respectively from Khojend 
 and Tashkend. It is further evident that Russia regards the 
 Bokharians with suspicion and dislike, since she has been con- 
 tent to incur the obloquy of Europe in the matter of the cap- 
 ture of Tashkend, in order to anticipate their nearer approach 
 to her frontier ; but with all this we venture a prediction that 
 she will not, under present circumstances, hazard an open 
 rupture. Her tenure of Kokand will, for a long time, be too 
 
Ch. m.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 193 
 
 precarious to admit of her having another enemy upon her 
 hands. Willyamminof-Sermof, the only Eussian officer who 
 has described the country from personal observation, estimates 
 the population of Tashkend at 50,000, and of Kokand at 60,000 
 souls, and Khojend, Andijan, Nemengan, Oosh, and Ura-tepeh, 
 are of hardly inferior consequence. What number of troops, 
 then, if military occupation were alone attempted, would be 
 required to furnish garrisons for all these numerous towns, and 
 to keep up an efficient line of communication with Fort 
 Perofski and the Aral ? It seems to us that the " manifest 
 destiny " marked out for Russia iu the present aspect of the 
 East, is to colonize Turkestan thoroughly before she moves 
 another step in advance. The genius of the nation has already 
 displayed itself in this direction, Amuria and Zungaria having 
 been reclaimed from barbarism through the means of military- 
 agricultural settlements. The basin of the Jaxartes, too, 
 presents greater facilities for successful colonization than any 
 other portion of Central Asia. The fertility of the soil is pro- 
 verbial, and there is every variety of climate, from the 
 perennial snows of the Belur-Tagh to an almost tropical heat 
 in the valley of the river; so that not only may the staple 
 articles of corn, cotton, silk, madder, and tobacco be produced 
 to an unlimited extent, but in certain situations it may also be 
 found possible to cultivate the sugar-cane, and perhaps even 
 opium and indigo. The rivers, likewise, are auriferous, andmines 
 of silver, lead, copper, and iron are known to exist in the hills on 
 both sides of the Jaxartes ; while a still more valuable product 
 is the coal which has been found in large quantities both in the 
 Kara-tau and Ala-tad ranges, and which may be expected 
 before long to supersede the anthracite of the Don throughout 
 South-Eastern Russia.* 
 
 *This account of the cereal and den's Baber." Introduction, p. xl. 
 
 mineral wealth of Kokand is prin- '" Abulfeda (' Chorasm. Descrip.,' 
 
 cipally taken from Mr. Lumley's re- p. 38) mentions, that in the moun- 
 
 port, p. 281, seq. For a notice of the tains of Ferghana (Kokand) they 
 
 coal discovered in the Kara-tau and have black stones which burn like 
 
 Ala-tau ranges, see " .Russians in charcoal, and when kindled, afford 
 
 Central Asia," p. 481. Compare a very intense heat. The fact of 
 
 also the following passage in "Ley- the existence of coal in the Ala-1 
 
194 
 
 ENGLAND AND ETJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. III. 
 
 . -It is not, indeed, too* much to expect that when security has 
 been established in Turkestan, when the wandering Kirghiz 
 have been induced to exchange a pastoral for an agricultural 
 life, when Russian colonies are scattered over the country, 
 and European energy and intelligence have been directed to 
 the due development of its resources, this province will resume 
 the title which it enjoyed in ancient times of " the garden of 
 the East." "What England, then, has to apprehend from the 
 progress of affairs in Central Asia, is not the immediate, or 
 even proximate, invasion of our Indian empire, which is a 
 notion peculiar to the panic-mongers of London and Calcutta, 
 and which we should have thought hardly required the serious 
 refutation [that was given to it in the Anniversary Address — 
 admirable in all other respects — delivered by the accomplished 
 President, Sir Roderick Murchison, at a recent meeting of the 
 Royal Geographical Society of London.* What we really 
 
 range, and to the east of it, is con- 
 firmed by recent travellers. It is 
 found in great plenty, and forms the 
 .ordinary fuel of the natives." Mr. 
 Bogoslovski, also, who visited Samar- 
 cand in 1842, in company with 
 Khanikoff and Lehmann, found coal 
 formations in the upper valley of 
 the Zar-afshan river ; and coal of 
 an inferior quality is likewise known 
 to exist in the Mangishlak Peninsula 
 on the Caspian. "Russians in Cen- 
 tral Asia," pp. 326 and 444. The 
 Don anthracite formerly used by the 
 steamers on the Jaxartes, owing to 
 the enormous expense of carriage 
 cost 12?. per ton. (We have no very 
 recent statistics regarding the pro- 
 duction of coal in Turkestan, but in 
 1868 there were three principal mines at 
 work, one near Chemkend in the hands 
 of the Government, which produced, 
 about 5000 tons annually, and two 
 others near Tashkend and Khojend 
 in private hands, which were still 
 richer. Coal is now said to be sold 
 at Khojend at the rate of ten shillings 
 per ton.— 1874. j 
 
 * Sir Roderick Murchison's address 
 appears to have given immense satis- 
 faction in Russia, where it was made 
 the subject of a leading article in the 
 "Journal de St. Petersburg " of June 
 19, 1865. It is unfortunate, however, 
 that the journalist, who probably 
 drew his iospiration from Prince 
 Gortchakoff's Bureau, should have 
 quoted from the original draft of the 
 address, since this draft contained a 
 paragraph on the new frontier at Issi- 
 Kul, taken from a Russian source, 
 but so strangely incorrect that it was 
 expunged from the later copy pre- 
 pared for incorporation with the 
 Journal. The Rev. Mr. Long, also, 
 who has recently published an elabo- 
 rate defence of Russian policy in the 
 JSast, under the title of "Russia, 
 Central Asia, and British India, by a 
 British Subject," has been misled by 
 Sir Roderick's authority, and has 
 drawn special attention to this re- 
 jected paragraph, as a proof of 
 Russia's moderation, by quoting it at 
 full length and in Italics ! p. 20. The 
 additional note " on the boundaries of 
 
Ch. in.] THE RUSSIANS IN OENTEAL ASIA. 195 
 
 have to apprehend is, that an Asiatic Russia will arise to the 
 north of the Hindu-Kush, possessing within itself a germ of 
 vitality and vigour that will enable it to replenish rather than 
 exhaust the parent stem, and will render it, in due course of 
 time, a formidable rival to our Indian Empire. What we may 
 not unreasonably expect is, that under the condition of Eussian 
 colonization, the principle of development may be reasserted, 
 which seems to be peculiar to this favoured region of 
 Turkestan, and of which the world has already seen such 
 memorable instances in the career of Jenghiz Kh&n, of Timour, 
 and of Baber, each of whom, it should be noted, nursed their 
 nascent fortunes in the valley of tbe Jaxartes before pushing 
 on to foreign conquest and dominion.* But the growth of 
 such a Satrapy, acquiring the strength and consistency of an 
 empire, will be a work of time — a work, perhaps, of ages ; and 
 the " chapter of accidents" may at any moment intervene to 
 deliver us from the threatened incubus. 
 
 The Bokharians, we must remember, are an enemy of a very 
 different calibre from the Kokandis, and their conquest will 
 not, we think, be lightly undertaken by Russia. In actual 
 population there may not be much disproportion between the 
 two states ; but in strength they differ widely. The oligar- 
 chical constitution, indeed, of the Kokandi Government, where 
 the Khan is in most cases a mere puppet in the hands of the 
 Kara-Kirghiz or Kipchak chiefs, prevents anything like a 
 combined resistance, and thus renders the country an easy 
 
 Russia and Northern Turkestan," there is no approach to amalgamation 
 appended to Sir R. Murohison's ad- between the native inhabitants and 
 dress in its corrected form, is all that their conquerors. Tashkend and 
 could be desired j clear, accurate, and Samarcand are still, indeed, to all in- 
 giving full credit to Russia for the tents and purposes military canton- 
 great services she has rendered to ments in a foreign country, and the 
 geographical science. expected influence of European civili- 
 * (It must be confessed that the ex- zation has not yet begun to develop 
 perience of the last ten years does itself. According to Mr. Schuyler's 
 not encourage a belief in the speedy report, also, the export trade of 
 realization of this picture. The colo- Turkestan remains almost stationary, 
 nization of Turkestan has proceeded while the import trade, contrary to, 
 at a very slow rate, and to a very all expectation, has actually dimin- 
 limited extent. Russian institutions ished. — 1874.) 
 do not take root in the country, and 
 
 o 2 
 
196 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA DN THE EAST. [Ch. HI. 
 
 prey to an invader ; whereas at Bokhara, on the other hand, 
 there is the most complete autocracy, and the Amir can direct 
 the whole resources of the country for the purpose either of 
 offence or defence. The standing army, moreover, of Bokhara 
 is said by Vambery to consist of 40,000 men, who have been 
 well seasoned by continued conflict; and the Turcomans 
 beyond the Oxus could certainly furnish an auxiliary force of 
 equal strength composed of the best horsemen in Asia.* Ac- 
 cording to our view, then, until Kokand is finally settled, there 
 will be no attempt to coerce the Bokharians, further than by 
 commercial pressure ; such as has been this year inaugurated 
 on the Orenburg frontier, where the merchants of Bokhara 
 have been interdicted from appearing at the fair of Nijni- 
 Novgorod to purchase their usual supplies of merchandise 
 and arms ; and, even when Russian Turkestan is fully prepared 
 to receive the accretion of other portions of "Uzbeg territory, 
 the work of amalgamation will be very gradual, and will 
 probably be consummated through the intermediate stage of a 
 protectorate. If we proceed, then, to quote from Mr. Michell's 
 book the views which are entertained by sanguine politicians 
 at St. Petersburg respecting the future now opening out in 
 Central Asia, to the ambition and the greatness of Russia, it is 
 not that we participate in those views or consider them at 
 present other than premature, if not chimerical ; but that we 
 think it only due to the public in England, and especially in 
 India, that they should know what is fermenting in the minds 
 of our northern neighbours, in order to form their own 
 opinions of the practicability and probable results of such a 
 policy — 
 
 ' ' Judging, therefore, ' ' says a Eussian author, ' ' by historical precedents, 
 one cannot but foresee that the occupation of the mouth of the Amu- 
 Daria (the Oxus) will necessarily be followed by the appropriation of the 
 whole river. The Eussian Government may not have this in view, and 
 
 * (Bokhara and Khiva have both dence, because the permanent occupa- 
 
 shown themselves utterly unable to tion of their territories by Eussian 
 
 eope with Russia in the field, whatever garrisons would entail an expenditure 
 
 may be the disparity of the numbers altogether incommensurate with any 
 
 engaged, but they have still been possible political advantage.— 1874.) 
 allowed to retain a qualified indepen- 
 
Ch. HI.] THE BUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 19T 
 
 •will in all likelihood oppose the encroachment ; but nevertheless, sooner 
 or later, it will come to pass of itself. Officially, the boundary of Russia 
 will remain unchanged; practically, however, Russian emigrants will 
 ascend the river higher and higher by degrees ; they will at first open 
 intercourse 'with Khiva, the nearestkhanat, and eventually make their way 
 to Bokhara. Examples of this are afforded by the Amur and Syr-Daria 
 (the Jaxartes)." 
 
 The history is then given of the occupation of the Amur 
 from its embouchure to its source ; after which we have — 
 
 "The same order of events is observed on the Syr-Daria, of which 
 the lower course alone is held by Russia ; yet this river must now be 
 considered more Russian than Kokanian, more especially as the necessity 
 of possessing it for the whole extent of its course is year after year more 
 
 urgently and clearly felt Since the days of Peter the Great, 
 
 Russia has diligently advanced, and at great sacrifice, through the Steppes 
 that barred her progress. She has passed them and reached the basins of 
 two large rivers — two important water-ways — whose sources flow through 
 fertile and densely populated countries. She is fully justified in seeking 
 to be rewarded here for her labours and losses, extending over a hundred 
 years, and in endeavouring to secure her frontiers by pushing them for- 
 ward to that snow-capped summit of the Himalayas, the natural conter- 
 minous boundary of England and Russia. 
 
 "From this stand-point Russia can calmly look on the consolidation 
 and development of British power in India." * 
 
 10. Now it is evident from these and similar passages inter- 
 spersed among the historical and geographical detail of Mr. 
 Michell's valuable compilation, as well as from the series of 
 elaborate letters published last year by Major- General Fadeieff 
 in the " Gazette de Moscow," that there is a very general feel- 
 ing in Russia in favour of extending the frontier at once to 
 the Hindu-Kush, which of course involves the complete 
 absorption of the independent Uzbeg States. And this 
 extension, be it remembered, is recommended, not by the 
 facilities it will afford for promoting a trade with India, but 
 
 * "Russians in Central Asia," p. extravagant in tone. It bears a 
 
 400, sea. It is not clear from what marked contrast, indeed, to Chapter 
 
 Russian source the end of the 10th xii., which is also anonymous, but 
 
 chapter of Mr. Michell's work is which is clearly expressed, puts forth 
 
 taken, but it ia the portion of the moderate views, and is full of the 
 
 volume which we least like ; the most valuable information, 
 worst in point of style and the most 
 
198 ENGLAND AND KTTSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. ni. 
 
 in the more questionable hope of forestalling the English in 
 possession of the markets which will thus be opened up to 
 Eussian enterprise. " These markets," it is said, " are situ- 
 ated on the upper course of the Amu-Daria (or Oxus), whose 
 mouth is in the possession of Eussia ; and Eussia cannot, and 
 must not, relinquish them in favour of England, because she 
 is connected with them by a natural waterway." The com- 
 mercial argument, indeed, which some among us are wont to 
 use in favour of Eussian extension, operates, as we think, 
 exactly in the contrary direction. The trade of Eussia, 
 indeed, with Central Asia is mainly a trade in cotton, and it 
 is difficult to see how the improvement of that traffic, which is 
 her avowed object, can possibly benefit Manchester. 
 
 Eussia now exports annually to the Uzbeg States goods to 
 the value of about 300,000Z., and receives annually from those 
 states about double the amount in raw produce and manufac- 
 tures ; Bokhara counting for about two-thirds, both of the 
 export and import trade; and the remaining third being 
 divided between Khiva and Kokand. Of the export trade 
 nearly one half consists of inferior cotton goods, a cheap but 
 showy article being manufactured in the governments of Mos- 
 cow, Vladimir, Kaluga, and Kostrema expressly for the Cen- 
 tral Asiatic market ; while of the import trade cotton forms at 
 least three-quarters, the larger moiety being the raw staple 
 and yarn for which since the American Civil War there has 
 been a great demand in Eussia, while the smaller moiety is a 
 stout and warm but plain fabric, the produce of Uzbeg looms, 
 which is greatly preferred by the Kirghiz, Cossacks, and Bash- 
 kirs to the cheaper prints and calicoes of Eussian manufac- 
 ture. But Eussia now finds that, as the price of labour has 
 sensibly increased, owing to the emancipation of the serfs, she 
 cannot hope in future to supply the cotton goods required for 
 the Central Asiatic market at anything like their former prices; 
 and she sees, therefore, that unless she can devise some 
 method of meeting this difficulty, she will run the risk of being 
 undersold by the English manufacturers, who are striving to 
 push their goods up the Afghan passes and across the Hindu- 
 Kush to the valley of the Oxus. As far as the cost of trans- 
 
Cm HI.] THE ETJSSIANS IN CENTEAL ASIA. 199 
 
 port is concerned there cannot be much difference between the 
 route from Moscow to Bokhara, and the route to the same 
 place from Karachi. The carriage of goods along the former 
 line has been calculated at 18/. 10s. per ton ; and any sensible 
 reduction of this charge would therefore place the Eussian 
 goods in the Bokhara market at a corresponding advantage 
 over the English. The great aim accordingly of Bussia seems 
 to be " to establish spinning and weaving manufactories at a 
 short distance from the Bokharian frontier ; " probably at 
 Tashkend itself; from which she would not only continue to 
 supply the cheap and bright-coloured goods suited to the local 
 market, but which would also enable her, by the diminished 
 cost of the raw material, to compete with the Uzbeg manufac- 
 turer in the supply of the superior article affected by her own 
 Mussulman subjects in tbe Steppe ; and " if at the same time 
 she could establish a Eussian factory at or near Bokhara itself, 
 where the native growers might be instructed in |fb.e best 
 method of cultivating the cotton plant, while the factory- owner 
 would also exercise the function of a broker in condemning all 
 cotton unfit for manufacture in Bussia," she seems to think 
 that she might convert Central Asia into an almost exclusively 
 cotton-producing country, reserving to herself all the profits of 
 manufacture and subsequent traffic. It will be seen from this 
 detail that Bussia is now endeavouring to do for Central Asia, 
 very much what the native mill -owners are attempting for 
 "Western India ; but with this difference, that the Eussian 
 manufacturers in Turkestan would have a beneficial premium 
 of 18/. 10s. per ton upon their goods, instead of the mere 
 saving of 21. or 31. per ton freight from Liverpool to 
 Bombay.* 
 
 * This view of the Russian cotton- Downing Street, freshfrom the honours 
 trade with Bokhara has been chiefly of competitive examination, had been 
 taken from Mr. Lumley's very excel- allowed to test the accuracy of the 
 lent Report. It is ungracious, per- numbers before the Report in question 
 haps, to find any fault with a paper was submitted to Parliament ; in 
 drawn up with such remarkable which case we should hardly have had 
 ability, and embodying information two errors in the simple sum of add- 
 not easily accessible to the English ing up three sets of figures, in order 
 reader; but we cannot help wishing to find the aggregate of the imports 
 that some of the young gentlemen in of Central Asia for the decennial 
 
200 
 
 ENGLAND AND ETJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. HI. 
 
 "We have not yet spoken of the prohibitive tariff which 
 Eussia still keeps up with regard to the woollen and cotton 
 goods of England ; but it is our firm belief that the more her 
 hold upon the Uzbeg States may be extended and confirmed 
 the greater will be the difficulties thrown in the way of a trade 
 with India. With the exception, indeed, of articles of tropical 
 produce, such as indigo, opium, spices, coffee, and perhaps 
 sugar, it is not likely that any Indian articles will be allowed 
 to penetrate into Eussian Turkestan, and we should fear even 
 that the export of horses, silk, wool, and dried fruits, which 
 are the principal articles that we now receive from that country, 
 would be in a great measure diverted to the north* 
 
 11. It now remains to consider the duty of England in the 
 present crisis. We think enough has been said to show that 
 
 period from 1850 to 1859 inclusive. The line in the report is as follows :- 
 
 Bokhara. Khiva. Kokand. Total. 
 
 £1,607,937 + 375,789 + 18,731 = 1,902,447 - properly 2,002,457. 
 
 See Keports of H.M.'s Secretaries 
 of Embassy and Legation, No. 5, p. 
 314. 
 
 We fear that Mr. Davies was too 
 sanguine in his view of the British 
 trade with Central Asia as compared 
 with the Eussian trade. He says, p. 
 21, " English cotton piece goods have 
 to a great extent displaced those for- 
 warded through Russia in the Bokhara 
 and neighbouring markets," but 
 VambSry in 1863 still found the Rus- 
 sians in almost complete possession of 
 the Bokhara market, and Mr. Lumley 
 dwells throughout his report on the 
 difficulty whichEnglish manufacturers 
 have found in opposing the low-class 
 goods of Russia. As the balance of 
 trade, however, with Russia is 100 
 per cent, in favour of Central Asia, 
 there must be, as Mr. Lumley re- 
 marks, " a considerable surplus 
 balance of roubles for investment in 
 the much prized, though as yet too 
 inaccessible, fabrics and cutlery of 
 England ; " and if our manufacturers, 
 therefore, will consult the peculiar 
 
 tastes of the Central Asiatics, and the 
 cost of transport through Afghanis- 
 tan can be somewhat diminished, there 
 will still be some chance of our com- 
 peting successfully with Russia in 
 the Bokhara market, so long as the 
 country remains independent. 
 
 * (In her treaties with all the Uzbeg 
 Khanates, Russia has adopted the 
 very moderate rate of 2J per cent, ad 
 valorem, which is the regular Moha- 
 medan assessment, for the import 
 duty on all native goods entering 
 Russian Turkestan ; but she has not 
 yet published any special Tariff for 
 the produce and manufactures of Eng- 
 land or India, and the European rates 
 must be considered, therefore, to be 
 applicable. Practically it is under- 
 stood that the introduction of all 
 Indian goods is discouraged, and that 
 in regard to Himalayan or Assam tea, 
 which alone would pay the cost of 
 transport, it is declared contraband, 
 the object being to protect the direct 
 tea-trade between Russia and China. 
 —1874.) 
 
Oh. HI.] 
 
 THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 201 
 
 Eussia has no right — except the right of the strongest — to 
 impose her rule upon the Uzbeg States, and also that her 
 nearer approach to India, however likely, is not desirable in 
 the interests of either one country or the other. As far as can 
 be judged from the tone and comments of the Indian press, 
 there would seem to be coming on — even while Eussia is still 
 at so great a distance — that same disturbed and dangerous 
 state of native feeling which was observable at the time of the 
 first Persian siege of Her&t, and which has been so well de- 
 scribed by Kaye in his history of the Afghan war. 
 
 " Even in our own provinces," he remarks, in narrating the events of 
 1837, "these rumours of mighty movements in the countries of the 
 North- West disquieted the native mind ; there was an uneasy, restless 
 feeling among all classes, scarcely amounting to actual disaffection, and 
 perhaps best to be described as a state of ignorant expectancy — a looking 
 outward in the belief of some coming change, the nature of which no one 
 clearly understood."* 
 
 It has been suggested, in order to calm this troubled feel- 
 
 * "History of the Afghan War," 
 vol. i. p. 290. We have no wish to 
 discuss dangers which may not after 
 all be realized, but it must be obvious 
 that the nearer the Russians approach 
 to India, the greater will be their dis- 
 turbing influence, and the more diffi- 
 cult it will be to maintain order in 
 the frontier districts. If, indeed, an 
 army of 70,000 Europeans is required 
 for the garrison of India under present 
 circumstances, an augmentation of 
 50,000 would not be an extravagant 
 estimate for our enhanced necessities 
 when confronted with Russia on the 
 Indus ; and considering the strain 
 put on our home resources to meet 
 the present demand, where, let it be 
 asked, is such an additional force to 
 come from? There is one more 
 point connected with this subject 
 which seems deserving of notice, 
 because great stress has been often 
 laid on it, and because it seems likely to 
 mislead the public. We mean the 
 peaceful and enlightened character of 
 
 the Emperor Alexander II., which 
 is held to divest the Russian neigh- 
 bourhood to India of all danger and 
 to render it rather a source of strength 
 and profit. When the Italian Parlia- 
 ment was exulting a few years back 
 in having secured the good will of the 
 Emperor Napoleon at the trifling cost 
 of Nice and Savoy, Cialdini reminded 
 it that the Emperor was not immortal, 
 and that under his successors Italy 
 might rue the day when she had con- 
 signed the keys of the country into 
 the hands of its traditional enemy. 
 Even so would we remind our readers 
 that the Emperor Alexander is not 
 immortal, that the traditional policy 
 of Russia, as consecrated in the testa- 
 ment of Peter the Great, is hostile to 
 the British power in the East ; and 
 that if we acquiesce in placing her in 
 command of the Indian Caucasus, 
 it may be a not less fatal error than 
 Italy's surrender into the hands of 
 France of the Passes of the Alps. 
 
202 
 
 ENGLAND AND ETJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. in. 
 
 ing — which is already making itself distinctly felt, and which 
 may he expected to increase if left to the mere natural course 
 of events — that the British Government should now form 
 some engagement with Eussia ; either with regard to absolute 
 immobility within present limits, or with regard to certain 
 prospective limits to be mutually agreed upon and notified 
 beforehand, so as to obviate any further doubt or misconcep- 
 tion of design ; and if it were possible to forecast the map 
 of Central Asia, as a skilful player prepares for " le grand 
 coup " at whist, this latter alternative would probably be the 
 most successful — as it would certainly be the most humane — 
 way of solving the difficulty. But with the abnormal elements 
 of calculation furnished by Kirghiz and Uzbeg and Afghan 
 nationalities, it seems hopeless to look for stability in any 
 such arrangement of future relations. And with respect to 
 the other plan, of a mutual guarantee against any further, 
 advance, the objections to it are of so obvious a nature as 
 hardly to require to be recapitulated. Eussia, in the first place, 
 has already pledged herself to observe a certain definite 
 frontier in the manifesto so often alluded to ; and we should 
 derive, therefore, little additional security from the formality 
 of a reciprocal engagement. In the second place, it must 
 be remembered that a convention, on the basis of the uti 
 possidetis, would be manifestly unfair to England. We do not 
 stand at all in the same position in regard to Eussia as 
 Eussia occupies in regard to us. Our annexation of Bhootah, 
 for instance, or the substitution of the direct for the indirect 
 dependence of Cashmere could not possibly affect public opinion 
 in Eussia, or give the Eussian Government any ground for 
 interpellation; whereas the conquest of Khiva or Bokhara 
 would doubtless very sensibly affect us in India by creating 
 a vague impression in the native mind that our Asiatic supre- 
 macy was about to be challenged. And thirdly, it appears 
 to us that it would be a suicidal policy on the part of England 
 to place in the hands of Eussia such an instrument of pos- 
 sible mischief as the right of interference in the rectification 
 of our north-west frontier which she would derive from any 
 mutual agreement to remain within our present limits. It 
 
Ch. HI.] THE RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 203 
 
 would be, in fact, to invite rather than to stave off the threat- 
 ened evil ; to call up to the hall-door the wolf that is now 
 merely prowling in the back-yard. On these united considera- 
 tions, greatly as we desire to see a friendly intelligence prevail- 
 ing between Russia and Great Britain, we sincerely trust 
 we shall not be committed to any mutual engagement against 
 an extension of frontier. If Russia is bent (as she probably 
 is) on further encroachment, we must accept the position, but 
 above all things, let us preserve an uncontrolled liberty of 
 action, and be guided alone in our future relations with Cen- 
 tral Asia by the exigency of the occasion, and an enlightened 
 view of the real welfare of our Indian empire. 
 
 The great danger seems to be that, as Russia was led, in 
 1854, by an erroneous estimate of the state of public feeling in 
 England, which was judged to be essentially anti-warlike, 
 to commit herself to a policy at Constantinople that ultimately 
 led to war, so she may be deceived at present by the apparent 
 apathy of the public on the one side and by the encouragement 
 held out by the press upon the other, into a persuasion that the 
 country at large can really look upon her advance towards 
 the Hindu-Kush with approbation, or even with indifference. 
 Were she assured of impunity in this respect, the difficulties 
 of the enterprise would be more than half overcome ; but if, on 
 the contrary, it is made plain to her that every step that she 
 advances is watched by England, as it certainly must be when 
 our attention is once awakened, with a vigilant and scrutinizing 
 eye ; and that in a case of this sort, where the vital interests of 
 our Indian empire are at stake, the general feeling of the 
 country will give a cordial support to whatever Government 
 may be in power, we cannot believe that she will press forward 
 in a policy which must certainly cast on her the odium of bad 
 faith, and may lead to still more serious consequences. 
 
 So long as Khiva and Bokhara preserve their independence, 
 there may not be occasion for any more active interference 
 upon our part than a constant reference to Prince Gortchakoff's 
 circular, and a continued protest against the promotion and 
 decoration] of contumacious commanders, who — in defiance of 
 orders, as it is said, and to the manifest risk of the peaceful 
 
204 ENGLAND AND BUSSDA. IN THE EAST. [Oh. m. 
 
 relations of the country — press forward from one conquest 
 to another ; but if to the final subjugation of Kokand is added 
 an attempt to subvert the independence of the other Uzbeg 
 States — if Kussia should take possession of the Oxus, as she 
 has already taken possession of the Jaxartes, then, as her out- 
 posts will be in contact with the Afghan outposts along the 
 whole line of the mountains from Mymenah to Badakhsbin, 
 it will become a question for serious consideration, whether, 
 leaving Cabul and Ghazni, the scene of our old disasters, to 
 struggle on in isolated anarchy, it may not be incumbent on 
 us to secure a strong flanking position by the reoccupation of 
 the open country of Shaul, of Candahar, and even of Her&t. 
 There is a strong impression abroad, amongst those best 
 acquainted with the subject, that ultimately — not perhaps 
 in this generation, but whenever Russian Turkestan shall in- 
 clude the basin of the Oxus, and a Russian Governor- General 
 shall be enthroned at Bokhara — it will be necessary, for the 
 due protection of the Punjab and the north-west provinces of 
 India, that we should erect and hold first-class fortresses in 
 advance of our present territorial border and on the most ac- 
 cessible line of attack ; and it is thus satisfactory to find that 
 the positions of Her£t and Candahar, which precisely meet 
 the military requirements of such an occasion, have been 
 already pointed out by one of our most cautious diplomatists 
 as the true political frontiers of India ; * while it has been also 
 shown that these districts may be administered with compara- 
 tive ease, since the Doorani population — the only element of 
 danger in Afghan government — is here outnumbered and neu- 
 tralized by docile Hazarehs and pliant Parsiwans, who grate- 
 fully remember our former beneficent rule, and would gladly 
 welcome its return. It is to be hoped that we shall not pre- 
 maturely take alarm. At present there is no pressing 
 danger, no cause for unusual precautions ; but the time may 
 come when it will be our duty to remember that outworks are 
 as necessary to the defence of empires as of fortresses, and 
 that in this view Her&t and Candahar are the Malakhoff and 
 Mamelon of our position in the East. 
 
 * See an excellent paper by Sir Justin Sheil in the Appendix to Lady 
 Sheil's "Life in Persia." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 (Reprinted, with Notes, from the " Quarterly Review" 
 for Oct. 1866, No. 240, p. 461.*) 
 
 1. Authorities for Central Asian geography — German and Russian. — 2. English 
 and other travellers in the same region. — 3. Apocryphal travels, Colonel 
 
 Gardiner, and Baron George Ludvig von . — 4. Native explorers. 
 
 — 5. General description of Central Asia. — 6. Evidence of its early civiliza- 
 tion. — 7. Ethnological sketch. — 8. Review of the present political condition 
 of its four divisions, S. E. Cashmere and Thibet, N. E. Eastern Turkestan, 
 S. W. Afghanistan, and N. W. Russian Turkestan, with sketch of events 
 there to autumn of 1866 — 9. General political considerations. 
 
 1. Central Asia is a conventional rather than a strictly geo- 
 graphical title. The name is not confined to that particular 
 portion of Asia which is centrically situated in respect to lati- 
 tude and longitude. It is rather used as a convenient and 
 general designation for the whole interior of the continent, and 
 is thus made to cover a greater or less extent of territory, 
 according as the writers who employ it refer to the ethnology, 
 or the physical geography, or the political distribution of the 
 countries, which are contained within its limits. 
 
 In the present sketch, which proposes to consider our 
 sources of information with regard to these countries, as well 
 as their actual condition and prospects, Central Asia must be 
 understood to mean the regions which intervene between the 
 Russian empire to the North and the British-Indian empire to 
 
 * Art. VI. — 1. "MSmoire sur la 4. "Proceedings of the Royal Geo- 
 
 partie Meridionale de l'Asie Centrale." graphical Society of London." Vol. X. 
 
 Par Nicolas de Khanikoff. Paris, 1862. No. IV. London, 1866. 
 
 2. "Memoire surl'Ethnographie de 5. "LeLivre de Marco Polo." Par 
 la Perse." Par Nicolas de Khanikoff. M. G. Panthier. Paris, 1865. 
 Paris, 1866. 6. "Invalide Russe." 1866. 
 
 3. ' ' Journal of the Imperial Russian 
 Geographical Society, St. Petersburg." 
 
206 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 the south, including, perhaps, a portion of the Persian province 
 of Khorassan to the west, and Chinese Turkestan to the east. 
 
 When Alexander von Humboldt, a quarter of a century ago, 
 compiled his celebrated work on the " Orography and Compara- 
 tive Climatology of Central Asia," though the materials at his 
 disposal for gaining a general acquaintance with those subjects 
 were most abundant, yet he often found himself at fault in 
 searching for precise and trustworthy details. He himself had 
 proceeded no further than Lake Zaisan, at the foot of the 
 southern slopes of the Altai ; and the Hi River, which disem- 
 bogues into the Balkash Lake, at a short distance to the south- 
 west, was the extreme limit of Eussian scientific exploration. 
 
 At that time no traveller from the north had invaded the 
 solitudes of the Thian-Shan since the Jesuit commission of the 
 preceding century,* nor had any adventurous Englishman pene- 
 trated as yet to the icy summits of the Kara-Koram and Kuen- 
 Luen. Since then, however, vast additions have been made to 
 our accurate knowledge of these regions. Not only have the 
 theodolite and barometer been extensively used along both the 
 mountain-chains, which bound the plateau of Chinese Turkes- 
 tan to the north and south ; but hardy travellers, passing in 
 
 * The Chinese Emperor Tsian-lun gister of the Jesuit observations, still 
 (or Khian-loung, according to Klap- maintain their rigid accuracy; but 
 roth) appointed a commission, con- our Indian Trigonometrical Survey, 
 sisting of a German Jesuit, Haller- which has been now pushed into Tar- 
 stein with two assistants, Felix d' tary, does not bear out this favourable 
 Arocha and Espinha, to accompany verdict to the same extent — Mr. John- 
 the expedition which he sent against son's plane-table survey, for instance, 
 the Eleuths of Zungaria in 1755, for giving • 79° 25' for the approximate 
 the purpose of determining the astro- longitude of Kioten, while the Jesuit 
 nomical position of all the principal register has 80° 21'. The Jesuit survey 
 sites in Central Asia ; and the results extended westward as far as Sarik-kul 
 oftheirobservationsweresubsequently or Tash-kurghan, and northward to 
 embodied in an official map published the valley of the Talas. No account 
 at Pekin. This map was translated of the journeyings or personal adven- 
 by Klaproth, from a comparison of tures of these remarkable explorers is 
 several copies, and published by him believed to be extant, but the Jesuit 
 at Berlin in 1833 ; and it has served College published at the time, from 
 as the basis of all our Central Asiatic their Reports, a very interesting re- 
 geography until modern times. The cord of the military and political 
 Russians, indeed, who through M. events of the expedition. — (See "Let- 
 Zakharof, Consul at Kulja, have re- tres ^difiantes," torn, xxvii.) 
 cently acquired a more authentic re- 
 
Ch. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 207 
 
 disguise through the length and breadth of the land, have 
 visited all the principal cities of Central Asia, have mixed 
 familiarly with the tribesmen and villagers, and — except in re- 
 gard to some particular localities which still stand out in 
 isolated inaccessibility — have made us almost as well acquainted 
 with the manners and customs, the dialects, the religions and 
 the ethnic relations of the races intervening, between Eussia and 
 India, between Persia and China, as with the inhabitants of any 
 other part of the East. To describe in any detail the sources 
 from which such information has been derived, would be neither 
 very easy, nor very interesting. A brief abstract of authorities 
 must suffice, explanations only being added, where the travels 
 are but little known to the public, or where their authenticity 
 is questioned. 
 
 With the ancient and mediaeval travels in Central Asia, we 
 do not propose at present to meddle. In the "Erdkunde von 
 Asien " of Carl Eitter, and the " Asie Centrale " of Alexander 
 von Humboldt will be found a resume of all our early, as dis- 
 tinguished from our recent, Asiatic knowledge. Profiting by 
 the labours of Abel Eemusat, Klaproth, Julien, and Landresse, 
 the two great geographers of Berlin were able to collate the 
 authority of Chinese Encyclopedias and Buddhist travels, with 
 the hearsay evidence of the Greeks and the more circumstan- 
 tial accounts of the contemporary Arabs. With the aid of 
 other translations, they drew much valuable testimony from 
 Turkish and Mongolian histories ; they further traced the 
 routes of the envoys and traders from Europe, who visited the 
 territories of the great " Cham of Tartary," in the middle ages ; 
 they examined Missionary journals, and sifted Caravan itiner- 
 aries, and finally summarized all available reports both of 
 Eussian and of English agents; thereby bringing into one 
 focus rays of information from a hundred different quarters, 
 and furnishing for the first time an intelligible scheme of 
 Central Asiatic geography. The subject, as it appears to us, 
 has not since received the consideration which it merits ; no 
 attempt having been made to keep the public acquainted with 
 our improved geographical knowledge, notwithstanding that 
 exploration has been carried on ever since, continuously, and 
 
208 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. IV. 
 
 with marked success. In this field of honourable emulation 
 Russia is entitled to a very prominent place. As her arms 
 have advanced upon the one side from the Ili River and Lake 
 Balkashto the Issi-Kul Lake and the great Thian-Shan Range, 
 and upon the other from the Aral Sea for twelve hundred miles 
 along the course of the Jaxartes, to Turkestan, Chemkend, 
 Tashkend, and now to Khojend itself, so have the scientific 
 officers, who accompany or precede her army, continued to 
 lay before the world the results of their professional labours. 
 The Journal of the Imperial Geographical Society of St. 
 Petersburg has been enriched for many years past with a series 
 of papers by Semenoff, Golubieff, Veniukoff, Boutakoff, and 
 others, describing the progress of discovery in Zungaria and 
 Russian Turkestan ; and many of these excellent Memoirs — 
 which, among other valuable results, connect all the recent ac- 
 quisitions of Russia as far south as the Thian-Shan Range with 
 the great Siberian survey, and further determine for the first 
 time, on certain data, a series of astronomical positions along 
 a belt of 30° of longitude from the Aral Sea to the Chinese 
 frontier — have been transferred to the pages of our own " Geo- 
 graphical Journal " in London. But these are not the only 
 contributions of Russia to our recent knowledge of Central 
 Asia. A more hazardous, and, in some respects, a more in- 
 teresting, journey was performed in 1859 by Captain Vali- 
 khanoff, the son of a Kirghiz Sultan, who, having entered the 
 military service of Russia and received a professional educa- 
 tion, was thus enabled to combine the accomplishments of a 
 European traveller with the free movements of a native of the 
 country. In company with a caravan of traders he crossed the 
 Thian-Shan by the Zaukti defile, and passed the winter in 
 Kashgar and the neighbourhood, collecting much solid inform- 
 ation regarding the geography, the ethnology, the natural pro- 
 ductions, and the modern history of Chinese Turkestan, which 
 has been recently made accessible to the English public in 
 the Messrs. Michells' work on " The Russians in Central 
 
 Asia." 
 
 Mons. Nicolas de Khanikoff is a Russian traveller of a still 
 higher class. His first introduction to Central Asiatic life was 
 
Oh. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 209 
 
 iii the suite of Colonel Buteneff, when that distinguished officer 
 was sent to Bokhar& on a diplomatic mission during the Eng- 
 lish occupation of Afghanistan. On this occasion he visited 
 Samarcand, and collected copious topographical details of the 
 city and its neighbourhood (which he afterwards embodied in a 
 statistical account of the Khanat of Bokhara), thereby estab- 
 lishing his claim to be the first European, since the days of 
 Clavijo (in a.d. 1404), who has given us from his personal ob- 
 servation a plan and description of that famous capital of the 
 empire of Timour. After many years of laborious service in 
 Persia, where he relieved the toils of office by an earnest study 
 of Oriental literature and antiquities, Khanikoffwas recently 
 employed, in 1858-59, in conducting a scientific expedition 
 through Eastern Persia, which he somewhat fancifully calls 
 ' the southern part of Central Asia,' and he has since published 
 two separate volumes giving the geographical and ethnological 
 results of his travels. Both of these works are valuable. The 
 one contains a very careful record of the scientific observations 
 of Khanikoff and his companions, including some most im- 
 portant rectifications of the map of Persia, and an admirable 
 general description of the province of Khorassan ; in the other 
 we have an ingenious, if not entirely convincing, argument, 
 drawn from a large field of induction, as to the original seats 
 of the Iranian race, together with a good review of the general 
 ethnic relations of the present inhabitants of Persia. Mons. 
 Khanikoff occupies such an eminent place among the Oriental- 
 ists of the present day, that no apology can be needed for in- 
 cluding his two volumes amongst those placed at the head of 
 the present article.* 
 
 * (During the eight years which gions in -which they have travelled, 
 
 have elapsed since this was written For the geography of the Steppe be- 
 
 the progress of Russian Geographical tween the Caspian and the Aral we 
 
 research throughout the northern por- are principally indebted to the disco- 
 
 tion of Central Asia has been con- veries of Scobolef, Stebnitzky, and 
 
 tinuous ; and the results obtained are Glukhofsky ; Kuhn and Krause hav- 
 
 far too extensive and important to ing also sent in valuable reports, 
 
 admit of being compressed into the Stoletof is our great authority for the 
 
 limits of a note. It must suffice then Oxus. Struvfi's astronomical observa- 
 
 to mention the names of the following tions in the Bokhara territory leave 
 
 distinguished explorers, and the re- nothing to be desired. The lamented 
 
210 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 2. Let us now glance at the progress of English discovery 
 in Central Asia in recent times. Our greatest activity was 
 naturally displayed in connexion with the Afghan war, as the 
 period of Eussia's greatest activity has coincided with her 
 conquest of Turkestan. In extending the limits, indeed, of 
 Asiatic empire, war and science march hand in hand, and the 
 difficulties and dangers of the one — and would we could also 
 say the triumphs and rewards — are not less conspicuous than 
 those of the other. 
 
 In reviewing our own fortunes during the period in ques- 
 tion, it would really seem as if a fatality had attended us, so 
 few — so very few — of the English officers who advanced the 
 cause of geography in Central Asia having lived to wear the 
 laurels which they had earned. Stoddart, who was the first 
 to cross the mountains from Herat to Bokhara^ and Arthur 
 Conolly, who travelled hy an entirely new route from Cabul 
 direct to Merv and so on to Khiva, Kokand, and ultimately to 
 Bokhara, both perished miserably at the latter place in 1841. 
 D'Arcy Todd, a traveller of some note himself, and to whom 
 we are indebted for the adventurous journeys of James Abbott 
 and Bichmond Shakespeare from Her6t to Khiva and Orenberg, 
 was killed at the battle of Firo z-shahar. Edward Conolly, 
 the first explorer of Seistan, was shot from the walls of an 
 obscure fort in the Kohistan of Cabul; and Dr. Lord, the 
 companion of Wood in the valley of the Oxus, was killed in 
 the same district and nearly at the same time. Dr. Forbes, a 
 most promising young traveller, was also murdered in Seistan, 
 in .1841 ; and Lieut. Pattinson, the only officer who ever 
 explored the valley of the Helmend from Zamin-Dawer to the 
 vicinity of the Lake,* was butchered by the mutinous Jdn-b&z 
 
 Fedchenko explored Kokand and — whose travels are about to be pub- 
 
 Kara-tegin. Osten-Saken conducted lished in London in an English version, 
 
 a survey which penetrated some dis- simultaneously with their appearance 
 
 tance within the Kashgar boundary. at St. Petersburg.— 1874.) 
 Captain Reinthal and Baron Kaulbars * (This was true in 1866, but Sir 
 
 visited Kashgar itself. Further to E. Pollock and Dr. Bellew have since 
 
 the east Kulja has been incorporated followed in Pattinson's footsteps along 
 
 n the Empire and Mongolia has been the Helmend from Girishk to Seistan 
 
 thoroughly examined by Fritsche, by on their recent deputation from India 
 
 Paderin, and especially by Prjevalsky to join Sir Fred. Goldsmid in the latter 
 
Ch. IV.] CENTBAL ASIA. 211 
 
 at Candahar, soon after the outbreak at Cabul. Col. Sanders, 
 of the Bengal Engineers, who compiled from his own observa- 
 tions an excellent map of the country between Candahar and 
 the Hazareh Mountains to the north-west, also fell a few years 
 later at Maharajpoor ; Eldred Pottinger, who on two occasions 
 crossed the mountains direct between Cabul and Herat, sur- 
 vived the Cabul massacre and the dangers of an Afghan 
 captivity, merely to die of fever at Hongkong ; and the list 
 may be closed- by a name — still more illustrious in the annals 
 of geographical science — that of Alexander Burnes himself, 
 who, as it is well known, was the first victim of the Cabul 
 insurrection. Through the labours of these men and of their 
 worthy coadjutors — the officers of the Quartermaster- General's 
 Department — Afghanistan Proper may be said to have been 
 very extensively, if not thoroughly, explored between the years 
 1838 and 1843. The great map, indeed, which was compiled 
 by Mr. John Walker, Hydrographer to the Indian Office, at 
 the close of the first expedition, and which was subsequently 
 enlarged aud amended as further information was acquired, 
 will ever remain a noble monument of the collective science 
 and industry of the Indian Army. It furnishes an accurate 
 outline, and in many quarters a very comprehensive detail, of 
 the country extending from the Lake of Seistan on the west 
 to the frontiers of Cashmere on the east, and north and south 
 between the Oxus and the Indus, and is altogether a most 
 valuable contribution to our knowledge of the East. Since 
 the period of the Afghan war, discovery has somewhat lan- 
 guished; yet there are still a few recent journeys which must 
 not be overlooked. A French officer, General Ferrier, in 
 attempting to push his way from Persia to the Punjab, per- 
 formed some very remarkable marches over new ground in 
 1844-45, exploring an unvisited part of the Seistan frontier in 
 one direction, and crossing the great Pai-opamisan range from 
 the vicinity of Balkh to Herat in another.* Still more recently 
 
 province. The chapters indeed, de- * Some doubt has been expressed 
 
 scriptive of the Helmend and Seistan with regard to the genuineness of this 
 are not the least interesting portion of latter portion of General Ferrier's 
 Dr. Belief's new work, "From the travels, because, in addition to certain 
 Indus to the Tigus." — 1874.) discrepancies pf distance, it also con- 
 
 p 2 
 
212 ENGLAND AND HUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. IT. 
 
 the mission of Major Lumsden to Candahar has made us 
 acquainted with the ranges beyond the Indus which buttress 
 the Afghan plateau to the south-east, and through which no 
 European had before penetrated ; while at the same time our 
 own line of frontier, conterminous with the mountains, from 
 Scinde to Peshawer, has undergone the closest investigation,' 
 as evidenced in the exhaustive Keport of Mr. Temple, and in 
 Major "Walker's admirable map. Putting aside for the pre- 
 sent all discussion of the elevated region between Peshawer 
 and the sources of the Oxus, which nevertheless contains 
 matter of considerable interest, we pass on to the scene of 
 England's greatest geographical triumph. Cashmere and 
 Thibet, which even as late as the time of Humboldt were to a 
 certain extent enveloped in mystery, are now as well known as 
 the provinces of India Proper. Something had been done in 
 the way of description and geographical outline by the preli- 
 minary labours of Moorcroft and Trebeck, of Jacquemont, 
 Vigne and Hugel, and still later by the more scientific inquiries 
 of Cunningham and Henry Strachey, but all this sinks into 
 insignificance when compared with the grand achievements of 
 Captain Montgomerie and Godwin Austen. The Great Tri- 
 gonometrical Survey of India, having, under the direction of 
 these officers, passed the Himalayas, and swept over the 
 
 tains an account of a colony of Pagans merely on the ground of their appa- 
 amongst the Hazareh mountains, at rent improbability. General Ferrier 
 whose hands the General asserts him- has the further merit of having per- 
 self to have received that unreserved formed his journeys in the avowed 
 hospitality of bed and board which so character of a European officer, a cha- 
 vehemently scandalises Mahomedans, racter which involved no little risk 
 and which is by them referred exclu- so soon after the termination of the 
 sively to the Siyah-push Kaffirs ; but Afghan war, and among a people who 
 the fastnesses of the Deh Zangi and at that time classed all nationalities, 
 Deh Kundi uplands have really been English, French, and Russian, in the 
 so little visited by European, or one hated category of 'Feringi' and 
 even by any reliable native travellers, Infidel. Colonel Pelly has since, in 
 that we are not in a position to pro- the year 1860, ridden the whole way 
 nounce authoritatively on the manners from Teheran vid Herat and Candahar, 
 and customs of the inhabitants ; and to India, dressed in the uniform of a 
 since every other portion of the British officer, and he encountered no 
 General's narrative can be fully veri- serious danger except among the law- 
 lied, it is hardly fair to discredit his less frontier tribes in the vicinity of 
 Hazjireh journey and adventures Farrah. 
 
Cu. IV.} OENTKAL ASIA. 213 
 
 Cashmere [valley, has, during the last few years, fairly grap- 
 pled with the Trans-Indus region. It has worked its way 
 from station to station at elevations sometimes over 20,000 
 feet. It has mapped the entire range of the Kara-Koram and 
 Kuen-Luen, and, amongst its latest successes, has pushed 
 out a supplementary reconnaissance both to Yarkend and 
 Khoten in the great plain of Chinese Tartary beyond the 
 mountains. That a survey of this extensive and exhaustive 
 nature should have been carried on by British officers in a 
 country under foreign rule, and at a distance of 500 miles 
 from the British frontier, is not less creditable, we think, to 
 their diplomatic skill than it is to their hardihood and pro- 
 fessional zeal. We may fearlessly, indeed, compare the beau- 
 tiful maps of Cashmere and Ladakh that have been recently 
 published by Captain Montgomerie with the best productions 
 of Russian geographers, and rest assured that the present 
 Staff of the Indian Trigonometrical Survey are worthy suc- 
 cessors of Lambton, of Everest, and of Waugh. 
 
 Whether the Kara-Koram and Kuen-Luen are the southern 
 and northern crests of the great range which bounds the high 
 table-land of Thibet, according to the mountain system of 
 Humboldt, or whether the names do not rather apply to two 
 culminating ridges which are western and eastern portions of 
 the same range, as the Messrs. Schlagentweit first asserted, 
 and as the observations of Mr. Johnson, in his journeys 
 between Leh and Khoten, would seem to show, is of no very 
 great geographical consequence. It is certain, at any rate, 
 that the south-western or Kara-Koram ridge, the pass over 
 which, forming the main road between Thibet and Yarkend, 
 rises 18,341 feet above the level of the sea, is the true water- 
 shed between India and Central Asia, the Indus absorbing all 
 the streams which flow from the southern slope of the range, 
 while the northern rivers, which form the Kara-Kash and 
 which were followed by the Schlagentweits and by Johnson, 
 force their way through, or round, the outer barrier of the 
 Kuen-Luen, and wend north-eastward to the Gobi or sandy 
 desert. 
 
 There is something which appears powerfully to strike the 
 
 f- 
 
214 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 imagination when the explorer of Central Asia ascends the 
 last step of the ranges which bound the great plain of Tartary 
 to the north and south, and gazes over the magnificent land- 
 scape at his feet. It is thus interesting to compare the report 
 of Semenoff, from the top of the Zauku Pass, with the report 
 of Johnson overlooking Khoten, the two travellers confronting 
 each other as it were on the extreme limits of the Eussian and 
 British-Indian empires : — 
 
 "At last," says the Eussian traveller, "we attained tne object of our 
 journey, and found ourselves on the summit of the mountain-pass, when 
 a landscape of unexpected beauty spread out before us. We now gazed 
 on a vast plain, which, extending in every direction from us, formed a 
 kind of broad longitudinal valley between the foremost and the main 
 ranges of the Thian Shan. . . . There I found myself hi the very heart 
 of Asia, rather nearer to Cashmere than to Semipolatinsk, to Delhi than 
 to Orsk, to the Indian than to the Northern Ocean, and midway between 
 the Pacific and the Euxine. ... I very much wished to descend the 
 southern slope of the Thian-Shan, but was obliged to abandon the pro- 
 ject, fearing to jeopardize the safety of the party, and incur the moral 
 responsibility of any disaster." 
 
 " I ascended," says Mr. Johnson, in his Eeport, " three peaks of the 
 Kuen-Luen range, which had been previously fixed by the trigono- 
 metrical operations of the Survey. The contrast between the view to 
 the north and that to the south was very striking : on the one side there 
 was little but plain ; on the other, mountains and deep valleys. I might 
 almost have fancied myself on one of the southern ranges of the Hima- 
 layas, with the plains of India to the south, and great mountain ranges 
 to the north. . . . From these peaks, however, I could net get a view of 
 any of the important towns of Khoten, which I was so anxious to see ; 
 and I should have been obliged to have been satisfied with the extent of 
 exploration which I had already accomplished, had not an opening pre- 
 sented itself for me to proceed to Khoten under the protection of the 
 Khan of that country. . . . The whole country of Khoten, north of the 
 Kuen-Luen range, is an immense plain, sloping gently down to Aksti, 
 which place is fifteen long marches north of Ilchi.* 
 
 * It is to be hoped that this report journey to Khoten, and being thus 
 
 of Mr. Johnson's, which is addressed drawn into political communication 
 
 to Col. J. T. Walker, Superintendent with the rulers of Chinese Turkestan, 
 
 of the Great Trigonometrical Survey has been disapproved by the Govern- 
 
 of India, under date April 22, 1866, ment of India ; but it is impossible, 
 
 and which is full of interest, will soon we think, that Sir John Lawrence 
 
 be made public. According to state- should withhold his admiration at Mr. 
 
 ments in the Indian newspapers, Mr. Johnson's intrepidity in venturing 
 
 Johnson's conduct in extending his into such a country, and his skill in 
 
Ch. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 21-5 
 
 As it is across these plains of Chinese Tartary that the most 
 direct route lies between Bussia and India, and as it is in this 
 quarter that the first contact between the two empires may be 
 expected to take place, some further notice of recent travels in 
 Tartary may not be uninteresting. 
 
 Towards the close of the last century (a.d. 1786) a Eussian 
 sergeant of the name of Ephraimoff published an account of 
 his travels in Central Asia, which may be regarded as some- 
 thing of a curiosity in literature. He had been carried off as 
 a prisoner by the Kirghiz from the Siberian line and taken to 
 Bokhara, where he languished in captivity for many years. 
 Ultimately, however, he escaped, and made his way to India 
 by the route of Kashgar, Yarkend, Ladakh, and Cashmere, 
 reaching Calcutta in due course, from whence he was con- 
 veyed to St. Petersburg. His personal adventures are of some 
 interest, and a vocabulary which he gives of the Bokhara^ 
 dialect of that time, and which is almost entirely Persian, may 
 deserve the attention of philologists ; but he was a man of no 
 education, and his geographical illustrations are thus almost 
 confined to the dry detail of an itinerary. 
 
 It is believed that many Eussian agents were employed in 
 Central Asia at the commencement of the present century in 
 connexion with the contemplated march of the Don regiments 
 under Count Orloff-Denisoff upon India, but their reports 
 have never yet been made public. The same reticence, how- 
 effecting a retreat from it. Mr. John- a refugee from the old Bengal army, 
 son met with an Indian native officer one of those many native officers who, 
 at Khoten in command of the Khan's after the mutiny, fled to the north- 
 regular infantry, who, although now ward, where they are now to be found 
 professing Mahomedanism, and calling acting as instructors or commanders 
 himself Mahomed Ali, appeared to at all the Afghan, and Uzbeg, and 
 have been originally a Hindoo. It is Turkestan courts. (Mr. Johnson hav- 
 said in the Indian papers that Mr. ing since left the Indian service, has 
 Johnson suspected this individual to been appointed by the Maharaja of 
 be the notorious Nana Sahib, while Cashmere his Commissioner at Ladakh, 
 the Calcutta editors suggest the Prince and in that capacity did excellent ser- 
 Firoz Shah, as a more likely identiti- vice in facilitating the passage of Sir 
 cation ; but in reality there seems to Douglas Forsyth's party through 
 be no ground for believing the officer Thibet on their recent journey to 
 in question to be a personage of any Yarkend and Kashgar.— 1874.) 
 such distinction. He is more jprobably 
 
 \ 
 
21 R ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 ever, has not been observed with regard to the reports of the 
 merchants, who from this period seem to have prosecuted a 
 tolerably active traffic between Eussia and India across the 
 plains of Tartary. 
 
 A Georgian trader, in the first place, of the name of Eaphael 
 Danibeg, published in 1815, at St. Petersburg, an account of 
 his return journey from India to Semipolatinsk. Another 
 traveller of the name of Agha Mehdi — who, being a Cabul 
 Jew by birth, professed Mahommedanism or Christianity 
 according to circumstances, and who seems, under the guise 
 of a merchant, to have been employed by the Russian Govern- 
 ment between 1810 and 1822 on various delicate negociations 
 with the independent chiefs on the north-west frontier of India 
 — embodied his geographical experiences of Central Asia in a 
 memoir which is often quoted by the Russian, authorities, and 
 which, though as yet unpublished, must be still in the archives 
 of St. Petersburg ; * and a third report by a Bokhara trader 
 of the route from Semipolatinsk to Cashmere is given by Pro- 
 fessor Senkowski in the appendix to MeyendorfF's Bokhara. 
 In all these notices we find that the caravan route passed from 
 Cashmere through Ladakh to the Kara-Koram range ; that it 
 then crossed the plains of Tartary by Yarkend and Aksu to 
 Turfan at the foot of the Thian-Shan; and finally ascended 
 the mountains by the famous Muzart defile (or " Pass of 
 Glaciers," as it is usually called), and so on by Kulja to Semi- 
 polatinsk. A more direct line — and one which, from the 
 report of Mr. Johnson, would, we should think, become the 
 high road of traffic in future years — conducts from Aksu along 
 the river to Khoten, and thence ascending the mountains 
 either by the Sanju or the Yangi Devan pass debouches upon 
 Leh. The passes of the Kuen-Luen on this track are not 
 more difficult than the Kara-Koram defile, while the road 
 distance from Khoten to Leh is very considerably less than 
 
 * Mr. Moororoft happened to be at by Count Nesselrode, on the part of 
 
 Ladakh in 1822 at the time of Agha the Emperor Alexander, to Ranjit 
 
 Mehdi's death, in the Kara-Koram Singh and the Baja of Thibet. See 
 
 mountains, on his third mission from "Moorcroft's Travels," vol. i. p. 383 ; 
 
 Russia ; and he had thus an opportu- and for further notices of Agha Mehdi, 
 
 nity of inspecting theletters, addressed see " Meyendorf s Bokhara," p. 340. 
 
Oh. IV.] 
 
 CENTBAL ASIA. 
 
 217 
 
 that to the same place from Yarkend ; and Leh, moreover, is 
 much more conveniently situated than Cashmere for commu- 
 nication with Northern India. If it be true, indeed, according 
 to the information supplied to Mr. Johnson at Khoten, that 
 by proceeding seventy or eighty miles to the south-east, the 
 Kuen-Luen mountains may be turned, and wheeled carriages 
 can thus pass along an elevated table-land by Rodokh and 
 Grardukh to the immediate back of the Himalaya range, we 
 may expect in due time that the great Hindustan road will be 
 prolonged from the Niti Pass so as to open out upon these 
 uplands, a direct line of traffic being thus secured with Tartary, 
 which shall be independent of the difficulties both political and 
 geographical, that are attached to the old route by Cashmere 
 and Ladakh.* 
 
 There are still a few more authorities to be mentioned. Dr. 
 Thomas Thomson, the associate of Cunningham and Henry 
 
 * This route, to which Mr. Johnson 
 has recently drawn attention, was 
 known, however, to Moorcroft, and 
 is also mentioned by Cunningham and 
 H. Strachey. There has always been 
 a report in the country that there was 
 a royal made road from the Niti Pass 
 by Gardukh and Rodokh to Khoten, 
 and Moorcroft in one of his journeys 
 actually lighted upon a portion of this 
 road towards its southern extremity, 
 which he describes as "in some parts 
 substantially paved with pebbles, and 
 in others formed out of the levelled 
 rock." It was no doubt a work of 
 the Delhi emperors, executed for the 
 purpose of facilitating commercial in- 
 tercourse between India and China; 
 but the old road seems to have passed 
 to the west of the Kuen-Luen, instead 
 of to the east of that range, as recom- 
 mended by Johnson, for the Sarikia, 
 which Moorcroft mentions as the 
 northern terminus of the route be- 
 tween Khoten and Yarkend, can be 
 no other than the Surikia of Jolmson, 
 which is a name for the valley of the 
 Kara-kash river. — (See "Moorcroft's 
 
 Travels,'' vol. i. p. 373; Cunningham's 
 "Ladakh," p. 147; and "Journal of 
 Royal Geog. Society of London," vol. 
 xxiii. p. 5. ) (Further enquiry has not 
 confirmed the favourable view which 
 was at first taken of this eastern route 
 for commercial purposes. Mr. Shaw, 
 while residing at Ladakh, obtained 
 from natives of the country an itine- 
 rary of the route from Rodokh to 
 Kiria, east of Khoten, which he pub- 
 lished in the Geographical Proceed- 
 ings, vol. xvi., No. iii. The topogra- 
 phical description is confused, as na- 
 tive accounts usually are, but the 
 general result at which we arrive is 
 that, although there are no stupendous 
 passes to be surmounted, like these of 
 the Kara-Koram and Kuen-Luen, still 
 the route does pass over a culminating 
 ridge of very considerable elevation 
 and then descends along a rough ra- 
 vine for some 200 miles, till it de- 
 bouches on the plains of Turkestan, 
 the track lying throughout across a 
 desolate waste, entirely devoid of in- 
 habitants or supplies, or even of fuel 
 or forage. — 1874.) 
 
218 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 Strachey in the Ladakh Boundary Commission in 1847, was 
 the first Englishman who fairly crested the Kara-Koram range 
 and determined the true geographical position of the defile, a 
 service for which the Eoyal Geographical Society, with a 
 somewhat tardy recognition of merit, has this year presented 
 him with its Founder's Medal. The next travellers who fol- 
 lowed in the same direction were the brothers Schlagentweit. 
 Adolphe, the youngest, not only crossed the mountains, but 
 penetrated to Yarkend and Kashgar, where he was murdered 
 by a sanguinary fanatic, Wall Khan, who happened at the 
 moment to be in power, and may thus be classed among those 
 martyrs to science whose early fate we have already deplored ; 
 but the two other brothers, Herman and Robert, are hardly 
 entitled to the pre-eminent position which they claim as geo- 
 graphical discoverers. It is true that they ascended the Kara- 
 Koram pass and made a de"tour beyond the range in the direc- 
 tion of Khoten, which occupied them for twenty-six days and 
 extended to about three hundred miles, but they seem to have 
 been as unsuccessful both in observing and recording their 
 observations, as they were bold in assigning positions on in- 
 sufficient evidence ; the consequence of this empirical system 
 of survey being that they dislocated the entire map of Tartary 
 by placing everything between the Kara-Koram and the Thian- 
 Shan from 1° to 3° to the westward of its true emplacement.* 
 
 * The Schlagentweits head their beyond the immediate circle of his 
 chapter on the passes into Tartary friends, was hardly a less creditable 
 with this proud declaration: — "We performance than the boasted exploit 
 are fortunate enough to have been the of the Germans. Mons. Golubief 
 first Europeans that ever crossed the severely handled the Schlagentweits 
 chains of the Kara-Koram and of the in an article in the " Russian Geogra- 
 Kuen-Luen" (see "India and High phical Journal," Part IV., 1861; and 
 Asia " vol. i. p. 25) ; and it was to his criticism was endorsed by Mons. 
 commemorate so glorious an achieve- Semenoff, the President of the Section 
 ment that the Emperor of Russia con- of Physical Geography. This article 
 ferred on the brothers the honorary was reproduced in an English transla- 
 tive of Sakunlunski. In reality, how- tion in the last number of the " Ben- 
 ever the Russian Ephraimoff and the gal Asiatic Journal," Part II., No. 1, 
 Georgian Raphael Danibeg had crossed p. 46; and Sir Andrew Waugh, at 
 the mountains from Yarkend to Thibet the recent meeting of the British As- 
 long before the Schlagentweits ; and sociation, showed, from a comparison 
 Dr Thomson's ascent of the Kara- of the Schlagentweit figures with those 
 Koram which was rarely mentioned Of Captain Montgomerie and Mr. 
 
Oh. IV.] OENTEAL ASIA. 219 
 
 In the interior of the country the principal European travels 
 to be cited are, firstly, the invaluable record by Lieut. Wood 
 of his journey from Cabul to the sources of the Oxus ; and, 
 secondly, the recent work of M. Vambe'ry which has been 
 already reviewed in this journal, and which describes the wan- 
 derings of the Hungarian dervish — carrying, as the Orientals 
 would say, "his life in his hand" — from Asterabad, at the 
 south-east corner of the Caspian, through the Turcoman desert 
 to Khiva, and so on to the mouth of the Oxus ; from that 
 point to Bokhara^ and Samarcand, and back again across the 
 mountains to Herat. 
 
 There was not much, perhaps, of actual discovery in Vam- 
 bery's explorations, since Arthur Conolly, in 1829, had pre- 
 ceded him on the line from Asterabad to Khiva as far as the 
 Balkan hills ; and Muravieff, ten years previously, had landed 
 in the Bay of Balkan, and travelled across the desert from that 
 point direct to Khiva, almost on the same track as the Hun- 
 garian dervish ; but his personal experiences nevertheless are 
 full of interest, and especially with reference to his successful 
 personation of a travelling mendicant. In this character, 
 indeed, he baffled all attempts to penetrate his disguise ; and 
 only once, as we have heard him relate, was he in any danger 
 of detection, when a curious fellow-worshipper at noonday 
 prayer remarked that he must be a nondescript Sort of Maho- 
 medan after all, since the hairs on his arms were laid across, 
 instead of up or down : the explanation of this singular criti- 
 cism being, that as the Soonees and Shiahs in then* ablutions 
 wash their arms respectively from the elbow to the wrist, and 
 from the wrist to the elbow, so may the members of the two 
 opposing sects be recognised by the direction in which the 
 hairs of the arm are laid, such direction following, of course, 
 the daily manipulation. We have nothing to say to the moral 
 question involved in this personation of the Mahomedan cha- 
 racter. We are merely now alluding to the difficulty of sus- 
 
 Johnson, that the error of the Ger- Khoten, which they claim to have 
 
 mana, in regard to -the longitude both fixed, they were in error to the extent 
 
 of Oashgar and Yarkend, wag more of 37' of longitude, 
 than 3° ; and that even in regard to 
 
220 
 
 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 tabling such a disguise for any long continuance. Burckhardt, 
 the most accomplished European Arab who ever trod the desert, 
 was often embarrassed by remarks on his arched instep, differ- 
 ing so much from the fiat foot of the unfettered Bedouin, and 
 he once narrowly escaped detection because he happened to 
 take a draught of water after, instead of before, his coffee. 
 Forster, again, was recognised as an Englishman in Cashmere 
 from his " head being flattened at the top, instead of being 
 conical like a Mussulman's ; " and we have often witnessed 
 the agony which Europeans endure in endeavouring to sit for 
 a few hours together on their heels, or to ride in a native 
 saddle with their knees bent to a right angle. The crucial test 
 under which Arthur Conolly succumbed, was of another charac- 
 ter. Professing to be a Mahomedan merchant, he betrayed 
 himself by his readiness to purchase articles of the Turcomans 
 at the price demanded, instead of haggling for an hour ere the 
 bargain was completed.* 
 
 * (As the British Government has 
 been politically quiescent in the East 
 during the last lustre, while Russia 
 has been continually extending her 
 frontier, there has been much less 
 geographical activity in the southern 
 division of Central Asia than in the 
 northern. Still there are certain 
 names of British officers which de- 
 serve to be recorded in bringing up 
 the sketch of Central Asian explora- 
 tion to the present day. Sir Fred. 
 Goldsmid, for instance, has done ex- 
 cellent service to geography by filling 
 in the map of Persia through the sur- 
 veys of the provinces of Mekran and 
 Seistan, conducted by his assistants, 
 Majors St. John and Lovett of the 
 Engineers, in the recent settlement of 
 the frontiers between Persia on the 
 one side and Beluchistan and Afghani- 
 stan on the other. Col. Valentine 
 Baker and Lieut. Gill have also sur- 
 veyed the course of the Atreck to its 
 source, and Capt. Napier is now con- 
 tinuing the examination of the Turco- 
 man and Afghan frontier. Our most 
 
 important explorations have been, 
 however, in Thibet and Turkestan, 
 where Messrs. Shaw and Hayward, 
 some years back, and more recently 
 Sir Douglas Forsyth and Colonel Gor- 
 don, have thoroughly examined the 
 country between Cashmere and the 
 Russian frontier beyond Kashgar, in- 
 cluding a portion of the Pamir and the 
 hill country of Gilgit and Yassin. The 
 journey also of Mr. Ney Elias from the 
 great wall of China through Mongolia 
 to Western Siberia, for which he re- 
 ceived the gold medal of the London 
 Geographical Society in 1873, may 
 ■well compare for interest and impor- 
 tance with M. Prjevalsky's remark- 
 able visit to the Koko-nor; and finally 
 may be noticed the mission which has 
 recently been sent under Colonel 
 Brown from India through Burmah 
 to Talifu in Yunnan, for the purpose 
 of opening up an old trade route to 
 Western China, and thus letting in 
 light upon one of the least-known por- 
 tions of the whole mysterious region 
 of Central Asia.— 1874.) 
 
Oh. rv.l CENTKAL ASIA. 221 
 
 3. Other travels in the East, which have been recently com- 
 municated to the world, would be of the utmost interest if they 
 could be relied on as authentic and sober recitals ; but at 
 present a grave shadow of suspicion hovers over them. There 
 have always been European adventurers in Central Asia, some- 
 times established in the cities as military instructors or jewel- 
 lers, sometimes wandering about the country in search of 
 mines and metals. Herat, Cabul, and Bokhara, have rarely 
 been without such visitors, and it is a free-lance traveller of this 
 class whom we are now about to introduce. A Mr. Gardiner, 
 who was the son of, a medical officer in the Mexican service, 
 and who had been educated at the Jesuit College of Clongoose, 
 in Ireland, found himself, at the close of some very strange 
 adventures, at Herat in the beginning of 1830. He seems to 
 have been of an essentially erratic disposition, for although his 
 ostensible object at this period was to take service in the 
 Punjab, he passed several years in perambulating, or circum- 
 ambulating, the intermediate countries before he finally reached 
 his destination. An abstract of a portion of his travels was 
 published in 1853 in the "Journal of the Asiatic Society" 
 at Calcutta, and as this abstract professes to describe a route 
 passing from Her&fc to Bokhara^ from thence to Kunduz, and 
 through Badakshah to Yarkend, Ladakh, and Cashmere, and 
 beyond that point among the mountains to Kafferistan on the 
 Cabul frontier, it ought to be full of interest and value ; but 
 unfortunately the names, distances, and bearings are so dis- 
 torted and mutilated, and the descriptions of antiquities and 
 natural phenomena are further so monstrously exaggerated, 
 that the narrative reads like a romance rather than as a journal 
 of actual adventure. Mr. Gardiner, however, who is still 
 living, and who holds, indeed, a Colonel's command under the 
 existing Seikh Government in Cashmere, is understood, now 
 that age has somewhat tempered the exuberance of his fancy, 
 to have re-written his travels, including his description of 
 Kafferistan, the original notes of which were supposed to have 
 been lost in the pillage of Sir A. Burnes' house at Cabul ; and 
 if, as is said to be likely, Mr. Cooper, our Commissioner at 
 Lahore, whose name is a sufficient guarantee for careful and 
 
222 ENGLAND AND BUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 conscientious editing, can spare time from his official duties to 
 prepare the MSS. for the press, the public may expect to be 
 soon gratified with the appearance, in a readable shape, of this 
 unique record of Central Asiatic discovery.* We say unique, 
 notwithstanding that a German work, which we have reserved 
 for the last on our list, claims to have reference to the same 
 mysterious country of Kafferistan, as we have the most 
 serious misgivings with regard to the genuineness of this latter 
 record. 
 
 A question of literary authenticity is always provocative of 
 curiosity, but in the present case it is also of real importance 
 to the science of geography. " If the manuscript," it was 
 recently stated to a meeting at Burlington House, " were 
 genuine, it was one of the most valuable contributions to our 
 knowledge of Central Asia that had ever been given to the 
 world ; on the other hand, if it were not genuine, it was one of 
 the most successful forgeries that had ever been attempted in 
 the history of literature." The subject, indeed, is one of so 
 much interest, and the evidence for and against the German is 
 so nearly balanced, that we shall merely state the heads of the 
 story, and leave our readers to draw their own conclusions ; 
 or if we hazard a solution, it must be understood to be a mere 
 suggestion unsupported by authority. It appears, then, that 
 a few years ago Monsieur Veniukoff, an officer especially inte- 
 rested in geographical exploration in Central Asia, to which, 
 indeed, he had been himself an active contributor, discovered 
 in the archives of the Topographical Department of St. Peters- 
 burg, an anonymous MS., purporting to be the journal of a 
 German traveller, who had passed from Cashmere to the 
 
 * (It is understood that Mr. Cooper September 1876 ; but it may be ques- 
 
 liad already printed about a hundred tioned if the original journals, drawn 
 
 pages of Col. Gardiner's Journal when up apparently from memory aided by 
 
 death put an end to his labours in a few desultory notes, are worth pub- 
 
 1871 • and no competent editor has lication. Colonel Gardiner is still 
 
 been since found to continue the work ; living in Cashmere, and has been em- 
 
 nor indeed, is it known what has be- ployed during the present year by the 
 
 come of the MSS. A very excellent Amir of Kashgar as a sort of agent in 
 
 epitome of Colonel Gardiner's life and purchasing arms and other articles of 
 
 travels was published by Sir Henry European manufacture.— 1874.) 
 Durand in the "Friend of India," for 
 
0=. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 223 
 
 Kirghiz Steppe in the early part of the present century, and 
 had executed a quasi-scientific survey, verified by astronomical 
 observation, of all the regions he had visited. This MS. was 
 duly brought under the notice of the Geographical Society of 
 St. Petersburg, and copious extracts from it were published, 
 with annotations, by M. Veniukoff, in the Russian " Geogra- 
 phical Journal." No one in Russia presumed to contest the 
 genuineness of a document thus authoritatively brought for- 
 ward. It was received with acclamation by the Imperial 
 Academy, and the alterations which it introduced into the geo- 
 graphy of Central Asia were at once transferred to the Govern- 
 ment maps, and thus obtained circulation throughout Europe. 
 "When the Russian papers, however, were translated and came 
 under the cognisance of savans in London, who had made a 
 special study of the geography of Central Asia, doubts were 
 immediately expressed as to the genuineness of the narrative. 
 Inconsistencies — nay impossibilities — were pointed out of a 
 most damnatory character. Proofs of authenticity were asked 
 for, and a controversy arose between Russian and English geo- 
 graphers, which is still being carried on without much chance 
 of a satisfactory issue. 
 
 The MS. professed to have been written in 1806 by a 
 German nobleman, who had been employed by the East India 
 Company towards the close of the last century to purchase 
 horses in Central Asia for the Indian Cavalry. He had 
 started, it was said, from Cashmere, accompanied by Lieutenant 
 Harvey and forty sepoys, had traversed the mountains between 
 Little Thibet and the Upper Oxus, debouching finally upon 
 Kashgar; from that point he had returned to Badakhshaii 
 and had passed several months in the neighbouring districts, 
 after which he had struck across the Pamir Uplands to Kokand, 
 and had sought to return to Europe by traversing the Kirghiz 
 Steppes. Arrested, however, in his progress northward and 
 plundered by the Kirghiz, he was compelled to fall back on 
 Bokhara and Samarcand, from whence he regained India by 
 the high road of Kashgar, Yarkend, and Ladakh. A series of 
 maps, forty in number, accompanied the Journal, and personal 
 adventure, historical relation, geographical and statistical 
 
224 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 details, and a general description of the countries traversed, 
 varied by notices of their inhabitants, climate, and products, 
 were blended together in a sufficiently interesting, though inar- 
 tistic manner, in this singular narrative. It was further stated 
 in the memoir that over 1100 horses had been purchased by 
 the German agent, 132 in the mountains near the source of 
 the Oxus, which had been sent back to India at once under 
 charge of Lieutenant Harvey, and 980 more from the tribesmen 
 near Kashgar, which had also been duly forwarded to their 
 destination. These horses, however, having been plundered 
 by the Mahrattas in Northern India, the German, on his 
 return to India, was unable to obtain reimbursement for his 
 outlay from the Calcutta authorities. Thereupon arose an 
 angry correspondence, at the close of which the agent, having 
 cleared his honour but smarting under a sense of injustice, 
 betook himself to St. Petersburg and placed his maps and 
 journals at the disposal of the Eussian government. An 
 explanation was further tendered by the Eussian officials that 
 it was in consequence of this betrayal of trust, as it might be 
 deemed, that the name of the traveller had been suppressed, 
 and that the MS., after being allowed to remain. for nearly 
 sixty years in obscurity, had only been brought out when it 
 might be hoped that all traces had been lost which could lead 
 to the identification of the writer.* 
 
 Now, however legitimate would have been an introduction of 
 this nature to a sensational novel, or however circumstantial 
 and consistent the story may have seemed to the Eussian 
 
 * Mons. Veniukoff gives the follow- kofTs further description of the MS. 
 
 ing title to the MS. in the Eussian is remarkable. "The travels, "he says, 
 
 archives: "Travels through Upper " form a magnificent manuscript work 
 
 Asia, from liashgar, Tashbalyk, Bolor, in the German language, accompanied 
 
 Badakshan, Vakhan, Kokan, Turkes- by ioriy sketch maps of the country 
 
 tan to the Kirghiz Steppe, and back traversed. The text has also been 
 
 to Cashmere through Samarkand and translated into French in a separate 
 
 Yarkend • " but this title in reality manuscript, and the maps worked into 
 
 can only refer to the second portion one itinerary in an admirable style, 
 
 of the travels, as it omits all mention The Christian name of this traveller, 
 
 of the journey from Cashmere to George Ludwig von , appears 
 
 Cashgar which is, nevertheless— or over the preface ; but the surname 
 
 ought to be -the most interesting has been erased. " 
 part of the narrative. Mons. Veniu. 
 
Oh. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 225 
 
 academicians, jubilant with the honour of their great discovery 
 — for if the travels were genuine they were of the utmost im- 
 portance to geographical science — it did not by any means 
 satisfy the more calm and rigid scrutiny of the English critics. 
 Objections were taken on two grounds ; firstly, that the frame- 
 work and incidents of the pretended journey were impossible ; 
 and secondly, that the so-called geographical results, as far as 
 they could be tested on the Indian side, were altogether false. 
 Inquiries set on foot both in India and in London showed that 
 no trace existed in the records of the East India Company of 
 any such arrangement as that described by the pseudo-agent, 
 either with himself or with any one else. There was no 
 Lieutenant Harvey in the India Army list at the close of the 
 last century ; nor any cavalry force that could have required 
 recruiting. Cashmere was then held by the hostile Afghans, 
 amongst whom it would have been madness for a couple of 
 officers with a party of forty Sepoys to have attempted to 
 penetrate. Forster, indeed, the only European who had 
 visited the valley under Afghan occupation, was indebted for 
 his safety to disguise. The story of the horses, moreover, was 
 manifestly fabulous. The only animals obtainable in the 
 region indicated would have been Uzbeg ponies, utterly unfit 
 for cavalry purposes, and when obtained at the sources of the 
 Oxus, to have conveyed them in safety to India under the 
 escort of a lieutenant and seven Sepoys, would have been little 
 less than a miracle. Then in regard to geographical results, 
 the German pretended to have passed from Cashmere to 
 Kashgar with camels and foot soldiers in twenty-five days, 
 whereas three months would have been a more reasonable 
 allowance for the journey. He crossed the Indus according to his 
 own statement on the third march, from Srinagar, with his whole 
 caravan, the distance being in reality nearly 200 miles, and oc- 
 cupying usually a period of twenty days. He passed too, as 
 he asserted, in this interval an active volcano; no such physical 
 feature existing in the valley. To trace his exact footsteps 
 was obviously impossible, as there was not a single name of a 
 town, or mountain, or river, excepting the Indus itself, on the 
 entire route from Cashmere to Kashgar that admitted of 
 
 4 
 
226 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. TV. 
 
 identification ; but it was known from the actual explorations 
 of Messrs. Winterbottom and Vans Agnew beyond the Indus 
 in 1848, as well as from the information collected by Captain 
 Montgomerie of the march of the Seikh force in 1860, that 
 there was in reality but one available road through the moun- 
 tains in this direction* — namely, that which left the Indus at 
 Bonji, ascended the Gilgit Eiver by Gilgit and Shirni to 
 Yassin, crossed by a difficult defile to Mastuj in the Upper 
 Chitral valley, then passed over the great range to Badakhshan, 
 descended upon the Oxus, and followed up a branch of that 
 river to the plateau of Pamir which it traversed till it reached 
 Kashgar ; and this route, although not unfrequently followed 
 by lightly-equipped travellers, was in many parts of it im- 
 practicable even to loaded mules, whilst the German pretended 
 to have carried his camels with him throughout his journey, 
 and did not, except on one occasion, speak of any extra- 
 ordinary difficulties in the transit. Another fatal discrepancy 
 which attracted notice was, that the inhabitants of the whole 
 country between the Indus and the Oxus were described as 
 Pagans, all speaking dialects of one language called the Bili, 
 whereas in reality the Pagans, or Siyah-push Kaffirs, were 
 known to be confined to the western corner of this tract, and 
 would hardly have been met with upon our traveller's line at 
 all ; and in the second place, whilst no such language as the 
 Bili had ever been heard of before, the dialects which would 
 have been encountered on the transit from Cashmere to the 
 
 * (There are in reality three passes, Islikaman pass, which is easy and 
 
 all more or less easy, which cross the open like the Birogil, and is of the 
 
 great range into Wakhan near the most importance to India of any of 
 
 point where the Chitral and Gilgit these passages across the Hindu-kfish, 
 
 valleys converge. The most westernly inasmuch as it leads direct to Gaokash, 
 
 is Birogil, and leads from the head of the frontier Cashmere post in the 
 
 the Chitral valley down upon Serhad Gilgit territory. All these passes 
 
 Wakhan, the summit of the pass, were recently examined by Capt. Bid- 
 
 which is quite open, being hardly dulph on the return journey of Colonel 
 
 1000 feet above the level of the Oxus. Gordon's party from Panja to Tash- 
 
 The next is the Darkut pass, where kurghan, and the information thus 
 
 poor Hayward was murdered in 1870. acquired is regarded as one of the 
 
 It is the most difficult of the three, most important results of Sir Douglas 
 
 and conducts from Yassin down on Forsyth's mission. — 1874.) 
 Wakhan. The most easternly is the 
 
Oh. IV.] CENTEAL ASIA. 227 
 
 Oxus (such as the Balti, the Dardu, the Cashcari, the Kaffir, 
 and the Badakhshi), were essentially dissimilar to each other, 
 and could not possibly have been all understood by one so- 
 called Bili interpreter. 
 
 In regard to the second portion of this pretended journey 
 from Kashgar by Badakhshan to Kokand, on the authority of 
 which extensive modifications had been introduced into our 
 standard maps, we may quote the following resume from Sir 
 Henry Bawlinson's address on the subject to the Boyal Geo- 
 graphical Society, at their meeting on the 26th of March of 
 the present year : — 
 
 " The ascent of tie Taman-yar river, from Kashgar to the Lake of 
 Kara-kul (' the Dragon Lake' of the Chinese), seemed to be genuine, but 
 the description of the town and river of Bolor were probably fictitious. 
 The positions, moreover, of Badakhshan (' Fyzabad ' of Wood) and 
 Vokhan were reversed, the latter being far to the east of the former, 
 instead of to the west, as the ' Travels ' and longitudes would seem to 
 indicate. Again, that there was ever a Chinese garrison in Badakh- 
 shan, as stated by the German, is opposed to our historical knowledge ; 
 and Malik Shah Buzurg resided at Fyzabad, and not at Vokhan. In 
 continuation, the extent of the Pamir Steppes seemed to be much too 
 contracted, and the positions of Tanglak and Terek-chai were transferred 
 from the north to the south of the plateau ; and it t was further suspicious 
 that in pursuing the valley of the Jaxartes to Kokand, there was no 
 mention of Oosh, or Marghilan, or any of the other large towns of the 
 district." 
 
 The only rejoinder that has been hitherto made to this expo- 
 sition of errors and impossibilities is something to the fol- 
 lowing effect. As far as the Bussian surveys have extended 
 along the valley of the Jaxartes, the correctness of the 
 German maps has been abundantly verified, testifying beyond 
 all possibility of dispute to their having been executed from 
 actual observation, since at the commencement of the present 
 century — indeed up to times comparatively modern — the whole 
 country of Kokand was almost a " terra incognita." The same 
 inference may be drawn from the German's description of 
 Samarcand, which Mons. Khanikoff, who himself visited the 
 city in 1841, declares to be rigidly accurate, though no other 
 modern notice of the place is extant. The Bussians again 
 appear to underrate our Indian knowledge of the country 
 
 q 2 
 
228 ENGLAND AND ETJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. IV. 
 
 between Cashmere and Kashgar, and to think that the alleged 
 ocular observation of the German may be after all as trust- 
 worthy as the hearsay evidence of Elphinstone and Kaverty, or 
 of Moorcroft, Vigne, and Cunningham. At any rate they 
 appeal to the singular coincidence between the testimony of 
 the German writer and all subsequent information as to the 
 products of the country and the remarkable maimers and 
 customs of the inhabitants, and they ask from what source 
 such knowledge could have been acquired in 1806, if not from 
 personal experience. Such arguments assuredly — if the date 
 of 1806, which is endorsed at present on the Petersburg MS., 
 be admitted to be genuine — do appear to be of the utmost 
 cogency ; * and a not less strong collateral proof of authenticity 
 is to be found in the admitted fact that, although the names 
 assigned to the various localities are not be recognised in 
 modern geography, still most — or many — of these names are 
 philologically correct; Thibetan affixes, for example, being 
 found on the Upper Indus, true Kaffir names in the mountains, 
 Persian vecables in Badakhshan, a thoroughly Turkish nomen- 
 clature in Kashgar and Kokand, and even a bond fide Calmuck 
 title referring to a Zungarian chief. + 
 
 Now in view of such a singular conflict of evidence, if we 
 were called upon to pronounce judicially on the question of the 
 authenticity of these remarkable travels, we should, we think, 
 reject unhesitatingly the whole framework of the story, while 
 
 * (The date of 1806 has since been frontiers of Baltistan. Imbra-Embra 
 
 proved to he fictitious, the simulated (said to mean "the seat of God") is 
 
 antiquity of the MSS. being, in fact, the name of a peak in the Kafferistan 
 
 an essential part of the original im- mountains, and Imra is really the 
 
 posture, The travels were probably Kaffir name for God. In Badakh- 
 
 compiled about the year 1816; at any shan there is the Persian name of 
 
 rate after the . publication of the first Shah-rM, or " royal river, " and there 
 
 edition of Elphinstone's Cabul in 1815, are also numerous derehs or passes, 
 
 from which work indeed the informa- Of true Turkish vocables about Cash- 
 
 tion regarding the Kaffirs must have garwe have ktra-baliq, "black-fish;" 
 
 been taken —1874. ) kara-agatch, "black-wood ;" kara-hul, 
 
 + The following examples may be " black-lake ; " ah-su, " white-river ; " 
 
 quoted of linguistic accuracy in the Tarngha, "aseal ;" Ulus, " acamp ;" 
 
 geographical nomenclature of the tra- kishlag, "awinter pasture," Ac. ; and 
 
 vels i — Lumla, which is "a mountain Zeiscm is also correctly quoted as a 
 
 ravine " in Balti, occurs in the names Calmuck or Mongolian title, 
 of the villages, supposed to be on the 
 
Ch. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 229 
 
 we should admit to a certain extent the genuineness of the 
 materials. We should disclaim all belief in the individuality 
 of the German traveller, or in any of his pretended adventures, 
 but we should think it not unlikely that the travels had been 
 compiled and the maps executed from the information and 
 experience of parties who had actually visited Central Asia at 
 the close of the past or beginning of the present century, and 
 had heard accounts of the routes and localities described ; such 
 accounts, however, being but imperfectly remembered, and 
 being moreover in many cases so confounded in the report as 
 to be hardly recognisable. With regard indeed to the opening 
 chapters of the Journal, which from their obvious inapplica- 
 bility to the line of country by Gilgit and Yassin, are sufficient 
 to discredit the entire narrative, we have a suspicion that the 
 route which it was intended to delineate was that conducting 
 to the plateau of High Asia from Peshawer and not from 
 Cashmere. The geographical nomenclature was probably 
 fictitious from the outset ; and it would be useless therefore to 
 compare the itinerary with the map ; but the general features 
 of the Bajour and Cashcar valleys — as far as we are acquainted 
 with them — would seem to correspond to some extent with the 
 pseudo-traveller's description, and the transfer of the line of 
 route moreover from the north-eastern to the south-western 
 quarter of the mountain range would serve to explain those 
 notices of true Kaffir characteristics, for which, if the MS. be 
 really of the date assigned to it — and for this the Eussian 
 Government is said to hold itself responsible — it would be 
 otherwise impossible to account. We allude especially to the 
 description of the auriferous streams, the vineyards and wine- 
 bibbing propensities of the inhabitants, their arms, costume, and 
 general appearance, their excessive jealousy of Mahommedans, 
 their singular customs in entertaining guests, their sacrifices 
 and Pagan habits, and even the words which are reported of 
 their language,* together with other traits of verisimilitude, 
 
 * For instance, Immir-umma is to the Kaffir temples. It means "the 
 
 given as the name of the spot where place of God." See Elphinstone's 
 
 the Kaffirs offer sacrifice ; and this is " Cabul," vol. ii. p. 379. 
 the exact title applied by Elphinstone 
 
230 ENGLAND AND ETJSSIA IN THE EAST. ICh. IV. 
 
 which at the commencement of the present century certainly 
 could not have been learnt from any published authority. In 
 the same manner it may be conjectured that the information 
 regarding Badakhshan, Vakhan, Bolor,* and Pamir, which is 
 involved in inextricable confusion, was obtained second-hand 
 at Kashgar, while the alleged accuracy of the details relating to 
 the valley of the Jaxartes and Samarcand must be held to 
 prove the actual presence of the agents in those localities. 
 Who the agents may have been, or what was their object in 
 weaving into a pretended personal narrative reports which in 
 their plain unadorned official form would have been equally 
 valuable to the Bussian Government, it is of course impossible 
 to ascertain. We have heard it surmised that the anonymous 
 composition may have been a ' jeu d'esprit' of the celebrated 
 Klaproth, founded partly on the vast stores of information 
 regarding Central Asia which he had accumulated from 
 Chinese, Mongolian, Arabic and mediaeval authorities, and 
 partly on the modern and unpublished reports of the Jewish 
 agent, Agha Mehdi, Dr. Honigberger,t and others; and cer- 
 
 * The notice of a large town entitled apply to the whole country stretching 
 
 Bolor, and situated upon a river of the from Ladakh to Pamir, including not 
 
 Bame name to the west of the Pamir only the modern Baltistan, but also 
 
 plateau and north of Badakhshan, is Hunza-Nager, Gilgit, and Yassin. 
 
 entirely fabulous ; and certainly sug- Bournouf 's derivation of Belur from 
 
 gests a modern date for the compila- the Sanscrit Vidur, which is a name 
 
 tion, since Klaproth, misunderstand- for the lapis-lazuli, though approved 
 
 ing his Chinese authorities, has fallen by Von Humboldt, has really nothing 
 
 into precisely the same geographical to recommend it but its ingenuity, 
 
 error in his memoir in the " Magasin The resemblance, indeed, of Bolor to 
 
 Asiatique" for 1821. The name of the Persian word Bilur, used for 
 
 Bolor or Belur was unknown to the " crystal," is probably a mere acci- 
 
 old Mahomedan geographers, and is dent. (Col. Yule has since written an 
 
 very rarely used even by modern exhaustive note on Bolor showing that 
 
 Arabic or Persian writers. It owes the name applied in its greatest extent 
 
 its chief celebrity to the notices of to the whole mountain region bounded 
 
 Marco Polo and of the Chinese, and, by Peshawer, Cabul, Badakhshan, 
 
 as far as these authorities are con- Ladakh, and Cashmere. "Journal of 
 
 cerned, agrees sufficiently well with K. Geograph. Soc," vol. xhi. p. 473. 
 
 the explanation first suggested, we be- At present it is used by the Kirghiz 
 
 lieve, byCunningham (see "Ladakh," to denote Chitral, and by the Dards 
 
 p. 45), that it is nothing more than a to denote Balti or Little Thibet.— 
 
 corruption of the vernacular title of 1874.) 
 
 Palolo, by which Baltistan is known t Dr. Honigberger was a medical 
 
 to the Dards. In this view Belur will man in the Sheikh service who tra- 
 
Oh. IV.] 
 
 CENTEAL ASIA. 
 
 231 
 
 tainly if any one, who had not personally visited Turkestan, 
 were capable of the mystification, he was the man ; * but here 
 again the date of 1806, attached to the MS. and registered, as 
 it is said, in the official archives of Eussia, would seem to be 
 fatally opposed to such an explanation, since Klaproth at that 
 early period was only just commencing those Oriental studies 
 for which he was afterwards so famous. We shall be glad, 
 then, if the pending controversy between the English and 
 Russian geographers leads to any definite result ; not only in 
 the interests of science, but with a view to the extrication of 
 all unprejudiced inquirers from a state of most disagreeable 
 suspense.! 
 
 4. Our present sketch would be imperfect if we did not 
 
 veiled from the Punjab by Cabal, 
 BokharS,, and Kokand, and thence 
 through Russia to Europe, shortly be- 
 fore the period of the Afghan war. 
 Dr. Honigberger is still, we believe, 
 residing in Cashmere, but we are not 
 aware whether any detailed account 
 of his travels has been ever pub- 
 lished. 
 
 * Suspiciou has probably fallen on 
 Klaproth because he is known at dif- 
 ferent periods of his life to have been 
 engaged in the preparation of reports 
 on Central Asia of a secret and confi- 
 dential nature. One of these reports, 
 indeed, ' ' On the Geographical and 
 Political Condition of the Countries 
 intervening between Russia and India, " 
 is said to have been purchased by our 
 Government at the time of the Afghan 
 war for the enormous sum of one 
 thousand guineas, and to be still re- 
 posing in the archives of our Foreign 
 Office, enriched with marginal notes 
 in the handwriting of the late Lord 
 Palmerston. If this be true, we 
 would recommend the indefatigable 
 President of our Royal Geographical 
 Society to undertake the disinter- 
 ment of the Report, not only in the 
 interests of science, but with a 
 view to its possible bearing on the 
 
 vexed question of the authorship of 
 the anonymous Russo-German manu- 
 script. (This manuscript has been 
 since examined and found to exhibit 
 certain proof of having been forged by 
 Klaproth. It was purchased while 
 Mr. Canning was at the Foreign Office, 
 and must have been read by Lord 
 Palmerston, as there are a few unim- 
 portant marginal notes in his hand- 
 writing.— 1874.) 
 
 (t In the ' ' Proceedings " of the Royal 
 Geographical Society (Vol. x., Nos. 4 
 and 6; and Vol. xiii., No. 1), and in 
 the Society's Journal, Vol. xlii., p. 
 484, will be found a summary of the 
 evidence which has satisfied British 
 geographers that the Central Asian 
 travels of the early part of the cen- 
 tury, adopted by the Russians as 
 genuine documents, are in reality a 
 pure invention, assignable to- the per- 
 verse and perhaps interested ingenuity 
 of Klaproth. This celebrated Orien- 
 talist seems to have deliberately forged 
 three independent geographical works ; 
 1, the so-called travels of an anony- 
 mous German baron in 'the British 
 service, from Cashmere to Kokand, 
 which he sold to the Russian Govern- 
 ment ; 2, the confidential Report of a 
 
 Russian Surveying Expedition stated 
 
232 
 
 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 acknowledge the obligations which Indian and Central Asian 
 geography lies under to its native auxiliaries.* That Eussia 
 has largely profited by this source of supply has been already 
 mentioned in our notice of Agha Mehdi, and the traders 
 between Semipolatinsk and Cashmere; and the reports of 
 English agents from the same countries have been not less 
 valuable or extensive. Meer Izzet Ollah, indeed, who was 
 Moorcroft's factotum in his early wanderings, was the first 
 to make us acquainted with the high road from Ladakh by 
 Yarkend and Kashgar to Kokand and Bokhara ; and the same 
 route was followed forty years later by another native agent, 
 Khwajeh Ahmed Shah, who was sent from India in 1852 in 
 search of Lieutenant Wyburd. Other travellers have since 
 verified the accounts of the native explorers along different 
 portions of the route, but no one else has traversed the entire 
 
 to have been sent by the Emperor 
 Paul from Semipolatinsk to the In- 
 dian frontier in 1801 — 1802, which he 
 sold to our Foreign Office, for 1000 
 guineas as stated in the preceding 
 note ; and 3, tbe translation of a 
 pretended Chinese Itinerary which 
 he also deposited in the Russian ar- 
 chives, to serve as corroborative evi- 
 dence of the genuineness of the other 
 travels. As geographical romances 
 after the manner of De Foe, these 
 works possess a certain merit, but they 
 are of no political value whatever ; 
 and they even involve seriouB errors 
 of location owing to a mistaken pro- 
 jection in the original Chinese map, 
 which was used by Klaproth, as first 
 discovered and verified by Col. Yule. 
 See " GeographicalJournal," vol. xlii., 
 article xix. It deserves further to be 
 noticed that, notwithstanding the com- 
 plete exposure of the Klaproth fraud 
 in England, the Russian geographers 
 appear to be still unconvinced, refer- 
 ence being often made to the German 
 baron in the late M. Fedchenko's 
 notes, as a genuine authority, and tbe 
 oracles Veniukoff and Khauikoff re- 
 maining "dumb."— 1874.) 
 
 * (The names of several other native 
 explorers deserve to be recorded as 
 having rendered important service to 
 geography, in the interval between 
 1866 and 1874. Major Montgomerie's 
 " Pundits " are especially to be com- 
 mended for their survey of the Brah- 
 maputra river above Lassa and their 
 daring visit to the Thouk Jalong gold 
 fields. Not less remarkable journeys 
 were made by other agents trained by 
 the same officer ; by "the Mirza," in 
 1868-69; and by the Havildar in 
 1870. See " Geographical Journal," 
 vol. xli. p. 132 ; and vol. xlii. p. 180. 
 Colonel Yule has further done justice 
 tp the valuable Eeports on Central 
 Asian geography, furnished by Pundit 
 Manphul, and by Feiz Bakhsh. See 
 "Geographical Journal," vol. xlii., p. 
 438 : while Ibrahim Khan, who has 
 been extensively employed by Sir 
 Douglas Forsyth on political duty in 
 the Oxus valley, also promises to be- 
 come a most efficient auxiliary in 
 exploring unknown and inaccessible 
 countries.— 1874.) 
 
Oh. IV.] - OENTEAL ASIA. 233 
 
 line from point to point, nor is there any account of the route 
 in English to be consulted by the student of geography but 
 the above-mentioned itineraries, first published in Calcutta 
 periodicals. It must also be remembered that Captain Eaverty 
 was indebted to native travellers for all the geographical 
 details contained in his excellent papers on Swat, on Kaffer- 
 ist£n, on Chitral or Cashcar, and on Panj-korah, which have 
 severally appeared in the Calcutta Asiatic Journals, and which 
 afford us the only exact information that we as yet possess 
 regarding what may some day become the high road of com- 
 merce between the Punjab and Tartary. This route was first 
 investigated by Lieutenant Macartney, and is twice alluded to 
 in Elphinstone's work on Cabul.* Edward Conolly attempted 
 to explore it in 1840, but was driven from the mountains by 
 the Bajouries, especially jealous at that time of an intrusion 
 upon their fastnesses ; nor indeed has any single European 
 that we are aware of, except Mr. Gardiner, succeeded up to 
 the present time in disarming suspicion, and obtaining access 
 to this interesting region. The route in question, according 
 to Eaverty 's information, follows up the Penj-korah branch ot 
 the Landai river to Dir, the capital of the district (other 
 authorities would conduct it up the Bajour river which lies in 
 a parallel valley) ; it then crosses the Las-pur range to Drush 
 in Lower Cashcar, and from thence follows up the Cashcar or 
 Chitral valley to Mastiij, where the road bifurcates, one branch 
 continuing up the valley to the tableland of Pamir and 
 descending on Yarkend, while the other, which has been 
 already alluded to, crosses the great range to Badakhshan and 
 the valley of the Oxus. Eaverty says of this line of route : 
 
 " The road is somewhat difficult between Panj-korah and Drush " 
 (perhaps the line by the Bajour valley may be easier), " but beyond it 
 is very good, and the country is like a vast plain, gradually sloping 
 upwards towards the high table-land of Pamir to the north-east ; . . . 
 consequently there would be no difficulty for the passage of light artillery.' t 
 
 And a friend of Colonel Gardiner's, quoting his authority, 
 
 uses almost the same language. 
 
 * See Elphinstone's "Cabal," pp. of Bengal," No. 294, No. II., 1864, 
 26 and 389. P- 130. 
 
 + "Journal of the Asiatic Society 
 
234 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. ' [Ch. IV. 
 
 "The best road," he says, "to the north from Peshavrer is by the 
 Swat valley. It is a caravan road as far as Anveh (or Mastuj ?). * 
 Colonel Gardiner travelled over this route, and describes the dividing 
 range between the Anveh territory and the Badakhshan valley as very 
 gradual and easy of ascent, and declares that guns could be taken over 
 ■without dismounting them. There is no traffic by this route at pre- 
 sent, owing to the war in Gilgit, but Colonel Gardiner always declared — 
 and from all I have heard in the country I am quite ready to endorse 
 his opinion — that the true road from Northern India to Tarkend, as 
 well as the valley of the Oxus, was visl the Swat and Chitral valleys.* 
 
 Again, in Major James's celebrated Report on the Kokand 
 
 embassy in 1861, be particularises tbis route by the Bajour 
 
 and Upper Kuner valleys, as the most direct, though, perhaps, 
 
 the most difficult, of the various lines connecting PesbaVer 
 
 with Tartary ; and he observes that it was actually followed 
 
 by the envoy who came from Kokand in 1854. May it not 
 
 then be fairly surmised that the compiler of the Eusso- 
 
 German MS., inquiring at Kashgar or Kokand for the nearest 
 
 route from India, may have been informed of this line leading 
 
 direct from the Indus to Pamir, a line which would have really 
 
 led for a great part of its course through outlying tribes of 
 
 the Siyah-Push Kaffirs, and would, moreover, have been 
 
 practicable for camels ; and that in adopting at some later 
 
 period the description he had received, he may have given 
 
 rise to our present mystification, partly by his ingeniously 
 
 attempted restoration of the names which he had forgotten, 
 
 and partly by his having erroneously taken Cashmere instead 
 
 of Peshawer for the starting-point ? t 
 
 * Anveh i3 only mentioned in one sources, the result of which is confir- 
 passage of the published Journal of matory of its suitability to the pur- 
 Mr. Gardiner, p. 19 ; but it is pro- poses of commerce in so far as regards 
 bable that it was more fully described its physical character. It is indeed 
 in the account of his journey through well watered and suppbed throughout, 
 Kafferistan, which was lent to Sir A. and with the exception of the Lahori 
 Burnes, and was supposed to have pass, conducting from the Panj-kora to 
 been loBt in the plunder of the Eesi- the Chitral valley, the entire route 
 dent's house at Oabul. from Peshawer to Wakhan is easy and 
 (t A good deal of information has open, and for the greater partpractic- 
 been accumulated of late years with able to wheeled carriages ; but, on the 
 regard to this route from Major Mont- other hand, the valleys of the affluents 
 gomerie's Havildar and from other of the Cabul river, through which the 
 
Ch. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 235 
 
 And now having alluded to Major James's Kokand Report, 
 which was first, we think, brought to the notice of the public 
 in the Quarterly Review article for October, 1865, on " The 
 Russians in Central Asia," we must congratulate the native 
 agent Moola Abdul Mejid, whose march from Cabul to Kokand 
 is there reported, on his having been presented at the Anniver- 
 sary Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of London for 
 1866, with a gold watch, in recognition of the great service he 
 had rendered to geography by his adventurous journey across 
 the Pamir Steppes. A not less distinguished service, and one 
 which we venture to think is also entitled to honorary reward, 
 has been since rendered by the native assistant of Captain 
 Montgomerie, who, by his reconnaissance of Yarkend, has 
 brought that city into immediate connexion with the great 
 trigonometrical survey of India, and has thus for the first time 
 in the present century determined a fixed geographical position 
 on the southern border of the great plain of Tartary.* 
 
 5. The preliminary branch of the subject being now ex- 
 hausted, we may pass on to a brief general description of 
 Central Asia and its inhabitants. The whole country between 
 India and Tartary may be considered, then, as one broad 
 
 route passes, are inhabited by the their iron road, with no more misgiv- 
 
 wildest and most intractable of all the ings apparently as to its practicability 
 
 robber tribes of Afghanistan. If the than if they were operating in the 
 
 three limitary goverDments were to civilized regions of the West. See 
 
 direct a combined movement in force "Oriental" for April of this year, 
 
 from Peshawer, Cashmere, and Cabul — 1874.) 
 
 against the mountaineers, it is possible * Captain Montgomerie eommuni- 
 
 that they might be brought into sub- cated this interesting journey of his 
 
 jection and compelled to give hostages assistant, Mahomed-el-Hamid, from 
 
 for their future good conduct, but it the Kara-Koram to Yarkend, to the 
 
 would be a difficult and most expen- Royal Geographical Society of London 
 
 sive undertaking, and even if success- at the meeting of May 14th, 1866, 
 
 fill, the political advantage would be and showed from the road-book, 
 
 doubtful. At present the valleys of which seemed to have been very 
 
 Swat and Chitral, although in close accurately kept, that the true 
 
 proximity to our frontier, are probably position of that city was in lat. 38° 
 
 the most inaccessible districts to Euro- 19 46", and long. 77° 30'. In the 
 
 peans in all Central Asia ; and yet it Jesuit Register the numbers are, lat. 
 
 is along this very line that the advo- 38" 19', long. 76° 3', while the Schla- 
 
 cates of the Lesseps Central Asian gentweits give lat. 38° 10', long. 74° 
 
 Railway would propose to lay down 10 '. 
 
236 
 
 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 mountain range, the Himalayas forming the southern crest, 
 and the Kuen-luen the northern ; while the interior is some- 
 times cheered with lovely valleys like Cashmere, but is more 
 usually broken into rocky ravines, through which the affluents 
 of the Indus force their way towards the plains; or else 
 stretches away in those vast treeless uplands which are one of 
 the chief characteristics of the range through its whole extent. 
 The direction of this range is from east to west, trending to 
 the northward ; while the parallel chain which bounds Siberia 
 to the south, and the outer crest of which is the Thian-Shan, 
 trends somewhat to the south ; so that at a short distance to 
 the west of Yarkend and Kashgar, the great interior depres- 
 sion of Chinese Tartary terminates, and the bounding ranges 
 coalesce in the elevated table-land of Pamir. According to 
 Humboldt's system, which is still adopted generally as the 
 groundwork of our maps of Asia, the northern and southern 
 ranges were united to the west of Kashgar by a transverse 
 ridge, which he names the Belut-T£gh, or " Cloud Moun- 
 tains ;" but recent observation assures us that there is no 
 such separate connecting chain. The ascent from Yarkend 
 and Kashgar westward to the table-land of Pamir is ^gradual 
 and almost imperceptible ; and when that lofty position is 
 gained, wfiurtriliu "average elevation is probably as much as 
 15,000 feet above the level of the sea, a vast plateau is seen 
 — seamed with rocky ridges running generally from east to 
 west — which stretches from the valley of the Jaxartes in one 
 direction, across the head-streams of the Oxus to the top of 
 the Cashcar or Chitral valley in another. 
 
 From this great plateau, which may be 700 or 800 miles in 
 extent, and which is throughout studded with lakes, descend 
 four great river systems. Firstly, through a long valley 
 between the culminating ridge and outer range of the Thian- 
 Shan comes down the Narym, which is the main stream of the 
 Jaxartes. This outer range being the connecting link between 
 , the Thian-Shan and Pamir, the river which flows in a luxuriant 
 ^valley at its foot drains all the northern edge of the plateau.* 
 
 (• Recent discovery has modified in this general sketch of the orography 
 some degree, though not essentially, of the Pamir. According to the ob- 
 
Ch. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 237 
 
 The Oxus again taking its rise in a Pamir lake, which is at 
 least 300 miles to the south of the Jaxartes, and of which the 
 true name is the Sarik-kul, or " Yellow Lake," is fed on its 
 right bank by a multitude of smaller streams, which run west ' 
 and south from the Pamir uplands, breaking up the face of that 
 region into a series of rugged valleys, such as Hissar, Eamid, 
 Derwaz, Shignan, and many others, which, although amply 
 described in the Arab geographies, and in the " Memoirs of 
 Baber," are hardly known in modern times, except from the 
 confused accounts of Mr. Gardiner and the occasional notices 
 of native agents. The western face of the Pamir, as it may 
 be called, between the Jaxartes and the Oxus, is far more 
 precipitous than the easte rn. Numerous lofty and difScult 
 ridges run o"uT _ intnis direction as far as Samarcand and 
 Karshi, and the streams which drain off from the uplands 
 between these ridges, and which form the Zar-afshan and 
 Karshi rivers, belong of course to the water system of the 
 Oxus, though the streams are at present entirely consumed in 
 irrigation before they reach the great river, and, in fact, con- 
 stitute that perennial supply of water which has given its world- 
 wide reputation for fertility to the plains about Bokhara' and 
 Samarcand. The third water-system is that of the Indus. 
 From the south-eastern extremity of Pamir, where the table- 
 land is lost in the rocky summits of the Muz-tagh, a number of 
 streams drain off to the southward, forming two subsidiarylndus 
 systems. A culminating ridge which runs out from the south- 
 east corner of Pamir, and which the geographers usually call 
 Pusht-i-khar (or " the back of the Ass "),* is the true watershed 
 
 servations of Fedchenko, the continua- for the Surkhab river, which rises in 
 tion of the Thian-Shan is not the outer the Alai plain north of the ridge, in- 
 range which immediately bounds the stead of turning northward to the 
 valley of the Jaxartes to the south, but . Jaxartes, forces its way south through 
 the next range which bounds the Alai the mountains, and ultimately de- 
 plain to the south, and subsequently bouches in the Oxus. — 1874.) 
 divides the river system of Samarcand (* The name of Pusht-i-khar was first 
 from that of Hissar. Although, how- introduced into geography by Ma- 
 ever, this range appears from its cartney, and has ever since retained its 
 height to be the culminating ridge of place unchallenged in our maps ; but 
 the chain, it does not form the water- it is entirely unknown at present in 
 Bhed between the Oxus and Jaxartes ; the country, and indeed there is no 
 
238 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 between Thibet and Cabul, the streams flowing to the south-west 
 being separated by the shoulder which joins the Hindu-ktish, 
 from the streams descending through Vakhan and Badakhshan 
 to the Oxus, and forming the Cabul river, which falls into the 
 Indus at Attock ; while those which flow to the south-east, and 
 which are divided by the Muz-tagh range from Tartary, de- 
 scend through a series of rocky valleys and precipitous gorges 
 into the Upper Indus in Little Thibet. The eastern face of 
 Pamir, again, which, as we have before observed, slopes off 
 very gradually into the plains of Tartary, supplies a fourth 
 water-system, being drained by a series of small streams, which, 
 passing by Yarkend and Kashgar, are ultimately lost in the 
 sandy desert, or in some cases reach the central lake of Lob- 
 nur. If there is any geographical foundation, then, for the 
 fanciful scheme of Buddhist cosmogony which describes the four 
 great rivers of the world — the Ganges, the Indus, the Oxus, and 
 the Jaxartes — as issuing from a single, central lake, the allusion 
 must necessarily be to this lake country of Pamir ; but in that 
 case Lob-nur must have been supposed to communicate with 
 Gangotri, or the Pamir must have been considered to include 
 within its limits all the Thibetan uplands.* 
 
 Although the water-systems of Central Asia may be thus 
 satisfactorily traced, it is hardly possible to lay down a corre- 
 
 culminating peak in this part of the of the "Mahabharata," Mount Meru 
 range which could have been thus — explained by Wilson as " the High - 
 specially named. The most probable land of Tartary " — takes the place of 
 explanation of the title is that it is the Central Lake of the Buddhists ; 
 equivalent to the common Persian and the Bhadrasoma, -which Hum- 
 name of Pusht-i-koh, "back of the boldt, strangely enough, identifies 
 hill," which is applied to the inner or with the Irtish, is substituted for the 
 hinder side of a range (hJiar being a Sintou or Indus. See Humboldt's 
 corruption of ghar, Sans, giri) ; and " Asie Centrale," torn. i. p. 4. The 
 in the same way the title of Fir khar, name of Meru, however, is connected 
 also used by Macartney, which applies by Bournouf with M ir, "a lake," so 
 to the outer or front side of the range as to signify "the lake country;'' 
 (See Davies's Report, Appendix IV. and the same scholar suggests that 
 B , p. xxii., i.) may be for Pish-khar Pamir may be a contraction of Upa- 
 or Pish-koh, which is the co-relative Meru, " above Meru," or in fact "the 
 of the other.— 1874.) Lake Uplands." It is impossible to 
 (* See Bemusat's " Foe-koug-ki," avoid comparing the myth above no- 
 p. 36. In the Brahminical Cosmo- ticed with the Mosaical account of 
 gouy, which is given in the 6th canto the rivers of Paradise ; and it is fur- 
 
Ch. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 239 
 
 sponding scheme of orography, since the concentration of the 
 two great parallel chains in the Plateau of Pamir renders it 
 most difficult to discriminate their respective prolongations,. 
 Perhaps, however, the most natural system is that which re- 
 gards the chains to the north of the Jaxartes, the Ala-Tau, the 
 Boruldai, and the Kara-tau, not as mere spurs of the Western 
 Altai, hut as the prolongation of the terminating ridge of the 
 Thian-Shan itself. The outer range, again, of this great 
 chain, which forms the southern boundary of the upper Narym 
 valley, and which is hroken hy the Terek pass, through which 
 lies the high road from Kashgar to Kokand, may be recognised, 
 it is thought, in the outer crest of the Pamir (or Alai Plateau, 
 as it is locally called), along its northern border, and may thus 
 be traced as the left-hand barrier of the Jaxartes valley as far 
 westward as Khojend, where it begins to lessen in height until 
 it is lost in the desert north of Bokhara.* Further south, 
 Afghanistan must be looked upon as a continuation of Thibet, 
 the southern or Himalayan crest running between Cashmere 
 and the head waters of the Swat, Penj-korah, Bajour, and 
 Chitral valleys, till it just touc hes the Pamir nucleus at \J{/> 
 Pusht-i-khar, at its extreme southern corner, and then turning 
 south-west by the Sufid-Koh of Jellalabad to the great Solei- 
 mah range ; and so on by the Bolan and Gandava passes to the 
 chain which borders the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf ; 
 while the northern crest, which under the names of Kuen-luen, 
 Kara-koram, and Muz-tagh, runs into Pamir, is prolonged to 
 the west above Badakhshah, and forms the watershed between 
 
 ther curious to observe how the same Lake country of the Fdni, " Wra of 
 
 tradition repeated itself in modern Strabo) as explained in Geographical 
 
 geography, the maps of Jeyhani, for Journal, vol. xlii. p. 489, foot-note. — 
 
 instance, representing the four rivers 1874. ) 
 
 of Afghanistan, the Murghab, the (* See the note to page 236, 
 
 Heri-rfid, the Helmend, and the river which, on the authority of the late 
 
 of Balkh, as issuing from a Central M. Fedchenko, defines the culminat- 
 
 Lake in the Hazareh mountains, ing ridge, which is the true continua- 
 
 though in reality the sources of these tion of the back-bone of the Thian- 
 
 rivers are many hundreds of miles Shan, to be the rocky range running 
 
 asunder. (Further research has sug- to the south s and not to the north of 
 
 geated that Pamir (or Pamir as the the Alai, and continued at a high 
 
 name is always written by the Arabs) elevation as far as Shehr-i-sebz. — 
 
 is a mere contraction of Fdn-mir, " the 1874.) 
 
240 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. IV, 
 
 the Oxus and the Cabul river, continues under the names of 
 Koh-i-Baba, Hindu-kush, &c, to the north of Cabul, and 
 finally traversing Khorassan at a much diminished altitude, re- 
 appears in the Elburz, to the south of the Caspian. 
 
 The elevated space between these ranges, which gradually 
 opens out from the apex at Pusht-i-khar till it meets and dies 
 away in the Persian desert, exhibits many of the characteristics 
 of Thibet. The great Hazareh plateau between Bamian and 
 Herat is thus very like the uplands around the Pangong lake, 
 and the Cabul valley may be compared, not unworthily, with 
 that of Cashmere. As the ground, however, gradually sinks 
 to the level of the Seistah lake and the sandy waste of BeM- 
 chistan, the resemblance is no longer perceptible. 
 
 If we look at the character of the physical geography of 
 Central Asia, we observe everywhere a conflict, as it were, of 
 the forces of nature, which may well remind us of the struggle 
 between the principles of good and evil that was the dominant 
 creed of the old inhabitants of the country. The desolation of 
 the desert is brought face to face with the beneficent influence 
 of the mountain ranges. Where the streams bring down the 
 mountain detritus and deposit a thin coating of soil, the sandy 
 waste withdraws for a space before advancing cultivation ; but 
 it reasserts its supremacy immediately the influence of irriga- 
 tion is no longer felt. This contrast is especially remarkable 
 in Chinese Turkestan, where the general character of the 
 country is one of complete sterility, the river courses in the 
 interior being merely fringed with a narrow strip of verdure, 
 and the agricultural population being thus almost confined 
 to the slopes of the mountain sides, where alone is water to be 
 found for the purposes of husbandry. The upper valleys, it is 
 true of the Oxus and Jaxartes are so enclosed on both sides 
 by mountains, arid so entirely filled up with a rich alluvium, 
 that in these favoured localities the usual characteristics of the 
 country disappear ; but no sooner have the rivers fairly de- 
 bouched from the spurs of the Pamir plateau than they enter 
 upon arid and saline steppes, and thus continue for hundreds of 
 miles, unblessing and unblest, until on approaching the Aral 
 the sluggish streams scatter themselves over the Delta in a 
 
Oh. IV.] CENTKAL ASIA. 241 
 
 network of canals, both natural and artificial, and again furnish 
 the means of subsistence to a teeming population. 
 
 On the western face of the Afghan uplands there are precisely 
 the same physical features. The Murgh-ab, the Tejen, and the 
 Heri-rud are all lost in sandy deserts. The Farreh-rud, the 
 Kh£sh-rud, and the Helmend passing from the mountains 
 through a sterile waste to the lake of Seistan, are the counterpart 
 of the river system of Chinese Tartary struggling on from the 
 surrounding ranges to the central reservoir of the Lob-nur. The 
 Arghendab and the Ternek are consumed in irrigation before 
 they reach the Helmend, precisely as are the rivers of Balkh 
 and Sir-pul on the left bank of the Oxus, and the Karshi and 
 Zer-afsh^n on its right or northern bank. Throughout the 
 whole region, indeed, of Central Asia there is a triple division 
 of territory, which naturally produces a triple division of popu 
 lation. Firstly, there is the mountain region with its invigor- 
 ating climate, its vast upland downs well suited for summer 
 pasturage, and its rocky ravines carrying foaming torrents to 
 the plains. Here dwell a hardy peasantry, descendants in some 
 cases of the primitive inhabitants, but more often intermingled 
 with offshoots of the many migratory races who have since 
 swept through the country. At the foot of the mountains 
 again are tracts of surpassing fertility, rich well- watered plains, 
 where the great mass of the population congregate in towns, 
 and villages and pursue the peaceful arts of life, the miscel- 
 laneous character of the inhabitants of these marts of commerce 
 and industry being unequalled perhaps in any other part of the 
 East.* And thirdly, beyond the cultivated plains stretches, 
 
 * The following list, which is given Turks of Kashgar .... 7,690 
 
 in the anonymous Russo - German Bokharians, speaking Persian . 1,960 
 
 travels, of the component parts of the Kalmucks (Mongolians) . . 850 
 
 population of Kashgar — though the Kirghiz and Buruts .... 1,230 
 
 numbers, if referring to individuals Ouigours, from Tourfan . . . 680 
 
 rather than to families, are far too Manchus 640 
 
 limited, and though the pretended Chinese, merchants & tradesmen 1,470 
 
 Armenian element is probably an in- Armenians 325 
 
 vention of the author— would seem to Indians and foreigners . . . 250 
 
 be otherwise relatively correct, and 
 
 may be taken as a fair sample of the Total . . . 15,095 
 mixture of races in a Central Asiatic 
 town : — 
 
242 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 out in every direction the pathless desert, which has been 
 tenanted by pastoral nomades ever since the earth was peopled. 
 Here rapine and disorder seem to have their natural home, 
 and here, at the present day, to the ordinary excesses of brigand- 
 age is superadded the detested occupation of man-stealing. 
 
 6. Those who have been accustomed to regard Central Asia 
 solely under its present condition of political and social degra- 
 dation, may find it difficult to realise the idea that it was ever 
 the seat of arts and industry, or had made any great advance 
 in civilization, yet such was undoubtedly the case. "We are 
 not able, it is true, as in the case of Egypt, or Babylonia, or 
 Assyria, to appeal to contemporary monuments in support of a 
 Central Asiatic development at a period of any remote an- 
 tiquity, but the evidence to this effect, derived from a large field 
 of induction, is not less significant and sure. In the first 
 place, the belief in a very early empire in Central Asia, coeval 
 with the institution of the Assyrian monarchy, was common 
 among the Greeks long anterior to Alexander's expedition to 
 the East, and could only have been derived from the traditions 
 current at the court of the Achsemenian kings. This belief 
 again is connected through the names of Oxyartes and Zoroaster 
 with the Iranian division of the Arian race, and receives con- 
 firmation from the earliest memorials of that people. Without 
 .seeking, indeed, to penetrate the myth of Iran-vij, the legendary 
 birthplace of the so-called Persian race, there can be no rea- 
 sonable doubt that the enumeration of the other fifteen loca- 
 lities successively created by Ormuzd, which is given in the 
 opening chapters of the " Vendidad," indicates the progress of 
 Iranian colonization during the earliest phases of the national 
 existence ; and it is thus of much ethnological importance to 
 find that the empire commenced with Sogdiana, Merv, and 
 Bactria ; that in its subsequent development it included the 
 modern provinces of Khorassan, Afghanistan, and Kharism,* 
 and finally at its period of greatest extension stretched from 
 
 * It' is' singular that neither Mons. Breal, Haug, and Justi— should have 
 Khanikoff himself, nor any of the recognised Kharism among the six- 
 modern commentators on the Vendi- teen localities created by Ormuzd. 
 dad whom he enumerates— Spiegel, There can be no doubt, however, but 
 
Oh. IV.] OBNTEAL ASIA. 243 
 
 Seistan on the south to the Jaxartes on the north, and from the 
 Indus on the east, till it touched the extreme limit of the 
 Median frontier to the west. It was formerly argued from this 
 classification of the Iranian settlements that the antiquity of 
 the legend must be enormous, since neither the Medes nor 
 Persians, whose cognate nationality is unquestioned, and who 
 are historically mentioned as early as 2000 B.C., were in- 
 cluded in the series ; but modern criticism prefers to explain 
 their omission from the list by supposing that there were in 
 reality two distinct systems of civilization among the Iranian 
 division of the Arian race, synchronous in their action, though 
 geographically and politically divided. Of these the Eastern 
 system described in the "Vendidad" may have had its pri- 
 maeval seats upon the Oxus, and have been identified with the 
 dualism of the Zend Avesta ; while the other — or Western — 
 system may have been more immediately connected with 
 Magism, and have belonged to western Persia, being, perhaps, 
 locally centralised in northern -Media, but with ramifications 
 extending into Armenia and Asia Minor. The Persians, 
 indeed, when they are first met with in the Assyrian inscrip- 
 tions of the ninth century B.C., are not settled in the south, 
 but appear as a cognate race with the Medes in the modern 
 province of Azerbijan; and that offshoots of this race must 
 even at that early time have been pushed far on towards the 
 west is proved by the names of Kustaspa, king of Comagene, 
 and Aspabara of Armenia, who are mentioned amongst the 
 adversaries of Tiglath Pileser and of Sargon. In this western, 
 or Magian, division of the Iranians were included no doubt 
 both the Medes and Persians ; their language was probably that 
 with which we are acquainted from the tri-lingual inscriptions 
 of Persia, and it may be conjectured from many circumstances 
 connected with the history of Darius Hystaspes that it was in 
 
 that the eighth name, which imrne- replaced by the Persian g, and the 
 
 diately precedes Vehrccm, or Hyrcania terminal / being dialectic, as in the 
 
 (modern Gurgan), and which is read names of the Kharismian months, 
 
 as Urvcm, represents the well-known which, according to Abu Bihan, are 
 
 title of Urganj, the old capital of optionally written with or without a 
 
 Kharism, the Zend v being regularly final/. 
 
 E 2 
 
244 ENGLAND AND BUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 his reign, and in connection with the overthrow of the Magian 
 usurpation that the dualism of Oromasdes and Arimanes was 
 first introduced from the far East, in supersession of the old 
 national faith.* 
 
 It is with the Eastern Iranians, however, that we are princi- 
 pally concerned, as the founders of Central Asian civilization. 
 This people, on the authority of the Vendidad, may be sup- 
 posed to have achieved their first stage of development in 
 Sughd. Their, language was probably Zend, as distinguished 
 from the Achsemenian Persian, and somewhat more removed 
 than that dialect from the mother-tongue of the Arians of the 
 South. To them must be referred the old Greek traditions of 
 the Bactrian Zoroaster, and the entire framework of Persian 
 historical romance, culminating in the famous Epic of Firdousi. 
 A more important evidence, however, of the very high state of 
 power and civilization to which they attained is to be found in 
 the information regarding them preserved by the celebrated 
 Abu Rihan, himself a native of- the country, and the only early 
 Arab writer who investigated the antiquities of the East in a 
 true spirit of historical criticism, t This writer supplies us 
 with an extensive specimen of the old dialects of Sughd and 
 Kharism. He gives us in those dialects the names of the 
 twelve months, the names of the thirty days of the month, and 
 of the five Epagominee, together with the names of the signs of 
 the zodiac, of the seven planets, and, lastly, of the mansions of 
 the moon. A portion of this nomenclature is original, and 
 offers a most curious subject for investigation ; but the majority 
 of the names can be compared, as was to be expected, with the 
 Zend correspondents, and, indeed, are much nearer to the 
 primitive forms than are the better known Parsee equivalents. 
 According to Abu Rihan, again, the solar calendar of Kharism 
 was the most perfect scheme for measuring time with which he 
 
 * This subject is ably and exhaus- ceived the attention that it merits 
 
 tively treated in Rawlinson's " Hero- at the hands of European scholars, 
 
 dotus," vol. i. p. 426. though there is a copy of the MS. at 
 
 + We quote from a most excellent Paris, which was formerly much re. 
 
 work of Abu Rihan's on general chro- ferred to by Quatremere, under the 
 
 nology, which has not, we think, re- title of " Athar-el-Bakieh," 
 
Oh. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 245 
 
 was acquainted ; and it was maintained by the astronomers of 
 that country, that both the solar and the lunar zodiacs had 
 originated with them, the divisions of the signs in their system 
 being far more regular than those adopted by the Greeks or 
 Arabs ; and the very name, moreover, by which an astronomer 
 was designated in the language of Kharism being taken from 
 the asterism of the eighth mansion of the moon.* All this in- 
 formation is exceedingly curious in its bearing upon the con- 
 troversy which has so long raged in the scientific world, as to 
 the superior antiquity of the lunar zodiac used respectively by 
 the Indians and Chinese, leading as it does to a suspicion that 
 neither the one nor the other of these systems may have been 
 original, but that their similarity may be explained by their 
 derivation from a common centre in Bactria, where astronomy 
 was first cultivated by the Eastern Iranians. An argument of 
 some weight, indeed, in favour of this derivation is furnished 
 by another statement of Abu Rihan's, which asserts that the 
 Kharismians dated originally from an epoch anterior by 980 
 years to the era of the Seleucidse, a date which agrees pretty 
 accurately with the period assigned by our best scholars to the 
 invention of the Jyotisha or Indian calendar, t Abu BiMn 
 further speaks of the Kharismian writing and reeords, which 
 were carefully investigated by Koteibah Ibn Moslem when he 
 conquered the country, and strengthens the authority of these 
 
 * This term is AhMr v'mak, "the data for calculation are so faulty and 
 
 observer of ^fe - ," which is the name uncertain that a margin of several 
 
 of the 8th mansion. centuries should be allowed for pos- 
 
 f The date of 980 years before the sible error ; but Sir E. Colebrooke, on 
 
 era of the Seleuoidse is equal to B.C. the other hand, in replying to his 
 
 1304. Now, the date derivable from criticism, has shown that a mean eal- 
 
 the Jyotisha observation of the Co- culation of the two Equinoctial stars 
 
 lures has been variously calculated by Kevati (or | Piscium) and Chitra (or 
 
 different Sanscrit scholars ; the ear- Spica) will bring us to the end of the 
 
 liest date being that determined by thirteenth century B.c. ; which is al- 
 
 Davis and Colebrooke in the last cen- most identical with the Kharismian 
 
 tury, namely B.C. 1391, and the most date of B.C. 1304. This date, too, is 
 
 recent being that lately adopted by almost certainly an astronomical rather 
 
 Archdeacon Pratt and approved by than apolitical era, and was coanected 
 
 Professor Max Muller, namely B.C. with the institution of the lunar zodiac, 
 
 1181. Professor Whitney, it is true, which, like the original Indian zodiac, 
 
 does not agree with either of these commenced with the asterism of the 
 
 results, and thinks, indeed, that the Pleiades.. 
 
246 
 
 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. IV. 
 
 native documents, by showing that a single family named the 
 Shahiyeh, and supposed to be derived from Cyrus, had reigned 
 in Kharism — with the exception of a Turkish or Scythian in- 
 terregnum of 92 years — from the Achaemenian period down to 
 the time of the Mahommedan invasion.* 
 
 We have specially alluded to this evidence t of early Arian 
 civilization in Central Asia, furnished by a writer of Abu 
 RihaVs authority, as we believe it to be entirely new to Orien- 
 tal students ; but there are many other notices of a corrobora- 
 tive character, which have been often quoted. Justin's notice, 
 for instance, of the thousand^ijied Bactria which revolted 
 under Theodotus, indicates a very high state of prosperity and 
 power. Balkh and Kharism, again, furnish all the most 
 favourite illustrations for the old Persian romance. The 
 temple of Nubeh^r, at the former place, in which the Barme- 
 cide family, previous to their emigration to Baghdad, were 
 
 * As an example of the accuracy of 
 the chronology of the Kharismians, 
 Abu Rihan further quotes from their 
 annals the date of the building of 
 the famous castle of 'Ir, near the city 
 of Kharism, in A.S. 616 (=a.d. 292) 
 —a date which afterwards became 
 a national era — and adds that this 
 place continued to be the royal resi- 
 dence till it was destroyed by inunda- 
 tions of the Oxus in A.s. 1305 (a.d. 
 981). We have never seen in any 
 other Arabic author an account of this 
 castle, which is compared by Abu 
 Rihan with the celebrated Ghamdan 
 of Yemen ; nor, indeed, do we think 
 that the antiquities of Kharism are 
 elsewhere at all noticed. (There can 
 be no reasonable doubt — although the 
 dates do not exactly correspond, owing 
 probably to the gradual demolition of 
 the place — that the destruction of the 
 castle of 'Ir described by Abu Rihan 
 is the same event as the destruction 
 of the castle of Kat, which took place 
 in the interval between the visits of 
 the Geographers El Istakhri and Ibn 
 Houkal (a.d. 951—970) to tho country 
 
 of Kharism, as explained by thepresent 
 writer, in the "Edinburgh Review," 
 No. 275, p. 8, foot note ; but it must 
 still be a question if the 'Ir of Abu 
 Rihan be a Hebrew equivalent of Kat, 
 or Medineh, (the city par excellence), 
 or an error of the copyist for FU, 
 which was the original name of the 
 Kharismian capital. — 1874.) 
 
 + (The attention of Orientalists 
 having been drawn by this notice 
 to the extraordinary value of Abu 
 Rihan's work on Chronology, it was 
 determined to employ the remaining 
 assets of the Oriental Translation 
 Eund in obtaining a scholarly version 
 in English of the Manuscript in pos- 
 session of the present writer, which was 
 copied from a very ancient exemplar 
 in the Library of the Royal Mosque 
 at Teheran. The services of Dr. Sa- 
 chau of Vienna were accordingly put in 
 requisition, and he has now been em- 
 ployed for some years on the trans- 
 lation, having already published two 
 preliminary brochures on different in- 
 teresting portions of the work. — 1874. ) 
 
 a. 
 
 L. ^M 
 
 -ui^\ 
 
Ch.IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 247 
 
 servitors, was one of the most famous shrines of the Buddhist 
 faith throughout the East ; and the original fire of King Jem, 
 the Eponym of the Iranian race, was supposed to have survived 
 unextinguished on an altar in Kharism until the introduction of 
 Islam. Of course fable was abundantly mingled with truth in 
 these glimpses of old-world history. The pretended expedition 
 of the Himyarite king, who founded Samarcand, from the 
 south of Arabia, cannot, for instance, command a moment's 
 attention ; but there was certainly an ancient tablet, in an un- 
 known tongue, over one of the gates of the city, which was 
 supposed to commemorate this expedition; for Jeyhani, the 
 Samanide vizier, distinctly says that he saw it in about a.d. 
 920, and that it was destroyed during a popular 6meute whilst 
 he was resident in the city. Whether this inscription was in 
 Zend, or in Greek, or in Bactrian Pali, can be now of course a 
 mere matter of conjecture, but the mention of such a tablet 
 may well excite our curiosity. 
 
 7. The Iranian people who were thus settled between the 
 Oxus and the Jaxartes, as early as. the time of the Judges of 
 Israel, still hold their ground in the country, notwithstanding 
 the continuous flood of foreign races which has ever since 
 swept over the region, surging up from those prolific slopes of 
 the Altai that have been called the " officina gentium." Under 
 the names of Tdt, Tajik, Sert, Galsha, and Parsiwan, a primi- 
 tive and not impure Iranian population is to be found in 
 almost every district from the Indus to the Jaxartes, subject to 
 the dominant Afghans to the south, and Uzbegs to the north. 
 The same nationality prevails throughout the valleys of the 
 upper Oxus in a quasi-independent position ; and these moun- 
 taineers, who, in their modern name of Vakhani, retain the old 
 ethnic tjjfcle which originated the v O£os of the Greeks, are per- 
 haps the best representatives extant of the primaeval race.* 
 To the east of the Pamir the Iranian element is now almost, 
 if not -totally obliterated, though Khoten itself was essentially 
 
 * This primitive title we suppose to by which the Oxus is known in the 
 
 have been Vakh, or Vakhsh, but its JBundehesh, and -among the old Zoro- 
 
 signification is unknown. It gave rise, astrians generally, and also to the 
 
 however, not only to the "0{os of the modern names of Vakham, Vakhsh-ab, 
 
 Greeks, but to the title of Vah-iti, Vash-jird, &c. 
 
 £»*i4 
 
 C-'tt 
 
 trf, 
 
248 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 an Arian settlement, and many of the names of places in the 
 vicinity still retain their Arian etymology.* M. Khanikoff has 
 drawn particular attention to the Jemshidis of Her£t, and the 
 Seistanees, as approaching nearest to the true Iranian type, 
 founding his argument, not merely on the physical character- 
 istics of these people, hut on their language and traditions ; 
 hut in reality the Seistanees are beyond all question a mixed 
 race; and it may even he suspected that they derive their 
 peculiar physiology from their Scythian rather than from their 
 Arian deseent.t 
 
 It would be a curious subject of inquiry to trace the suc- 
 cessive stages of transformation through which the population 
 of Central Asia has passed, in exchanging its primitive 
 homogeneous character for the kaleidoscope variety which now 
 distinguishes it ; but to render such a sketch at all intelligible, 
 it would be necessary to enter on ethnographical details hardly 
 suited to the pages of a non-scientific Journal ; and so many 
 links, moreover, are still wanting in the chain that, after all, 
 we should probably fail in making out a satisfactory tradition. 
 It must suffice, then, to explain that for about 1000 years, 
 from b.c. 700 to a.d. 300, a succession of Scythian tribes, 
 belonging apparently to the same family as the Uralian tribes 
 of Russia, and the Fins, LappSj^aadr-Hungarians of Europe, 
 burst in from the Jaxartes, and swept over all the western 
 portion of the Continent of Asia, extending to India in one 
 direction and to Syria and Asia Minor in another. No doubt 
 this vast Scythian immigration and long-continued occupancy, 
 must at the time have left its impress, more or less strongly 
 marked, on all the countries intermediate between the Jaxartes 
 #nd the Euphrates ; but that impress has been gradually effaced 
 by the scour of a later and still larger influx of tribes of 
 another family, so that at the present day there is no distinct 
 
 * For full details regarding the early f (The -writer has since published a 
 
 Buddhist history of Khoten, and the paper in the "Geograph. Journ.," vol. 
 
 evidence that the name itself is a 42, art. 12, "Notes on Seistan," in 
 
 mere corruption of the Sanscrit title which the ethnic relations of the Seis- 
 
 Kou-stana, "mamellede la terra," see tanis are examined more in detail. 
 
 AbelRemusat's " Histoire de U yiUe —1874.) 
 de Khoten," Park, 1820, 
 
Oh. IV.] CENTRAL ASIA. 249 
 
 trace of the old Scythian nationality to he found in Western 
 Asia, except perhaps among the Brahui division of the Beluches 
 of South-Eastern Persia. 
 
 The Turkish immigration which followed the Scythian, and 
 the evidences of which are still in full activity throughout 
 Central and Western Asia, must be also very cursorily treated, 
 notwithstanding that it involves questions of the utmost ethno- 
 graphical interest. From the fourth century to the tenth 
 there seems to have been a continuous stream of Turkish 
 tribes pouring in from the Altai, and not only overwhelming 
 the contiguous countries, but in some cases, as for instance, 
 under Attila, pushing on to the very centre of Europe; and 
 after this systematic colonization had ceased, the expeditions of 
 Chenghiz Khan and Timour, leaving extensive military settle- 
 ments along the various lines of march which the armies 
 followed, gave a still deeper colouring to the Turkish com- 
 plexion of Western Asia. We see the result of this great 
 ethnic revolution at the present day in the substitution of a 
 Turkish for the old Greco-Barbaric population of Asia Minor, 
 in the introduction of an extensive Turkish element among the 
 Semitic races of Syria and Mesopotamia, and in the displace- 
 ment also of a very large portion of the Arian population of 
 Persia. Further eastwards, too, as we have. already stated, the 
 Turcomans, the Uzbegs, and the Kirghiz, hold the entire 
 country up to the frontiers of Mongolia. The origin of these 
 tribes, which are of a very early Turkish parentage, is involved 
 in deep obscurity, and even their recent history is not free 
 from doubt. 
 
 The only one which, from its present important position in 
 Central Asia, it seems incumbent on us to notice in any detail 
 is the Kirghiz, and this notice should be of the more interest 
 as the present condition of the Kirghiz exemplifies in a striking 
 manner the process by which the great nomadic nationalities 
 of the East are formed, not by the real development of their 
 own numbers, but by the absorption into their body of the 
 heterogeneous fragments that are floating around them. We 
 see, indeed, examples of this irregular formation going on 
 before our eyes in different parts of the East at the present 
 
250 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 day, and we need not wonder therefore at the difficulty we 
 experience in identifying the lost tribes of history, or in 
 tracing the origin of those which have taken their places. The 
 Mongolian race, for instance, after the death of Chenghiz 
 Khan, must have been spread in considerable numbers over 
 the whole East from the wall of China almost to the Mediter- 
 ranean, yet at the present day, with the exception of the 
 Russian Calmucks and a petty clan in the mountains of Ghur, 
 south of Herat, there is not a single tribe speaking Mongolian 
 or retaining the name of Mongol, beyond the frontier of 
 Mongolia proper.* The Afghans, again, in the time of Mah- 
 moud of Grhazni were a single small clan in the mountains of 
 the Suliemah range. They have since absorbed all the tribes 
 from the frontiers of Cashmere to Her£t, and have imposed 
 their language indiscriminately on the whole population, Indian 
 as well as Turkish, excepting a few small and inaccessible 
 clans, such as the Pashii, Parahchi, Bereki, &c, and excepting 
 also the great Turkish race of Htizarehs and Eymaks, which 
 inhabit the Paropamisan range from Cabul to Herat, and which 
 must have taken up the Persian, the language of the country of 
 their adoption, before the Afghan influence became excessive. 
 Mons. Khanikoff, as an illustration of this self-creating prin- 
 ciple among the minor tribes of the East, has drawn attention 
 to the case of the Shahsewans of Persia, who are at present 
 one of the most numerous and powerful of the nomadic bodies 
 of that country, but who are notoriously a recent agglomeration 
 of detached parties from other clans, clinging to a common 
 centre for support; and he might also have referred to the 
 Arab tribe of Munte'fik, which has been formed within the last 
 hundred years of refugees and offshoots from a multitude of 
 neighbouring clans bordering the valley of the Euphrates, and 
 which now numbers over forty thousand families and dominates 
 all Lower Chaldea. The Kirghiz, as a tribe, are no doubt of 
 considerable antiquity, for the name occurs in the account of 
 
 * It is singular, too, that so very are Oldn-Robdt," the red caravanserai," 
 few Mongolian geographical names which marks the site of the ancient 
 have been retained to the westward city of Arachosia ; and Kizil-mssun, 
 of the Oxus. The only such names, "the red river," forming the south- 
 indeed, which occur to us at present eastern frontier of Azerbijan. 
 
Oh. IV.] CENTEAL ASIA. 251 
 
 the mission of Zemarchus in the sixth century, and the 
 Chinese annals have also preserved notices of the same people 
 under the names of Hakasis and Khilikizi from that period to 
 comparatively modern times ;* but they were originally limited 
 in numbers, and settled i n^aze mote comer of Southern Siberia 
 upon the banks of the Yenis ei river, from, whence they only 
 emigrated, or were removed, in the seventeenth century to the 
 shores of the Balkash and Issi-kftl Lakes. In their new 
 abodes they have thriven beyond all precedent. Having amal- 
 gamated with the Kaisaks and Buruts, and having no doubt 
 absorbed a host of smaller tribes, the debris of the old Ghuz, 
 Comans, and Kipchdks, they have gone on increasing until at 
 the present day they number nearly three million souls, and 
 constitute almost the exclusive pop ulation of tha JSteppe from 
 the Ural river on the west to > the_Mongolian frontier on the 
 east, and north and south from the Siberian line to the plateau 
 of Pamir, t 
 
 8. "We propose to terminate our sketch with a brief review 
 of the political condition of Central Asia at the present time, 
 following the order of the four sections into which, roughly 
 speaking, the country may be considered to be divided. The 
 south-east section, according to this distinction, would extend 
 from the Himalaya to the Kuen-luen, and would include the 
 Hill States, Cashmere, and Thibet. This country is] both 
 geographically and politically a mere outwork of India. The 
 various states of which it is composed paid tribute to the 
 Moghul Emperors of Delhi; and must again in due course, 
 naturally and necessarily, come under British jurisdiction. 
 Cashmere, indeed, rescued from the Afghans by Bunjeet 
 Singh, may be considered a direct dependency of the Punjab ; 
 and Little Thibet has already, on two occasions, both through 
 
 * In Mr. Gardiner's travels, where- f (All who are interested in this 
 ever Kirghiz are mentioned, they are subject, are strongly recommended to 
 spoken of as Akas, or Hakas ; but we consult the papers of Mr. Howarth 
 are unable to say whether this is to on " The Western drifting of the No- 
 be considered a mere mispronunoia- mades," where they will find an im- 
 tion of the name, or whether the old mense amount of information and as 
 Chinese appellation is still used as a little generalization as could be wished, 
 vernacular ethnic title. 1874.) 
 
252 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. TV. 
 
 Moorcroft and Dr. Henderson, proffered its allegiance to the 
 British Crown as a means of escape from Seikh domination. 
 Politically perhaps we should derive no strength from this 
 extension of our frontier four hundred miles beyond the plains 
 of the Punjab, but the possession of Cashmere a nd of the two 
 natural adits io_J3entral Asia before alluded to, one by the 
 Bajour and Chitral Valleys to the Pamir Plateau, and the 
 other by the Niti Pass and Rodokh to Khoten, would com- 
 mercially be of vast importance ; and in view, moreover, of the 
 undoubted tendency of Russia to encroach in this direction, it 
 would be well, we think, to preoccupy the ground against the 
 possible exertion of a foreign influence, adverse to our in- 
 terests, within the boundary of the Kara-koram and Kuen- 
 luen.* 
 
 The second or north-east section of Central Asia is Chinese 
 Turkestan. This country has long been called Alti-shahar 
 or Alti-chakan^^^^ix cities," from the six towns in which 
 are concentrated by far the greater portion of its population 
 and wealth. Until quite recently these towns of Kashgar, 
 Yengi-shahar, Yarkend, Khoten or Ilchi, Aksu, and Ush- 
 Turfan,t were garrisoned by Chinese soldiers, the region 
 
 * (Since this was written, serious of 15,000 feet above the level of the 
 
 and sustained efforts have been made sea, — intersected, however, by ridges 
 
 by the British Indian Government to rising as high as 18,000 or 19,000 feet, 
 
 open up commercial relations with — and where there are no inhabitants, 
 
 Turkestan — not indeed along the lines no food, no fuel, and no forage over a 
 
 above indicated, for they are as yet space almost equal to a month's jour- 1 
 
 politically impracticable, but by the ney of a caravan. At the same time, I 
 
 high road conducting from Leh to the political value of Thibet is no* 
 
 Yarkend. Missions have been ex- doubt enhanced by the nearer approach 
 
 changed, treaties have been made, of Russia to India, though rather as a 
 
 dep&ts of supplies have been formed, "buffer" than as an outwork to be 
 
 and escort and carriage have been pro- occupied by either one party or the 
 
 vided ; but still, notwithstanding all other. — 1874.) 
 
 these extraneous aids, the natural + The towns constituting this group 
 
 difficulties of the country appear to of the "six cities" do not appear to 
 
 be insurmountable, and trade Ian- have been always the same, for the 
 
 guishes accordingly. Unless, indeed, authorities followed by Prichard sub - 
 
 under some extraordinary conditions stitute for Yengi-sheher and Ush- 
 
 of supply and demand, it seems im- Turfan, the Great and Little Kulja, 
 
 possible to push a successful trade on the river Hi. These two latter 
 
 through a country like Thibet, where towns, however, do not belong to 
 
 the ordinary track lies at an elevation Chinese Turkestan at all, but to Zun 
 
Ch. IV.] CENTEAL ASIA. 253 
 
 having been conquered by tbe Chinese from the Eleuths of 
 Zungaria in 1755, and in spite of frequent insurrections on 
 the part of the Mahommedan inhabitants, headed by their here- 
 ditary religious leaders who have ever been most influential, 
 having been since held by military force as a subjugated 
 territory. The great mass of the inhabitants are Turks, 
 descendants of the old Ouigours, and they have long been in 
 active communication with the Uzbegs and Kirghiz of the 
 towns on the Upper Jaxartes, especially with those of Andijan. 
 With the assistance of these allies the standard of revolt was 
 again raised against the Chinese by the people of Kashgar and 
 Yarkend in the beginning of last year, and it is understood at 
 the present time that not a single Chinese soldier is to be 
 found in the province. The natives appear, however, to have 
 only exchanged one master for another ; for the Kokand troops, 
 reinforced by multitudes who are retiring eastward in dismay 
 at the advance of the Russians up the Jaxartes, are now said 
 to be in possession of the greater part of the towns and terri- 
 tory both of Kashgar and Yarkend ; and quite recently the 
 ruler of Khoten fought a pitched battle with those Uzbeg 
 invaders from Yarkend in defence of his little principality. 
 There can be no doubt that the people of the Six Cities are 
 thoroughly disconcerted at the menacing attitude of the 
 Russians both on their north and north-western frontier ; and 
 that they are most solicitous of British protection and support. 
 Earnest applications for aid have been indeed addressed to us 
 both from Yarkend and Khoten; and although, of course, 
 under existing circumstances, it would be preposterous to 
 think of direct interference in the affairs of states removed five 
 hundred miles from our frontiers, yet the time may come 
 
 garia, and hardly fall, therefore, within the Treaty of Pekin, and which was 
 
 the limits of the present sketch. Still presided over by the great Chinese 
 
 it may be noted that the great Kulja scholar Mons. Zakharoff, has been 
 
 on the Hi, after a twelvemonth's fight- burnt down and entirely destroyed in 
 
 ing, has also been lately conquered the course of the contest. The Rus- 
 
 from the Chinese by the Turks of sians enjoy a similar treaty-right with 
 
 Kashgar, led by the son of the famous respect to establishing a factory at 
 
 Khoja Jehangir ; and that the Eus- Kashgar, but since the expulsion of 
 
 sian factory which was established the Chinese, Buch a right has become 
 
 in the city under the provisions of a dead letter. 
 
254 ENGLAND AND BUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 when, as the inheritors of the present territorial limits of 
 Cashmere and its dependencies, it may consist both with our 
 interests and our convenience to extend a helping hand to the 
 fluttered communities immediately beyond our mountain 
 barrier.* 
 
 The western half of Central Asia may be considered, like 
 the eastern, to be divided into two sections, the Uzbeg portion 
 to the north and the Afghan to the south, and it is with these 
 divisions of the country that British interests are more imme- 
 diately concerned. In regard, then, to the south-western 
 section, extending from the British Indian frontier to the 
 Oxus, the general position has not materially altered since the 
 sketch of Afghan politics was drawn up, which was published 
 in the Quarterly Eeview a twelvemonth ago. 
 
 There has been another revolution, it is true, at Cabul, and 
 Shir All Khan, who was designated by Dost Mahomed as his 
 successor, and whose claim to the "Musnud" was coldly 
 recognised by us, has been forcibly expelled from power. By 
 the last accounts he still maintained a precarious footing at 
 Candahar, and his son conducted nominally the government of 
 Herat. It was believed by some that they were both prepared 
 to withdraw into Persia on the first application of any real 
 pressure from Cabul ; by others it was expected that Shir Ali 
 would still regain his position at the capital. But although 
 
 * (Shortly after this sketch was most powerful Mahomedan potentate 
 
 penned, in 1866, the leader of the throughout Central Asia. At the 
 
 Andijan party, Yaeub Beg by name, same time it is not to be denied that 
 
 who first appeared on the scene as the he has a stormy and doubtful future 
 
 General of Buzurg Khan, the heredi- before him. He is viewed with in- 
 
 tary chief of Kashgar, assumed the tense jealousy both by Russia and by 
 
 government of the country, and by a China, and he has no hereditary hold 
 
 wise and energetic rule soon succeeded on the affections of his subjects. He 
 
 in establishing an absolute authority is upheld indeed merely by the force 
 
 throughout the region, such as was of his personal character, and has 
 
 never enjoyed by the Chinese in their done nothing whatever as yet to found 
 
 palmiest days. It is to this chief, or consolidate a dynasty. Mr. Shaw's 
 
 who has now received the title of " Travels in High Tartary " has done 
 
 imic from the Sultan, as Caliph of much to familiarise the British public 
 
 the Faithful, that all the recent mis- with Kashgar and Yarkend, and the 
 
 sions from India and Russia have been account which Sir Douglas Forsyth is 
 
 accredited, and it is no exaggeration now preparing of his recenP-mission 
 
 to say that he is at present the will complete the picture. — 1874.) 
 
Ch.IT.] CENTRAL ASIA. 255 
 
 the occupancy of the throne of Cabul has thus been changed 
 we have adhered as rigidly as ever to our policy of non- 
 intervention, and are still content simply to watch the pro- 
 gress of events. A state, indeed, of vigilant though inactive 
 observation has been Sir John Lawrence's avowed and well- 
 considered policy throughout the Afghan troubles, and cer- 
 tainly up to the present time there has been no reason to 
 question its wisdom.* The Kussian press at the same "time 
 has not given us much credit for our forbearance. On the 
 contrary, it has not hesitated to ascribe this recent Afghan 
 revolution to British encouragement and design. As Abdur- 
 Eahman Khan had been for some time a refugee at Bokhara, 
 where he had married the daughter of the Amir, and as it was 
 with the aid of a considerable Uzbeg contingent that in the 
 course of last winter he succeeded — in concert with his uncle 
 Azim Khan — in driving Shir Ali from Cabul, and transferring 
 power to his father, Afzal Khan, who as the senior surviving 
 member of Dost Mahomed's family is now the acknowledged 
 ruler of the country, it seemed only natural to the political 
 quidnuncs of St. Petersburg to recognise in this denouement 
 the result of an elaborate scheme concerted by England for 
 the purpose of uniting Cabul and Bokhara 1 in a strong and 
 confederate opposition to Kussia. That a certain identity of 
 interest has been established between the Afghans and Uzbegs 
 
 * (As recent Afghan politics will be 1869 lie visited Lord Mayo at Am- 
 fully discussed in the succeeding chap- balla, and made his first treaty with 
 ters of this work, it seems unnecessary the British Indian Government. In 
 to continue the historical summary in the following year, 1870, Yacub Khan 
 this place, further than by stating broke into rebellion at Herat, but sub- 
 that Afzal Khan having died at Cabul mitted, and was restored to favour in 
 in 1867, while still in possession of 1871. In November, 1873, Shir Ali 
 the supreme power, was succeeded by nominated his youngest son Abdullah 
 his brother, Azim, who, again, in the Jan to be his successor ; and ever 
 following year, 1868, was finally driven since that event has been engaged in 
 out by Shir Ali, and died on his sub- a renewed difference with Yacub Khan 
 sequent march to Teheran. Shir Ali at Herat, which difference, though it 
 leaving his son Yacub Khan in the has not yet led to open warfare, has 
 government of Herat, which had seriously disorganised the country and 
 throughout remained in his hands, strained its friendly relations with the 
 then established himself at] Cabul, British Government. — 1874.) 
 where he has ever since remained. In 
 
256 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 through the family allia nce contr acted by Abdur-Bahman, and 
 in consequence of the accession of that chief and his father, 
 Afzal Khan, to the supreme power at Cabul, is not to be 
 denied ; and that the attitude of sustained hostility and inti- 
 midation which Eussia preserves against Bokhara will have 
 the natural effect of drawing closer those bonds of amity and 
 * leading the Afghans and Uzbegs to rely on each other for 
 support, is also highly probable ; but we are quite certain that 
 any such result will be entirely independent of the counsel or 
 instigation — or we might almost say of the approval — of the 
 British Indian Government. Afzal Khan and Abdur-Bahman 
 are understood, indeed, to have manifested unfriendly feelings 
 to the English throughout the recent troubles at Cabul, owing 
 to our previous cordial relations with their rival Shir Ali, and 
 the Bokhara^ tragedy of 1841 is still too strong in the recol- 
 lection of Englishmen to admit of a finger being raised by 
 us in favour of the present Amir, who is the son of our 
 old enemy, Nasr-Ollah KMn, even though our political 
 interests were seriously imperilled by the overthrow of Uzbeg 
 independence. 
 
 It remains that we should glance at the course of recent 
 events in the north-western section of Central Asia, the 
 country which contains the three Uzbeg Principalities and 
 their dependencies ; and for this purpose we have only to 
 condense the information given in the Bussian Official Be- 
 ports. It appears, then, that a contingent of Bokhara^ troops 
 had already joined the garrison of Tashkend when the Russians 
 assaulted the place on June 25j_1865, and that the Amir's 
 flag taken on the occasion was suspended among the other 
 Uzbeg trophies in the Cathedral of Orenburg. War may be 
 therefore considered to have broken out between Bussia and 
 Bokhara^ from the above date, though for some time later no 
 further overt acts of hostility were had recourse to. The 
 Amir, who had obtained possession of the person of the 
 boy-chief Mir-Said, and had thus transferred to himself all 
 supposed rights of sovereignty over the province, occupied 
 Khojend and Kokand in the course of the summer, and 
 summoned the Russians even to evacuate Tashkend, but did 
 
Oh. IV.] CENTKAL ASIA. 257 
 
 not venture on any advance into the country beyond the 
 Jaxartes. 
 
 An angry correspondence ensued, at the conclusion of which 
 General Tchernaieff took the strange resolve to send a party 
 of four Bussian officers to the city of Bokha>£, for the pur- 
 pose, it is said, of coming to an amicable arrangement with 
 the Amir, and with "a view of counteracting the intrigues of 
 certain European emissaries who had visited Bokhara to sub- 
 mit proposals to the Amir most prejudicial to the interests of 
 Bussia." * These officers were, of course, " more Usbeco," 
 placed in confinement soon after their arrival. Thereupon 
 Tchernaieff protested, and ultimately on the 30th of 
 January 1866, crossed the Jaxartes from Tashkend with 
 fourteen companies of infantry, six squadrons of Cossacks, 
 and sixteen pieces of artillery, with the avowed purpose of 
 marching on Bokhara" and compelling the Amir to release his 
 officers. Such a force, however, was manifestly inadequate to 
 any serious attack on the power of the Amir, and the march 
 therefore must be supposed to have been merely intended as 
 a demonstration, though the Bussian press certainly endea- 
 voured at this period to prepare the public for the possible 
 news of the capture of Bokhara, and the Bussian Government, 
 whilst disclaiming any views of permanent conquest, did not 
 disavow the advance. Be this as it may, the expedition turned 
 out a complete failure. Tchernaieff, after crossing the desert 
 to Jizakh within twenty-five miles of Samarcand, found himself 
 unable to proceed further. Whilst on this expedition he also 
 heard of the arrival at Tashkend of General Bomanofski, who 
 had been sent from St. Petersburg to supersede him, and he 
 accordingly beat a retreat to the river, which he reached with- 
 
 * For this serious charge, which is India and the Amir of Bokhara ; and 
 copied textually from the official Re- we are at a loss to understand whether 
 port in the " Invalide Russe," of June General Tchernaieff was deceived in 
 27, 1866, and which can of course only the matter, or whether the charge was 
 be understood as applying to EDgland, put forward as an excuse for the mis- 
 we believe there is not the slightest sibn of Colonel Struvg and his col- 
 foundation. No communication, either leagues, in case inquiries should be. 
 by agent or by letter, has passed as made as to its aim and object, 
 yet between the Governor-General of 
 
 vi 
 
258 ENGLAND AND ETJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. TV. 
 
 out incurring any serious loss. The effect of this abortive 
 demonstration was naturally to embolden the Bokharians to 
 assume the offensive, and we find, accordingly, that from this 
 time collisions were frequent on the right bank of the river 
 between the Eussian and Uzbeg outposts. A considerable 
 skirmish occurred at Mirza Bobat, near Chinaz, on the Syr- 
 Daria, upon April 5, and a more serious affair took place a 
 month later in the immediate vicinity of Tashkend, which is 
 dignified by the title of "the Battle of Irjar." As the Amir 
 commanded in. person upon this occasion, and his force is 
 stated at 21 pieces of artillery, 5000 regular infantry, and 
 85,000 auxiliary Kirghiz, against 14 companies of infantry, 
 5 squadrons of Cossacks, and 20 guns on the side of the 
 Russians, there would really seem to have been the elements 
 of a serious engagement ; but that the actual fighting must 
 have been of the most meagre description is proved by the 
 Russian return of twelve wounded as their total loss. If these 
 figures are to be relied on, and if the estimate be also true of 
 1000 dead left by the Uzbegs on the field of battle, it must 
 have been a massacre rather than a fight. Indeed, there would 
 seem to have been a panic flight in consequence of the 
 destructiveness of the Russian artillery fire ; the whole of the 
 camp equipage and baggage of the Uzbegs were left on the 
 ground, and the Amir carried back with him to Samarcand 
 but 2000 horsemen and two guns. 
 
 After this signal success General Romanofski seems to 
 have hesitated whether he would at once follow up the flying 
 Uzbegs, and profiting by the panic, occupy the great capitals of 
 Samarcand and Bokhara^, thus committing the Russian Govern- 
 ment, perhaps prematurely, to the conquest and permanent 
 annexation of the whole Khanat of Bokhara ; or whether in 
 accordance with the more cautious plan of operations, which 
 had regulated all the previous Russian proceedings in Turk- 
 estan, he would be content to secure that single step in advance 
 which was the natural and legitimate fruit of the recent victory. 
 He preferred the latter course, and proceeded accordingly with 
 due deliberation to take possession of the strong fortress of 
 Nau at the extreme angle of the river where it bends from a 
 
Oh. IV.] Usr-f* ' 0EN ^eaL ASIA. 259 
 
 ^K h r 
 
 westernly to a northernly course, and where the road also from 
 Kokand and Khojend strikes off to Bokhara 1 . This fortress, 
 considered of great strategic importance, was surrendered 
 without striking a blow, and the Russians then pursued their 
 march upon Khojend, which they reached on the 17th of May. 
 Khojend, after Kokand and Tashkend, is the most consider- 
 able place in Turkestan. It was found to be surrounded by a 
 double line of very high and thick walls, of which the circuit 
 was about seven miles ; but the garrison and artillery defences 
 were not in any proportion to this extent ; there were indeed 
 but thirteen guns of small calibre mounted on the walls, and 
 as the Bokhanan garrison had been withdrawn after the 
 Amir's defeat and had not yet been replaced by troops from 
 Kokand, the townspeople prepared to man the defences as 
 they best might. A week was consumed in reconnaissance and 
 skirmishing, and in discussing proposals of capitulation, which 
 however fell through, and at the expiration of that time, on 
 May 21st, the Russians took the place by escalade. The 
 resistance seems to hare been considerable, for 2500 dead 
 bodies are said to have been counted about the point where 
 the assault took place, and the Russians confess on their own 
 side to a loss of 188 in killed and wounded. What may be 
 the effect of this very brilliant success in Central Asia gene- 
 rally we are not prepared to say, but it is rumoured that the 
 Amir' is now really humbled, and will be glad to submit to any 
 conditions that may be imposed on him, as the price of pre- 
 serving his independence.* There is no doubt much truth in 
 the following remark, which we extract from the official report 
 in the " Invalide Russe :" — " Quant a la conquete de la Bouk- 
 
 * The last intelligence received from of establishing posts upon the banks 
 
 the seat of war reports that the Rub- of the river. The reported occupation 
 
 sian officers had been released from of Saniarcand and evacuation of Tash- 
 
 I confinement immediately after the kend are so entirely at variance with 
 
 oapture of Khojend, and had returned eaoh other that they are probably 
 
 to head-quarters unscathed. Peace both untrue. Russian garrisons will, 
 
 is also said to have boon concluded we are satisfied, continue to be inain- 
 
 between Russia and Bokhara ; the tained both at Tashkend and at Kho- 
 
 most important concession which has jeud ; but any further active measures 
 
 boenwung from the Uzbegs being a are alone to be looked for at present 
 
 freo right of navigating the Oxus, and upon the Oxus. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 harie, separe'e de nos possessions par la steppe, depourvue 
 d'eau de Kizil-kum, quelque facile qu'elle put etre dans l'dtat 
 actuel des affaires dans l'Asie Centrale, non seulement elle ne 
 saurait etre le but de nos operations, mais encore elle serait 
 positivement inutile ;" but tbe situation will be essentially- 
 altered, as far as communications are concerned, wben Khiva 
 has been already annexed, and when Eussian colonies and 
 garrisons are scattered along the entire line of the Jaxartes. 
 Then and not till then do we expect a serious attack upon 
 Bokhara. In the meantime the capital city of Kokand will 
 assuredly soon follow the fate of Khojend, being either peace- 
 ably surrendered by Bokhara as the price of her own immunity 
 from attack, or being captured by another brilliant passage of 
 arms, in retaliation for alleged encroachments on the recently- 
 acquired Bussian territory of Khojend.* 
 
 9. Our view of the Busso-Indian question, as presented to 
 the public in the " Quarterly Beview" for October, 1865, is in 
 no way altered by the occurrences of the last year. Although 
 a war with Bokh£r£ has occurred sooner than we expected, its 
 consequences have not been of any great political moment. 
 Many a long year must yet elapse before the Bussian Empire 
 by a gradual accretion of territory can become conterminous 
 with British India ; and in the mean time it should be our 
 earnest endeavour so to set our house in order as to meet the 
 crisis when it does come, without flinching or misgiving. We 
 must expect before long to see a Bussian embassy permanently 
 established in Bokhara^ We must expect to hear of Bussian 
 agents at Cabul, at Candabar, and at Herat. We must expect 
 to find amongst our northern feudatories an augmented rest- 
 lessness and impatience of control, the natural effect of the 
 intrusion of a rival European power into the circle of our 
 
 * When the Amir of Bokhara oceu- Russian Government, that this chief, 
 
 pied Kokand in the autumn of last who belongs to the royal family, and 
 
 year, he restored his father-in-law, has on previous occasions occupied the 
 
 Khodayar Khan, the champion of the " musnud," should continue to admi 
 
 Kirghiz faction, as opposed to the nister the capital and its adjoining 
 
 Kipchaks, to power ; and it is under- territory, " pending good behaviour, 
 
 stood to be a part of the recent ar- and almost as a Eussian feudatory, 
 rangement between the Amir and the 
 
Ch. IV.] 
 
 CENTEAL ASIA. 
 
 261 
 
 Indian relations. We must expect to find our commerce with 
 Central Asia impeded by the restrictions and protective duties 
 of our Russian competitors ; but we certainly need not appre- 
 hend any actual, or immediate danger, from the military or 
 political pressure. of our rival* If we could, indeed, make the 
 people of India feel that their interests were identical with 
 our own, and that an invader from the north would be a 
 scourge rather than a deliverance to the country, then we 
 might safely hold out the hand to Russia and welcome her to 
 the Indus ; but under present circumstances, and pending 
 the establishment of such a state of mutual confidence 
 between the Government of India and its subjects, let us not 
 sacrifice substantial interests to a mere sentimental feeling of 
 philanthropy. Let Russia pursue her policy of aggrandise- 
 
 V V 
 
 * (The successive stages of Russian 
 aggrandisement in Central Asia have 
 not followed the precise course, which 
 is here indicated, but the general 
 scope and direction of her policy have 
 turned out very much as anticipated. 
 Instead of advancing on Kokand after 
 the capture of Khojend, in the sum- 
 mer of 1866, Romanofski pursued 
 the Bokhara troops and captured Ura- 
 teppeh and Jizakh. Time was then 
 taken to consolidate Turkestan into a 
 provincial government, independent 
 of Orenburg, Kokand being permitted 
 to remain in friendly vassalage. In 
 1868, Bokhara being still recalcitrant, 
 Samarcand was occupied by General 
 Kauffman, and the frontier was pushed 
 on towards Bokhara, the Amir being 
 reduced to a state of complete depen- 
 dence upon Russia. The only con- 
 siderable extension of Russian power 
 since that period has arisen from the 
 Khivan expedition of 1873, which not 
 only broke up the power of the Khan 
 Hazrat, and rendered him for the 
 future a mere cypher in the politics 
 of Central Asia, but secured to Russia 
 a large extent of territory on the 
 Lower Oxus, and above all left her 
 free to deal with the Turcoman tribes 
 
 of the desert as her interests might 
 dictate. There are several terri- 
 torial arrangements now imminent 
 which will exercise an important in- 
 fluence on the future of Russia in 
 Central Asia. She may be compelled 
 to interfere in Kokand, where a power- 
 ful insurrection has broken out against 
 the chief. She may be compelled to 
 advance on Merv from her Caspian 
 base in order to control the Tekkeh 
 Turcomans, who threaten her com- 
 munications and impede her com- 
 merce. She may be compelled even 
 to occupy Khiva and Bokhara in super- 
 session of the native rulers, who are 
 powerless to maintain order and give 
 her a constant occasion for interfer- 
 ence. Having once embarked, indeed, 
 on her career of conquest, by crossing 
 the Steppe to the Jaxartes valley, she 
 may be forced to advance, step by 
 step, whether she desires it or not, 
 until she finds herself arrested by the 
 resistance of the British Indian Em- 
 pire and its dependencies. This con- 
 tact may be the work of time, but 
 sooner or later it is inevitable, and it 
 is as well, therefore, to familiarise 
 ourselves with the idea at once, and 
 to prepare for it accordingly. — 1874.) 
 
262 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. IV. 
 
 ment — or, as her admirers term it, of civilization and com- 
 mercial activity — in Central Asia. She will meet with some 
 successes and some reverses. Let us have neither part nor 
 parcel in her proceedings, but reserve an entire liberty of 
 action in reference to our future conduct, England has 
 already gone through the first or aggressive phrase in her 
 Eastern policy. She is now strictly conservative, and intent 
 on the improvement of what she already possesses ; but we 
 think we may say that she is also fully alive to the gravity 
 of the Eastern question in all its bearings, and that she 
 would not hesitate again to take up arms, if her rights or 
 interests were seriously menaced, either in Turkey, or in 
 Egypt, or in Central Asia. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MEMORANDUM ON THE CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION, DATED JULY, 
 
 1868.* 
 
 1. Abstract review of Russian progress in Central Asia up to 1868.— 2. Eolations 
 of Russian military commanders with the Central Government. — 3. Russian 
 view of her present state and prospects in Central Asia, as defined by 
 Grigorief and Romanofski.— 4. Probable position of Russia in Central Asia in 
 1878 if unchecked by England.— 5. Effect of that position upon India 
 considered : (a) in reference to Russian relations with Cabul ; (b) in regard 
 to restlessness of frontier states ; (c) in respect to elements of weakness in 
 our own position in India. — 6. Arguments for our immediate interference in 
 Afghan politics. — 7. More extended view of the Central Asian question, in 
 regard to Russia's means in the future of offence against India. — 8. Measures 
 required to meet the danger — (a), reform of our political relations with 
 Persia ; (J), various subsidiary arrangements for strengthening our position 
 on the North-west frontier of India. 
 
 1. When Kussia began to recover from the torpor and ex- 
 haustion consequent on the Crimean war, her first care was 
 to repair and strengthen her position in Asia. She had 
 suffered a grievous blow in Europe, but she had escaped a 
 still greater calamity in Asia, where, if a British force had 
 been employed instead of a Turkish, and means had been 
 
 * (As this memorandum has all the as I had already made considerable 
 appearance of an official document, it preparations for the speech which 
 may be as well briefly to explain its never came off, it was suggested that 
 true history. Towards the end of I should embody my notes in a 
 June, 1868, I had given notice of memorandum to be submitted to those 
 motion to draw the attention of the in whose hands the conduct of our 
 House of Commons to the state of Eastern policy was placed, and to 
 affairs in Central Asia, and was second whom the arguments, even if delivered 
 on the list for a Friday evening, which in the House, would have been in 
 in those days was given up to private reality addressed. This was accord- 
 business. First on the list, however, ingly done ; the memorandum, which 
 was Mr. Fawcett with a motion for was a mere amplified form of the 
 inquiry into the state of the Irish unspoken speech, was drawn up and 
 University, and as this was a subject submitted to the Secretary of State 
 equally distasteful to both parties, no for India, by whom it was sent officially 
 House could be made to open the to Calcutta for the consideration of 
 debate. It was late in the season and the authorities ; and arriving as it 
 the chance of getting another place on did at a critical moment, when the 
 the Friday evening list was small ; so, question of a change in our Afghan 
 
264 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 taken to utilise the co-operation of the Circassian, she might 
 have lost all her Trans-Caucasian provinces.* To obviate the 
 possible recurrence of such a danger required her immediate 
 attention ; and as the Treaty of Paris had left the Circassians 
 exposed to the full burst of her hostility, 150,000 soldiers 
 were accordingly soon arrayed in line against them. In 1859, 
 Gounib, the stronghold of the mountaineers, was stormed, 
 and Shamil was taken prisoner. Success followed on success 
 till the disheartened Circassians, preferring expatriation to 
 submission, abandoned their native mountains and sought a 
 refuge in the Turkish territory. The importance of this 
 extinction of Circassian nationality was certainly not recog- 
 nised at the time ; it has hardly perhaps been recognised at 
 the present day; yet it was the turning-point of Russian 
 Empire in the East. So long as the mountaineers resisted, 
 they formed an effective barrier to the tide of onward conquest. 
 When they were once swept away, there was no military or 
 physical obstacle to the continuous march of Russia from the 
 Araxes to the Indus. 
 
 The termination of the Circassian difficulty was immediately 
 followed by renewed activity to the eastward. Whether, when 
 Russia began to feel her way across the Steppe, in 1847-48, 
 and to erect fortresses on the Irghiz and Turgai rivers, she 
 was merely obeying a natural law of increase, or whether she 
 was deliberately resuming an old traditional scheme of terri- 
 
 relations was actually under discus- * (Several detailed plans to this effect 
 
 sion, it may have had some weight in were submitted to Lord Clarendon in 
 
 influencing the decision of the Govern- 1855, and there is good reason to 
 
 ment. At any rate, although in the believe that the matter would have 
 
 voluminous minutes which were been taken into the serious considera- 
 
 written upon the memorandum ex- tion of the Government, but for the 
 
 ception was taken in some instances jealousy of the French, who could not 
 
 to matters of fact and the remedial be persuaded to look with favour, or 
 
 measures suggested were not univer- even with patience, on an Asiatic 
 
 sally approved, still there was a com- campaign where, as they affirmed, the 
 
 plete identity of opinion in favour of "hard knocks" would fall to the lot 
 
 the leading feature of the proposed of France, while the benefits accrued 
 
 new scheme of Afghan policy — namely, exclusively to England. — 1874 ) 
 the substitution of friendly inter- 
 ference for the "masterly inaction" 
 of the preceding period. — 1874.) 
 
Oh. V.] MEMORANDUM ON CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 265 
 
 torial conquest, is really a matter of very little moment. One 
 thing at any rate is manifest, and must always have been 
 manifest to so astute a power, that her advance from Orenburg 
 to the Jaxartes, the* transfer of her frontier from the northern 
 to the southern limit of the Steppe, was a certain prelude to 
 bitter and interminable war. As long as the Kirghiz Steppe, 
 which is a zone of almost uninhabited desert stretching 2000 
 miles from west to east, and nearly 1000 miles from north to 
 south, intervened as a " buffer" between the military colonies 
 of the Orenburg and Siberian lines, and the swarming centres 
 of Mohamedan population beyond the Aral, so long peace 
 was possible in Central Asia ; but when once the " Debatable 
 ground" was passed, and Russian garrisons jostled against 
 Uzbeg posts upon the Jaxartes, there was no longer a possi- 
 bility of quietude or amicable relations. No sooner was one 
 portion of Uzbeg territory annexed than the Russian outposts 
 came in collision with the tribes beyond. One extension 
 begot another with the unerring certainty of a law of nature. 
 Between 1853 and 1863, notwithstanding the interruption of 
 the Crimean war, Russia gradually worked her way from the 
 Sea of Aral through the Saline marshes of the lower Jaxartes 
 to the confines of the fine alluvial valley above the desert ; 
 but she did not during these years attempt the actual invasion 
 of the Kokand territory. It was only at the latter period, 
 when her hands were freed by the pacification of the Cau- 
 casus, that she entered on a death struggle with the Uzbegs. 
 Advancing into the rich and populous districts, shut in between 
 the river and the northern mountains, she took in rapid suc- 
 cession the great cities of Turkistan, Chemkend, Tashkend, 
 and Khojend, not perhaps in accordance with any definite 
 plan of aggrandisement, but rather, as she herself asserted, 
 from the actual necessity of the case. An attempt, indeed, 
 was made, and apparently in good faith, after the occupation 
 of Chemkend, to arrest the tide of conquest. Negociations 
 were set on foot for a delimitation of frontier, and a manifesto 
 was published by Prince Gortchakoff, in November, 1864, 
 proclaiming that the late territorial acquisitions had been 
 brought about by "imperious necessity," and against the wish 
 
266 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 of the Government, and asserting with categorical precision 
 that the expansion of the empire had now reached its limit. 
 But, as has been well said, the ink was hardly dry with which 
 this Manifesto was written * before its pacific promises were 
 completely stultified. Hostilities indeed were resumed upon 
 the Jaxartes early in 1865, and they have been continued ever 
 since with little intermission, and, as might have been 
 expected, to the uniform advantage of Russia. Various pre- 
 texts have been alleged for so flagrant a departure from Prince 
 Gortchakoff's Manifesto. In the first instance the Bokharians, 
 with whose outposts the Russians came in contact after the 
 capture of Chemkend, are said to have challenged the invaders 
 and to have forced on a battle, in conjunction with the 
 Kokandis, in the vicinity of Tashkend, which led to the cap- 
 ture of that city. The detention of certain Russian officers f 
 in Bokhara, where they had been sent ostensibly to negociate, 
 brought on a renewal of hostilities in 1866. In this campaign, 
 conducted by General Romanofski, the town of Khojend was 
 taken, I and the power of Kokand was completely crushed, a 
 portion of the territory being incorporated in the new Russian 
 province of Turkestan, while the remainder was left to be 
 administered by a native chief (Khudayar Khan) pending good 
 behaviour, and almost as a Russian feudatory. The next step 
 in advance was the direct invasion of the Bokhara territory in 
 1867, General Romanofski's avowed object being to establish 
 a " tete-de-pont " beyond the desert country skirting the Jax- 
 artes, which should immediately threaten Samarcand and 
 Bokhara, and should thus, as it was asserted, protect the 
 frontier. But if Romanofski's aim had been to exasperate 
 rather than to conciliate, he could not have devised a more 
 
 * See ante, p. 174. been in dispute between Bokhara and 
 
 t (Among these officers were Coun- Kokand. At the time of Romanofski's 
 
 cillor Struvg, son of the famous astro- advance, it was held by a Bokhara 
 
 nomer, and Captain Gloukhovsky, garrison, but these troops withdrew on 
 
 now employed in the survey of the the advance of the Russians, and the 
 
 old bed of the Oxus. They were defence was then continued by the 
 
 released after the capture of Khojend. townspeople, avowedly as subjects of 
 
 —1874.) Kokand.— 1874.) 
 % (The town of Khojend had long 
 
Ch. V.] MEMORANDUM ON CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 267 
 
 effective expedient than this establishment of a fortified post 
 at Jizakh, almost within hail of Samarcand, bearding the 
 Amir, as it were, in the high place of his power, encouraging 
 the malcontents throughout the province, and holding out a 
 standing menace of invasion. That the Uzbeg chief, indeed, 
 under such circumstances should act in good faith, and exe- 
 cute the treaty of peace which was offered for his acceptance, 
 was an unreasonable expectation. He believed himself to be 
 marked out for destruction, and naturally, therefore, in default 
 of better means of defence, resorted to intrigue and duplicity 
 in order to prolong his existence. Russia may have had very 
 good grounds, both strategically and politically, for provoking 
 the recent contest. No military commander, indeed, could 
 allow a force of 40,000 men to be concentrated within an easy 
 distance of his position without taking measures for opposing 
 it, and General Kauffman no doubt, when the crisis arrived, 
 acted judiciously in assuming the offensive instead of waiting 
 to be attacked ; but to attribute the war, as has been done in 
 the Russian official papers, to the bad faith of the Amir, is 
 simply to confound cause and effect.* 
 
 2. Another point of some importance to the true appre- 
 ciation of the Central Asia question is the relation which 
 exists between the local commanders and the central go- 
 vernment at St. Petersburg. Russia has always attributed to 
 her military chiefs a degree of power in influencing the national 
 policy which in this country we find it difficult to realise. 
 She used to explain the slow progress that was made in sub- 
 jugating the Caucasus by pointing to the self-interest of the 
 army which forbade the premature closing of so fertile a source 
 of promotion and honours. The same antagonism of feeling 
 between the civil and military authorities is said to have 
 existed in Turkestan from the first outbreak of hostilities. 
 
 * (The Russian explanation of the order to disperse the brigands of the 
 
 "casus belli" was to the following neighbourhood, the Amir broke off 
 
 effect, that General Kauffman having peaceful relations, and at once assem- 
 
 been obliged during the negociations bled 40,000 men at Samarcand with a 
 
 with Bokhara to occupy Ukhum, an view of attacking the RussiaD post at 
 
 advanced position on the northern Jizakh. — 1874.) 
 slope of the Nurata Mountains, in 
 
268 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. V. 
 
 General Tchernaief, the captor of Tashkend, was recalled from 
 his command, avowedly in consequence of the aggressive 
 character of his policy, and a few years later his successor, 
 Eomanofski, was deprived of all military rank for the similar 
 offence of having invaded the Bokhara territory against orders. 
 General Kauffman, too, is likely to be publicly rebuked for his 
 recent brilliant success. But are these marks of the Emperor's 
 displeasure real, or are they intended merely to satisfy the 
 clamours of a peace party in Bussia, and to anticipate foreign 
 complaint ? It is well known that Tchernaief, notwithstand- 
 ing his apparent disgrace, received a diamond-hilted sword 
 from the Emperor as the conqueror of Tashkend, and Boman- 
 ofski is understood to be about to be restored to his full rank 
 and honours. General Kauffman also is pretty sure to be 
 rewarded for his military achievements at the same time that 
 he is reprimanded for his undue political activity,* the result of 
 this double action being that while Bussia maintains — or at any 
 rate claims to maintain — her character for moderate and un- 
 selfish views ; and while she also respects the feelings of those 
 politicians who honestly believe her territorial extension to 
 be a source of weakness rather than of strength, her progress, 
 nevertheless, is as constant and uniform as if she were really 
 the grasping and unscrupulous power which her enemies 
 represent her to be. 
 
 3. The latest intelligence received from Central Asia con- 
 firms the announcement of General Kauffman's occupation of 
 Samarcand and advance upon Bokhara, and foreshadows, as 
 
 * (A still more striking instance of of the campaign ; and yet when it was 
 
 the impunity with which military found that he had concluded a treaty 
 
 officers in Bussia can overstep or dis- at its termination, incorporating the 
 
 regard their instructions has recently whole Delta of the Oxus in the 
 
 occurred in the case of General Kauff- Russian Empire, and thus falsifying 
 
 man, the successful leader of the his sovereign's promise, no further 
 
 expedition against Khiva. It is be- notice was taken of his contumacy 
 
 lie red that he was absolutely for- than was implied by a temporary 
 
 bidden to annex territory in accord- absence from his command, to which 
 
 ance with the Emperor's assurances it is understood he is now returning 
 
 to that effect communicated to the armed with almost plenary powers. 
 
 British Government through Count — 1874.) 
 Schouvaloff before the commencement 
 
Oh. V.] MEMORANDUM ' ON CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 269 
 
 the inevitable fate of the government of the Amir, that 
 gradual absorption into the Russian Empire* which, in spite 
 of disclaimers — in spite perhaps of real disinclination — has 
 already been carried out to its full accomplishment in regard 
 to the greater portion of the territory of Kokand. In fact, 
 whatever may be the policy for the moment of the Court of 
 St. Petersburg, it is the "manifest destiny" of Russia to 
 absorb the Uzbeg states. 
 
 Her present position is another illustration of the old 
 doctrine that when civilization and barbarism come in contact, 
 the latter must inevitably give way. She has advanced to a 
 point from which retreat is impossible ; and thus, whether the 
 final consummation occur this year, or next year, or five years 
 hence, or even ten years hence — come it soon or come it late — 
 we may take it for granted that nothing can prevent the 
 extinction of the three independent governments of Kokand, 
 Bokhara, and Khiva, and the consequent extension of the 
 Russian frontier to the Oxus. 
 
 The question then arises, How will this new distribution of 
 power in Central Asia affect our interests in India ? Will it 
 strengthen us or weaken us ? Is it, in fact, to be encouraged 
 or opposed ? A large portion of the thinking public, including 
 the optimist class of Anglo-Indian politicians to a man, will 
 declare in favour of the Russian advance. On general grounds 
 they hold that the substitution of order and civilization and a 
 Christian government for the ignorance, the cruelty, the 
 anarchy of the fanatical Uzbegs must be advantageous ; and 
 they further point to the impetus that would be given to trade 
 by an increased security and facility of communication as well 
 as by the increased wants of a settled and improving com- 
 munity. But in such a view of the case sufficient weight seems 
 
 * (The actual absorption of Bok- shadow of independence. He has 
 
 hara has not yet taken place, though been in fact ever since a. mere vassal 
 
 it is in gradual process of accomplish- of the Empire, and Russia has thus 
 
 ment. The treaty indeed that was enjoyed the full benefits, politically 
 
 imposed on the Amir at the conclu- and commercially, of a domination of 
 
 sion of the war in 1868, and which is the country without incurring the cost 
 
 still in force, is of so stringent a na- of its administration. — 1874.) 
 ture that it scarcely leaves him a 
 
270 ENGLAND AND EITSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 hardly to be given to special political considerations. Public 
 opinion in Eussia, with a truer instinct, has declared itself in 
 a different sense. It is, indeed, well worthy of our notice that 
 whilst the press in this country, with a few exceptions, has 
 expressed satisfaction at the Kussian progress in Central Asia, 
 and has encouraged her to continue in the same course, the 
 Eussian press has decided with an equal unanimity that such 
 an advance must be distasteful, if not dangerous, to England, 
 and has accordingly been speculating on the steps that we are 
 likely to take in order to arrest the movement, or, at any rate, 
 to neutralise its effects. 
 
 It is not worth while, perhaps, to quote leading articles from 
 the Eussian papers, as they may be supposed merely to repre- 
 sent the views of a party, but the letters of M. Grigorief, the 
 late Governor of Western Siberia, who has been personally 
 and practically connected with the Eastern question for the 
 last twenty years, are a more serious authority, and may be 
 regarded indeed almost as an official exposition of the senti- 
 ments and policy of the Government. The following extracts, 
 therefore, from these letters, which were published in the 
 "Moscow Gazette" of last year, may be read with interest: — 
 
 " England is the only country that can assist the Bokharians in a war 
 with Eussia. It is therefore very probable that the Amir, preferring a 
 remote to an impending danger, will apply for co-operation against us to 
 the British Government in India. According, indeed, to our most recent 
 intelligence, envoys have been actually sent to Calcutta with solicitations 
 for money, guns, artillerymen, and even troops, offering in return the 
 most sincere attachment to British interests, an acknowledgment of an 
 English protectorate over Bokhara, and in fact anything else that may 
 be thought desirable. Such a line of action on the part of Bokhara may 
 affect our relations with England ; for the English being thus applied to, 
 and having a real interest in the independence of Bokhara, will hardly 
 refrain from interfering between us and that country, if not materially, at 
 any rate diplomatically ; but however probable that interference may be, 
 it is no less probable that any diplomatic action of England in favour of 
 Bokhara, would meet with the same fate which some years ago befell 
 their intervention in favour of the Polish insurgents. If they charged us 
 with aggression on Bokhara, we could retort on them with a reference to 
 their own conduct in India ; we could read them a lesson in this respect 
 that would be exceedingly bitter to them ; and happily too the time has 
 passed when we regarded diplomatic notes with, the same terror as we 
 
Oh. V.] MEMORANDUM ON CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 271 
 
 regarded the approach, of the cholera, and when we were prepared to 
 sacrifice the material interests of the Empire rather than be subjected to 
 them. Our Foreign Office is now sufficiently "fire-proof" in this re- 
 spect : it is accustomed to hostile remonstrances from European Govern- 
 ments, and will be well able to answer any fresh attempt of such a nature 
 with becoming dignity. 
 
 " Or it is possible that England may content herself with affording 
 underhand assistance to the Bokharians in arms and money. Against 
 this we cannot guard, and it is useless therefore to discuss the question ; 
 but we may remind the English that exciting or fostering revolt is a 
 game that two can play at, and that if underhand assistance should be 
 rendered to the dissatisfied Bokharians, we might retaliate by applying 
 the same disturbing agency to various weak points upon the Indian 
 frontier. Such a mode of conflict would be possible, but it would be 
 advantageous to neither one party nor the other. It would involve a 
 large expenditure; would be derogatory to the dignity of two great 
 nations, and would after all lead to very poor results ; for by no such 
 means could the Uzbegs be enabled to cope with the Russians nor the 
 Indians to cope with the English." 
 
 ******** 
 
 " It is hardly to be expected that England will assist Bokhara with 
 troops ; not that there is any physical obstacle to prevent this, for the road 
 from Peshawer to the valley of the Oxus has been found to be practicable 
 not only for light forces, but even for heavy artillery ; but the route lies 
 through the yet independent country of Oabul, and the Afghans would 
 never permit the march of a foreign army through their territory. 
 And the English have not yet forgotten the terrible lesson of 1842. 
 They will think seven times, therefore, before venturing on such a step 
 and risking its consequences." 
 
 ******** 
 
 " But that Bokhara, furnished with moral support and encouragement 
 from the South, may endeavour to stir up a general and combined 
 Mohammedan movement against us, is more than probable. Khiva and 
 Kokand may be expected under certain circumstances to unite their 
 forces with her ; but this will only lead to the more speedy destruction 
 of the whole three provinces. In every contest, a portion of the Uzbeg 
 territory will be lost, until their independence is entirely gone, and they 
 are ultimately swallowed up in the Russian Empire." 
 
 Now these extracts are of value not only because they show 
 the impression which prevails in Kussia, that we shall regard 
 her advance as a hostile movement, but because they also 
 indicate the danger which any such advance may have to 
 encounter. M. Grigorief, no doubt, gives us credit for too 
 
272 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE. EAST. [Oh. V- 
 
 much sensitiveness in supposing that we shall either resort to 
 an unavailing diplomatic protest, or that we shall assist the 
 Uzbegs by force of arms in resisting their invaders ; but at 
 the same time he really suggests a serious matter for our 
 reflexion in hinting at the possibility of an Uzbeg defensive 
 league ; more especially as the continued restlessness of 
 Russia may be expected to incline the neighbouring indepen- 
 dent states in favour of such a league, and as the three Uzbeg 
 principalities — if they were supported on one side by Yakjib 
 Beg, of Kashgar, whose power is daily on the increase, and 
 on the other side by Persia, and if they were backed by the 
 Afghans, whose relations with Bokhara have long been of the 
 most intimate character — would present a truly formidable and, 
 whilst maintained, an unassailable confederacy. 
 
 Before we can form any sound opinion, however, as to the 
 advisability of promoting such a confederacy, or adopting any 
 other precautions, we must be satisfied as to the present and 
 proximate position of Russia in Central Asia, and to this point 
 accordingly an inquiry will be now directed. 
 
 Russia has proceeded throughout this Central Asian move- 
 ment with the utmost caution and temper. Although stead- 
 fastly making progress year by year — whether from accident or 
 design is immaterial — she has never placed her foot beyond 
 that point from which she could, if required, conveniently 
 withdraw it. A demonstration has been sometimes made in 
 advance, as on the occasion of General Tchernaief's invasion 
 of the Bokhara territory in February, 1866, but permanent 
 occupation has only resulted from slow and careful arrange- 
 ment. Russia has always had her reserves in readiness, and 
 has not only secured her communications with her base, but 
 has also looked to her lateral supports, so as to combine the 
 whole forward movement in one harmonious operation. It 
 thus happened that nearly a year elapsed between the capture 
 of Tashkend and the attack upon Khojend, the interval being 
 occupied in establishing communication between the new 
 settlements in Turkestan and the old colonies of Fort Vernoe 
 and Kopai, near the Mongolian frontier, to the eastward ; and 
 in the same way now that Samarcand has been occupied, we 
 
Oh. V.] MEMORANDUM ON CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 273 
 
 may be sure that Eussia's first care will be to strengthen and 
 support that occupation by opening out lines of communication 
 to' the west. 
 
 General Romanofski, indeed, the conqueror of Khojend, 
 who was removed from his command last year, in consequence, 
 as it was said, of his aggressive tendencies, and who is sup- 
 posed to have been immersed ever since in the drudgery of a 
 notary public's office at Moscow, has just brought out a 
 pamphlet on the Central Asian question, which has made a 
 most profound impression in military and political circles at 
 St. Petersburg.* In this " brochure " he points out the 
 brilliant future that is opening to the enterprise of Russia, 
 settled as she now is on the Oxus and Jaxartes, in the very 
 " garden of Asia," provided that no administrative or strategic 
 errors are committed; and he suggests various measures for 
 improving and strengthening the position. 
 
 The point, however, on which he mainly insists, as the pivot 
 on which the whole question turns, is the immediate establish- 
 ment of direct communication between the Caucasus and 
 Turkestan, by which means the latter government, instead of 
 remaining as an outlying and unimportant dependency, would 
 become an integral portion of the Empire, and through which 
 also the military resources accumulated in the Western 
 province, and now no longer required there, might be utilised 
 by being transferred to the Oxus and Jaxartes. t Romanofski 
 suggests three different routes for this line of communication, 
 the object of which would be to connect the Caspian with the 
 Aral. The southern line would leave the Caspian in Kras- 
 novodsk Bay and would follow up the old bed of the Oxus, in 
 
 * (An English translation of Koman- tween 1869 and 1873, seem to have 
 
 ofski's pamphlet has been recently convinced the Eussian authorities 
 
 published in this country, and is well that it would be impossible to utilise 
 
 worth perusal. — 1874.) for military or commercial purposes 
 
 + (In all probability the essential the routes leading from the Caspian 
 
 object aimed at in the recent Khiva to the Aral and the Oxus, so long as 
 
 expedition was the establishment of Khiva retained its independence ; and 
 
 this strategical communication be- hence arose the necessity for Kauff- 
 
 tween the Caucasus and Turkestan. mann's expensive and apparently un- 
 
 The reconnaissances, pushed into the productive expedition. — 1874.) 
 Turcoman Steppe in all directions be- 
 
274 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 which water is always found, to the present embouchure of 
 that river in the Aral. This line would be the easiest of all 
 in respect to the physical character of the country ; but before 
 it could become a safe route for traffic, Khiva must be 
 absorbed into the Empire and the Turcoman tribes must be 
 brought under subjection. The northern line would be drawn 
 from the mouth of the Emba, at the north-east corner of the 
 Caspian, and would circle round the north of the Aral to 
 Cazala on the Jaxartes. It would present no natural difficulties, 
 but the route would be long and circuitous, and a considerable 
 outlay would be required in providing water along the skirts of 
 the Kara-kum desert. According to Eomanofski's view, by 
 far the most eligible route would be a middle line which would 
 cross the ' Ust-' Urt waste between the Caspian and the Aral at 
 its narrowest point, from Mertvi-Kultuk Bay on the one sea to 
 Chernishef Bay on the other. The distance across this neck 
 of land scarcely exceeds 200 miles, and it has long been in the 
 contemplation of the Russian Government to carry out a plan, 
 suggested in the first instance and recommended by Prince 
 Bariatinski, of laying down a line of rails over this interval. 
 Were the waterless waste of the 'Ust- 'Urt to be thus bridged 
 over by a railroad, the military position of the Russians in 
 Turkestan would be entirely altered.* At present, as 
 Romanofski remarks, it requires nearly two years to move 
 troops and stores from the Volga across the Kirghiz Steppes 
 to the advanced posts beyond the Bokhara^ frontier, whereas 
 with steamers on the Caspian and the Aral, a railroad con- 
 necting the two seas, and boats of light draught navigating the 
 
 * (A strong confirmation of the view minary studies for those very works, to 
 
 that Kauffmann's expedition was un- which Romanofski drew attention as 
 
 dertaken— not as asserted for the vin- the " desiderata " of the Russian posi- 
 
 dication of the national honour, nor tion in Central Asia. A Hue of levels, 
 
 in support of the interests of humanity indeed, has just been run across the 
 
 and commerce, hut rather as part and Steppe between the Caspian and the 
 
 parcel of a great system of military Aral on the two precise tracks indi- 
 
 aggrandisement— is furnished by the cated by Romanofski, with a view to 
 
 fact that the first serious operations the excavation of a ship-canal on the 
 
 undertaken by the Russian Engineers, southern line and the construction 
 
 since the conquest of Khiva rendered of a railway on the northern. — 1874.) 
 their execution possible, are preli- 
 
Oh. V.] MEMORANDUM ON CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 275 
 
 Oxus and Jaxartes, a few weeks would suffice for the transport 
 of a force from the overcrowded camps of the Caucasus into 
 the heart of Asia, the one river being practicable for steamers 
 as high as Khojend and the other to the neighbourhood of 
 Balkh. 
 
 Now this is certainly no visionary scheme. On the contrary, 
 so practical is it considered to be, that it is thought likely at 
 St. Petersburg that Eomanofski, who has been restored to 
 favour, will be sent out again to Turkestan to work out his 
 own recommendations; and in the mean time, in order to 
 prepare the way for this junction of the Caucasus with 
 Turkestan, so as to present a continuous Russian front to the 
 South, extending from the Black Sea to the frontier of China, 
 great efforts are being made to conciliate the Turcomans, who 
 hold all the lower part of the desert between the Caspian 
 and the Aral, and who, if they are ever reclaimed from bri- 
 gandage and brought under military control, will furnish a 
 far more formidable cavalry to a Russian army than even the 
 Cossacks of the Ukraine and the Don. 
 
 4. The position, then, which on the soberest calculation 
 Russia may be expected to occupy at the close of ten years 
 from the present time, and supposing that during this period 
 we abstain from all active interference against her,* will be 
 something as follows : 
 
 The Caspian and the Aral will be connected either by a 
 canal or railway, or by military roads, protected by forts and 
 amply furnished with water and supplies. Turkestan ,will thus 
 be brought into easy and direct communication, not only with 
 the Caucasus but with the Russian cities on the Volga, and 
 even with St. Petersburg. The independent Uzbeg govern- 
 ments will have ceased to exist, and in their place will have 
 been established Russian provincial governors, the seat of 
 central authority being probably at Bokh&ra\ The country 
 
 * (The ten years is not yet com- over, that we have already interfered 
 pleted, but I think I may ask for the at Cabul to a certain extent, and pro- 
 extension of the period to another ten bably shall interfere yet more actively 
 years in order to test the accuracy of in the sequel, so that the supposed 
 my views. It must be observed, more- case can hardly arise. — 1874.) 
 
 t 2 
 
276 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 will be administered under the joint control of Eussian 
 and native officials, according to the system which has long 
 been successfully practised in the Trans-Caucasian provinces. 
 Mohamedanism will be respected, though the extravagant 
 bigotry and fanaticism of the Bokhar£ priesthood will no doubt 
 have been retrenched. Trade will prosper ; man-stealing, the 
 present bane of the country, will be suppressed ; cultivation 
 will be increased, and the condition of the people generally 
 will be improved. The mouths of the Oxus and Jaxartes will 
 have been dredged and deepened, and flotillas of steam-boats 
 will have been established on both rivers. The strength of 
 the permanent garrison will be regulated by the wants of the 
 country as well as by its resources. At present 16,000 men 
 are sufficient to hold the extent of country which Eussia has 
 subdued, and which is scarcely a third of that which will 
 ultimately come into her possession. The future garrison, there- 
 fore, when Khiva and Eastern Kokand have both fallen in, and 
 Turkestan is bounded on the south by the Oxus, can hardly be 
 estimated at less than 40,000 men, of which 5000 would be 
 allotted to Khiva, 15,000 to Kokand, including the populous 
 cities of the valley of Ferghaheh, and 20,000 to Bokhara and 
 its dependencies ; and there can be little doubt that the 
 resources of the country would be ample to meet this amount 
 of_military expenditure. 
 
 5. Let us now consider the effect of this position upon 
 India. As long as Eussia remained in her present strength to 
 the northward of the Oxus, and confined her attention to the 
 consolidation and improvement of her newly-acquired territory, 
 we should have no occasion to complain of her neighbourhood. 
 In fact, beyond the gradual exclusion of our commerce from 
 the markets of Central Asia, her neighbourhood would exert 
 little or no influence on our affairs. But would it be possible 
 for her, even with the best intentions, to maintain this passive 
 and innocuous attitude ? Could she, if she wished, divest her- 
 self of the responsibilities and obligations, the temptations to 
 interference inseparably associated with her new position ? 
 This is what it may be permitted to doubt. Intermediate, it 
 must be remembered, between her position beyond the Oxus 
 
Ch. V.] MEMORANDUM ON CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 277 
 
 and our own frontier, broadly marked by the valley of the 
 Indus, would be the strong and independent country of the 
 Afghans. To pretend that it is physically impossible for 
 Russia, entrenched upon the Oxus and wielding the resources 
 of Bokhara, to exercise an influence on Afghanistan, as boldly 
 asserted in a recent number of the " Invalide Russe," is simply 
 false and fatuous. To apprehend, on the other hand, with the 
 Indian alarmists, that while Cabul still maintains its inde- 
 pendence, we shall be subjected to the full inconvenience of 
 Russian contiguity, is equally unreasonable. 
 
 (a). The truth lies between the two extremes. We are no 
 doubt exposed to a certain danger from the advance of Russia 
 to the Oxus, and that danger approaches us through Afghan- 
 istan, but the danger is not immediate and it is evitable. The 
 close connexion which exists, and has for a long time past 
 existed, between Bokhar& and Cabul is not generally known 
 in England ; yet it is an important element in the considera- 
 tion of the Central Asian question — the most important ele- 
 ment, indeed, since it is this circumstance alone which forces us 
 into contact with Russia. The connexion between BokMrd, 
 and Cabul is both geographical and political. The two pro- 
 vinces march with each other for many hundred miles. The 
 cities of Balkh, Khulum, and Kunduz, which for the last thirty 
 years have been held by the Afghans, belong properly to Bok- 
 hara. Other districts, such as Mymeneh, Sir-i-Pul, and Andkhoi, 
 are in dispute betwen the two states.* Russia, in fact, in pos- 
 sessing herself of Bokhara, will inherit a multitude of Afghan 
 grievances and embarrassments from which she cannot shake 
 herself free. The political relations again of the two countries 
 are even more intimate than the geographical. For the last 
 thirty years Bokhara has largely influenced the fortunes of 
 Cabul. When we drove Dost Mahomed Khan from power in 
 1839, he took refuge with the Amir, and it was from Bokhara that 
 he returned in 1841, and his son returned in 1842, to attack 
 us in Cabul. In all the recent Afghan revolutions also, 
 
 * (It has been since decided that, Cabul, as having formed part of the 
 without reference to nationality, every- possessions of Dost Mahomed Khan at 
 thing south of the Oxus belongs to the period of his death in 1863. — 1874.) 
 
278 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 Bokhara 1 has played a prominent part. It was chiefly by 
 means of an Uzbeg contingent that Abdur-Kahman Khan, who 
 had married a daughter of the Amir of Bokhara, expelled his 
 uncle Shir Ali Khan from Cabul in 1865, and since that time 
 Bokhara^ has swarmed with Afghan refugees. It appears, 
 indeed, that it was a body of these refugees, two or three 
 hundred in number, who having transferred their allegiance to 
 Russia in consequence of oppressive treatment by the Uzbegs, 
 led the Russian troops to the recent attack upon the Amir's 
 forces and fought in line with them at the battle of Samarcand.* 
 The implication of Russia in Afghan affairs is therefore no 
 longer a matter of speculation. She has an Afghan contingent 
 in her service commanded by a grandson of Dost Mahomed 
 Khan's. She is the mistress of a country which on more occa- 
 sions than one has been the arbiter of the destinies of Cabul. 
 It will depend on her discretion, therefore, supposing us to re- 
 main inactive, whether she interfere to the extent of regulating 
 the succession and directing the government, or whether she 
 merely offer friendly counsel and cultivate general relations of 
 amity. 
 
 (&). The next point, then, to consider is, in what shape danger 
 can come upon us from this Russian connection with Cabul. 
 The idea of invasion from such a quarter, which used to be 
 brandished before us in terrorem, may be dismissed as almost 
 chimerical. If a foreign army ever does descend upon the 
 Indian frontier, it will be by way of Herat and Candahar, 
 where the roads are open and traverse districts that have been 
 called "the granary of Asia," and not through the sterile and 
 difficult passes between Cabul and PesMwer; but it is not 
 invasion from any quarter, or in any form, that we have at 
 
 * (These Afghans, given as 280 men, quence of a breach of discipline, in 
 
 were led by Iskender ' Khan, son of which however his honour was unim- 
 
 Sultan Ahmed Khan, of Herat. The peached ; and he has since resided in 
 
 subsequent fate of this young Afghan London on a small allowance granted 
 
 chief has been singular. When his him by the India Office. He is a 
 
 services were no longer required in young man of considerable abilities 
 
 Turkestan, he was transferred to St. and force of character, and may yet 
 
 Petersburg and given a commission in play a not unimportant part in the 
 
 the Guards, but he was obliged to arena of Afghan politics. — 1S74.) 
 leave the Eussian capital in conse- 
 
Ch. V.] MEMORANDUM ON CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 279 
 
 present to guard against. The presence of Russia will make 
 itself felt in a less obtrusive, though perhaps in a not less 
 effective, way. If she establishes a mission at Cabul — and she 
 can hardly do less — should we fail to pre-occupy the ground, — 
 the effect of such an establishment will be at once perceptible 
 in India. The intrusion, indeed, of a foreign element within 
 the restricted circle of our Indian relations will of itself exert 
 a disturbing influence through the country of a most mis- 
 chievous and even dangerous tendency. Already the Maharaja 
 of Cashmere, taking offence at our efforts to promote trade by 
 insisting on a reduction of the transit duties in his dominions, 
 is said to have been negociating with the authorities of Tash- 
 kend, and to have suggested to them to appoint commercial 
 agents at Yarkend, on the immediate frontier of Thibet ; * and 
 if the Russians were more accessible, his example would be 
 followed by scores of others. There can, indeed, be no doubt 
 but that if Russia once assumes a position which, in virtue 
 either of an imposing military force on the Oxus, or of a domi- 
 nant political influence in Afghanistan, entitles her, in native 
 estimation, to challenge our Asiatic supremacy, the disquiet- 
 ing effect will be prodigious. Every chief throughout Northern 
 India who either has, or fancies he has, a grievance, or who 
 is even cramped or incommoded by our orderly Government, 
 mil at once commence intriguing in the hopes of relieving 
 himself from our oppressive shadow. It is not that the natives 
 of India, whether Mohamedans or Hindoos, have any parti- 
 cular affection for the Russians, or believe that their rule 
 would be more kindly and beneficial than our own. On the 
 contrary, the followers of the Prophet everywhere regard the 
 
 * (It is only fair to the Maharaja of they ever assumed any very definite 
 Cashmere to extract from the late Sir form — date from a period anterior to 
 D. Macleod's Minute oh this Memo- the action on our part which is sup- 
 randum the following remarks, ex- posed to have given offence ; and I 
 culpating His Highness from all blame myself entirely disbelieve those ru- 
 in regard to his alleged communi- mours, which in all probability re- 
 cations with Russia. Referring to the suited from the fact that the Maha- 
 pasSage to which this note is attached, raja, at our request, made inquiries 
 Sir Donald says: "In point of fact, through traders andconfidentialageuts 
 whatever rumours to the above effect as to the state of matters at Tash- 
 may have arisen — and I do not believe kend and elsewhere." — 1874) 
 
280 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 Eussians as more incorrigible infidels than the English from 
 their uncleanly habits and their supposed worship of pictures ; 
 but, on the other hand, the approach of a rival European 
 power betokens change, and to the active, gambling, reckless 
 spirit of Asiatics, change is always exciting and agreeable. 
 
 (c). There is, however, a still more important point of view 
 from which the subject must be regarded. Hitherto the 
 argument has proceeded on the assumption that Eussia is 
 friendly to England, and has not contemplated the acquisition 
 of any direct advantage over us from her career of Asiatic 
 conquest. She must, of course, be conscious that her new 
 position gives her a means of political leverage against us 
 which she did not before possess, and that she is thus rela- 
 tively so much stronger than she was at the time of the 
 Crimean war ; but it would be unfair to impute this result to 
 her as the motive of her recent aggressions. Supposing, how- 
 ever, that owing to complications in Turkey, or elsewhere, it 
 should be the policy of Eussia to weaken and embarrass us — 
 to find indeed such employment for our armies in the East as 
 should prevent our active interference in Europe — let us con- 
 eider under this altered aspect of affairs how her position at 
 Bokhara and her relations with Cabul would affect us. Now, 
 in order to appreciate the danger which might thus beset us, 
 it is necessary to look our position in India fairly in the face, 
 and for this purpose we cannot have a better or more authentic 
 guide than the series of Eeports recently presented to Parlia- 
 ment under the title of " (East India) Systems of Govern- 
 ment." Here, amid much that is satisfactory — amid a mass of 
 evidence of the highest character, which tends to show that the 
 agricultural populations of India are in general contented and 
 prosperous, and that with these classes our administration is 
 popular — L there is also much of a very different complexion, 
 much that furnishes abundant food for reflexion and uneasi- 
 ness. To quote a single statement from the report of Sir 
 Eichard Temple, who is now Financial Member of the Go- 
 vernor-General's Council,* and than whom no one has greater 
 experience of India or a keener insight into the native cha- 
 * (At present Lieut. Governor of Bengal. 1874.) 
 
Ch. V.] MEMOBANDUM ON OENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 281 
 
 racter, it is asserted that there are four classes " who are 
 necessarily our enemies, and are not open to any conciliation 
 that we could reasonably use." These are — 1st. The priestly 
 class, whether Hindoo or Mohamedan. 2ndly. The military 
 and political class. 3rdly. The native princes and chiefs whom 
 we have superseded; and 4thly. " The mob, the canaille, the 
 blackguardism of the whole population." Now if this state- 
 ment be correct — and there seems no reason to doubt it — it may 
 truly be said that we are living upon a volcano in India, which 
 at any minute may explode and overwhelm us ; and what is of 
 especial importance to the present argument is, that the class 
 which would be first exposed to Afghan intrigue, set on foot 
 by Russian propagandism, is of all others the most inflam- 
 mable and the most virulent. " This hostility," says Sir R. 
 Temple, "is even stronger in the Mohamedan priesthood; 
 with them it literally burns with an undying flame. From what 
 I knew of Delhi in 1857—58 — from what I am authentically 
 informed of in respect to Hyderabad at that time — I believe 
 that not more fiercely does the tiger hunger for his prey than 
 does the Mussulman fanatic throughout India thirst for the 
 blood of the white infidel. All this may be very sad, but it is 
 no use disguising a fact which is inevitable." * 
 
 There is unfortunately too at the present time in the Afghan 
 territory a machinery of agitation singularly well adapted for 
 acting on what Sir E. Temple calls the " seething, fermenting, 
 festering mass " of Mohamedan hostility in India. The 
 fanatics of Sittana, who gave us so much trouble a few years 
 back, are now showing signs of renewed vitality. They have 
 been joined by the notorious Firoz Shah, who, as the last 
 representative of the House of Delhi, assumes the title of 
 
 * (It must be well understood that attention of the Indian Government, 
 
 this Memorandum is not an official it was quite allowable for me to quote 
 
 document. Had I been weighted with the words of one of their most tried 
 
 the responsibilities of office in 1868, it and valued officers. At the same 
 
 is probable that I should have besi- time I must record my opinion of the 
 
 tated to adopt language which I re- indiscretion, almost the culpability, 
 
 gard as alarmist in tone and as ex- of publishing despatches of this very 
 
 aggerated in substance; but as an delicate and confidential nature. — 
 
 outsider anxious merely to arouse the 1874.) 
 
282 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 " King of Hindustan," and proclaims himself our implacable 
 enemy; and they are known to be in active communication 
 with the Wahabis and other Mohamedan malcontents in Upper 
 India. It is certain, then, that if Eussia desired to embarrass 
 us, and were sufficiently strong at Cabul to require the gover- 
 nor of that city to set in motion against us the Sittana con- 
 federacy, directing and encouraging the movement through the 
 Akhond of Sw&t and other Afghah spiritual chiefs, and sup- 
 porting it by inroads and forays of the mountain tribes along 
 the whole line of frontier, we might be placed in a position of 
 very considerable difficulty — of such difficulty indeed as to 
 require extensive reinforcements from England, and thus to 
 fulfil the very object which Russia had in view from the. com- 
 mencement. 
 
 6. With this prospect before us — with the knowledge that 
 we present a vulnerable front, and that if Russia were so dis- 
 posed she might in the natural course of events be enabled 
 severely to injure us, are we justified in maintaining what has 
 been sarcastically, though perhaps unfairly, called Sir John 
 Lawrence's policy of " masterly inaction ? " Are we justified 
 in allowing Russia to work her way on to Cabul unopposed, 
 and there to establish herself as a friendly power, prepared to 
 protect the Afghans against the English ? It has been said by 
 the advocates of inaction that in competing for the goodwill of 
 the Afghans, the power which appears last in the field will be 
 the most successful — that the first comers will be naturally re- 
 garded as enemies and those who follow as deliverers; but 
 this leaves out of sight the fact that there is already a national 
 feud between the English and the Afghans, which has been 
 rather deepened of late years by our withdrawal of the subsidy 
 and our persistent refusal to mingle in their internecine 
 quarrels ; while, on the other hand, the Russians having never 
 exerted any military pressure on the country or otherwise 
 offended the pride of the mountaineers, are regarded by them, 
 if not with friendly feelings, at any rate without animosity or 
 fear. The main argument, however, against interference of 
 any sort in the affair's of Afghanistan has hitherto been that 
 the country is a hot-bed of anarchy and disorder ; that in sup- 
 
Cu. V.] MEMORANDUM ON CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 2S3 
 
 porting one candidate we provoke the enmity of his rivals, and 
 throw them into the arms of Russia, whose appearance on the 
 scene would be thus accelerated rather than retarded; but this 
 is hardly a fair representation of the case. If we do nothing, 
 Russia is sure in due course of time to secure a political foot- 
 ing at Cabul, as a necessary consequence of her occupation of 
 Bokhara\ By some, indeed, it is suspected that the pending 
 revolution in Afghanistan is due to her instigation, Shir All 
 Khan having been launched from Her£t as a sort of pilot- 
 balloon, preparatory to her own advance on Bokhara; and if this 
 be true, it may be difficult, in the event of Shir All's success, 
 which seems now almost certain, to prevent a very rapid -de- 
 velopment of her plans ; but if, as is more probable, she is at 
 present merely watching the progress of affairs, nursing her 
 little nucleus of Afghan refugees, and expecting by their means 
 at some future time to establish an influence at Cabul, then it 
 would seem to be our bounden duty at once to step forward 
 and forestall her. No one probably will dispute that Lord 
 Auckland's famous doctrine of " establishing a strong and 
 friendly power on our North-west frontier," has always been 
 the true policy for India, though of late years too often neg- 
 lected, and once fatally mismanaged in execution. No. one 
 will question but that this policy would be advantageous at 
 present, if it could be carried out without any considerable 
 risk or expense. And why should there be any serious risk ? 
 Is it true that our intervention in Afghanistan would lead to 
 " confusion worse confounded ? " Is it borne out by experience 
 that disorder is the normal condition of the country ? Is it not 
 notorious, on the contrary, that from the time of our evacuation 
 of Cabul in 1842 to the year 1863, a period of more than 
 twenty years, Afghanistan was perfectly tranquil and contented 
 under the strong and friendly rule of Dost Mahomed Khan ? 
 This chief, having a firm belief in our power, and a scrupulous 
 regard to his own engagements, repressed on all occasions the 
 turbulence and unfriendliness of his subjects, and, in fact, 
 conducted himself towards us, throughout his long career, with 
 such perfectly good faith and orderly prudence as to make us 
 doubt whether the revolution and counter-revolution which 
 
284 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 have distracted the country ever since his decease, to the 
 injury of trade and the constant disturhance of our own fron- 
 tier, may not be owing as much to our persistent non-inter- 
 ference as to the incompetence of the old chief's successors, or 
 the natural indocility of the Afghans. It is asserted by many 
 authorities, fully competent to form an opinion, that if, in de- 
 ference to Dost Mahomed's nomination, we had acknowledged 
 and assisted Shir AliKMn from the commencement, continuing 
 to him the same subsidy which we had granted to his father, and 
 according him our general support, he would have summarily 
 suppressed the opposition of his brothers and nephews, and 
 would have retained his power unbroken to the present day.* 
 Another opportunity now presents itself. The fortunes of Shir 
 All Khan are again in the ascendant. He is already in posses- 
 sion of Herat, Candahar, and Ghizni, and is expected, either 
 in person or as represented by his son, Mahomed Yactib Khan, 
 to be soon installed at Cabul. He should be secured in our 
 interest without further delay. Provided that he is unen- 
 tangled with Russia, the restoration of his father's subsidy and 
 the moral support of the British Indian Government would 
 probably be sufficient to place him above all opposition and to 
 secure his fidelity. If he has been already tampered with, his 
 expectations of course will be higher. It may indeed be neces- 
 sary to furnish him with arms and officers, or even to place an 
 auxiliary contingent at his disposal ; but, whatever the price, it 
 must be paid, of such paramount importance is it to obtain at 
 the present time a dominant position at Cabul, and to close 
 that avenue of approach against Russia. "Whether the time is 
 come for the re-establishment of a mission at Cabul charged 
 with the distribution of. the subsidy and the direction of our 
 quasi-protectorate of the country, is a question that can only be 
 decided on the spot. It is a position that we must inevitably 
 occupy sooner or later, unless we are prepared to jeopardise 
 our Indian Empire ; and when once we have acquired the good- 
 
 * (Sir John Lawrence, in his Minute "the matter had been disposed of 
 
 on this Memorandum, disclaims the before he arrived in India in December 
 
 responsibility of the non-recognition 1863;" but at the same time he 
 
 of Shir AH Khan as Amir of Cabul on approves of the policy as "justified 
 
 the death of his father, observing that by circumstances."— 1874.) 
 
On. V.] MEMOEANDUM ON CBNTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 283 
 
 will and confidence of the Governor, there can be no great risk 
 attached to it.* The success, indeed, of Major Lumsden's 
 mission in 1856 has already shown that British officers of firm 
 but conciliatory bearing may traverse our old battle-fields 
 without exciting any special or dangerous hostility ; and the 
 prestige of our recent Abyssinian triumph would no doubt give 
 an additional personal security to our Envoy. 
 
 There is one other argument relating to this branch of the 
 subject which it may be worth while to notice. Putting aside 
 all consideration of the Russian advance and the danger of 
 their establishment at Cabul, it would seem to be a duty 
 which we owe to our subjects in the Punjab to make serious 
 efforts for the consolidation of a strong and friendly govern- 
 ment in Afghanistan. Anarchy is contagious, and with the 
 spectacle of constant bloodshed and rapine above the passes, 
 it is impossible to preserve order and content among the 
 frontier tribes. In the interests, then, of peace ; in the in- 
 terests of commerce ; in the interests of moral and material im- 
 provement, it may be asserted that interference in Afghanistan 
 has now become a duty, and that any moderate outlay or 
 responsibility we may incur in restoring order at Cabul will 
 prove in the sequel to be true economy. 
 
 7. Hitherto the argument has been confined to a practical 
 consideration of the effects upon India of Russia's present and 
 proximate position in Central Asia; but if we look a little 
 ahead, and take in a somewhat more general view of the 
 subject, we shall find many topics of equal, or even greater, 
 interest. Anyone who traces the movements of Russia towards 
 India on the map of Asia cannot fail to be struck with the 
 resemblance which these movements bear to the operations of 
 
 * (The question of re-establishing a scruples ; but the question has been 
 Mission at the Court of Cabul has recently revived on more occasions 
 always been and still is a moot point than one, and it is now a matter for 
 among Indian officials'. Sir J. Law- serious consideration whether in sub- 
 rence and his Council reported unani- mitting to continued exclusion from 
 mously against the measure in 1868, Cabul we are not sacrificing sub- 
 as unnecessary and premature, and stantial interests to an undue regard 
 Lord Mayo confirmed their decision for Afghan feeling. — 1874.) 
 in 1869, out of deference to Shir All's 
 
286 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 an army opening parallels against a beleaguered fortress. The 
 first parallel would thus be the Eussian frontier of twenty 
 years back, stretching from the upper end of the Caspian by 
 the Orenburg and Siberian lines northward of the Steppe to 
 the Irtish. This may be considered strategically as a mere 
 line of observation. The second parallel, which would con- 
 stitute her line of demonstration, would be the frontier which 
 she is now preparing to take up, and which, according to 
 Eomanofski's plan, would be drawn from Krasnovodsk Bay, 
 about the centre of the Caspian, south of Khiva to the Oxus, 
 and along the course of that river to the Pamir plateau, thus 
 including the whole of the Uzbeg territory, and placing at her 
 command the entire water way of the Oxus and Jaxartes. 
 This parallel is above 1000 miles in advance of the first line, 
 but it does not directly menace India, inasmuch as the inter- 
 vening Afghan mountains constitute a strong military defence. 
 The third parallel, which would be the natural result of the 
 preceding preliminary operations, and which, if Eussia survive 
 revolution in Europe and catastrophe in Asia, she will assuredly 
 some day attempt, would be drawn from Asterabad at the 
 south-east corner of the Caspian along the Persian frontier to 
 Herat, and from thence through the Hazareh uplands to the 
 Oxus, or possibly by Candahar to Cabul. Established upon 
 such a line, her position would indeed be formidable. Troops, 
 stores, and,,material might be concentrated to any extent at 
 Asterabad. The country between that port and Her£t is open 
 and admirably supplied. A line of military posts would con- 
 nect the two positions and effectually control the Turcomans, 
 thereby conferring an essential benefit on Persia and securing 
 her goo,d-will and co-operation. Herat has been often called 
 " the key of India," and fully deserves its reputation as the 
 most important military position in Central Asia. The earth- 
 works which surround the town are of the most colossal cha- 
 racter, and might be indefinitely strengthened. Water and 
 supplies abound, and routes from all the great cities to the 
 north, which would furnish the Eussian supports, meet in this 
 favoured spot. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that if 
 Eussia were once established in full strength at Herat, and 
 
Oh. V.] MEMOKANDtTM ON CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 287 
 
 her communications were secured in one direction with Aster- I 
 abad through Meshed, in another with Khiva through Merv, ' 
 and in a third with Tashkend and Bokhara through Mymeneh 
 and the passage of the Oxus, all the native forces of Asia would 
 be inadequate to expel her from the position. Supposing, too, 
 that she were bent on mischief — and it is only hostility to 
 England that would be likely to lead her into so advanced and 
 menacing a position — she would have the means of seriously 
 injuring us, since, in addition to her own forces, the unchal- 
 lenged occupation of Herat would place the whole military 
 resources of Persia and Afghanistan at her disposal. It is not 
 in general sufficiently considered that in a political struggle 
 with Eussia of this nature we should not engage her upon at 
 all equal terms. We have no natural claim on the affections 
 or allegiance of the intermediate nations, no inducement to 
 hold out to them, as affecting their own interests, which should 
 lead them to prefer our alliance to that of our rivals ; whereas 
 Eussia has only to point to India as the traditional plunder- 
 ground of Central Asia, as the prize which has ever rewarded 
 the victorious hordes rushing down from the northern moun- 
 tains, and she at once enlists their sympathies in her behalf. 
 The pleasant memories of the sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah, 
 and of Ahmed Khan Abdalli's successful campaign against the 
 Mahrattas, have hardly faded from the minds of the present 
 generation of Persians and Afghans. Such visjftns possess 
 irresistible attractions for them, and would always, unless 
 counterbalanced by some special considerations, incline them 
 to ' side with the invader rather than the invaded. It is thus 
 quite within the bounds of possibility that some years hence, if 
 Eussia found herself engaged in another war with us, she 
 might launch upon India from her Herat base a force of 
 50,000 Persian " Sirbaz," disciplined and commanded by 
 Eussian officers, and thus fully competent to cope with our 
 best native troops ; supporting such a force with 20,000 
 Turcoman and Afghan horse, than whom there is no better 
 irregular cavalry in the world ; and if she were really in earnest, 
 detaching also a small auxiliary body of her own picked troops 
 to give strength and consistency to the invading army. Now 
 
288 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 an attack of this nature might not lead to any serious result, 
 might not jeopardise, that is, our hold upon India, for our 
 garrisons, reinforced from England, would probably be equal 
 to the emergency ; but at any rate we should have to fight for 
 our lives, and should be quite powerless to strike a blow 
 against Russia in return. 
 
 8. Are we justified, then, in disregarding this danger merely 
 because it is remote ? Ought we not rather, while there is yet 
 time, to provide against the possibility of being thus taken at 
 a disadvantage ? Eussia could never establishherself at Herat 
 and keep up her communications with Asterab&d without the 
 co-operation of Persia, and against the risk of that co-operation 
 our efforts should be accordingly directed. 
 
 (a). The doctrine which prevails at present in our Eastern 
 diplomacy is simply this, that Persia is too weak and faithless to 
 justify any extraordinary expense in keeping up cordial relations 
 with the Shah. "We are content for a while to occupy a subor. 
 dinate position to Russia at Teheran, trusting that when the time 
 comes for action we may regain our lost ground by increased 
 expenditure and redoubled activity ; but this is after all a very 
 short-sighted policy. The good-will of a nation, — that which 
 we once possessed, but have now lost in Persia, — is not to be 
 purchased in a day. It is the growth of time; of steady, un- 
 remitting attention. If we desire then to check the advance of 
 Russia towards India — if we desire above all to render impos - 
 sible, or at any rate indefinitely to postpone, her occupation of 
 Herat, it is indispensable that we should bestir ourselves in 
 Persia at once. The vast expenditure that we incurred in the 
 days of Harford Jones, and Malcolm in expelling the French 
 from Teheran is no longer required. What is required is an 
 indication of renewed interest in the country and a disposition 
 to protect it against Russian pressure. Our officers should be 
 again placed in positions of confidence and power with the 
 Persian troops, as in the days of Christie, of Lindsay, and 
 of Hart. Presents of improved arms, and perhaps artillery, 
 would testify to our awakened interest. The Persian nobles 
 should be encouraged to send their sons for education to 
 London rather than to Paris. Investments of English capital 
 
Ch. V.] MEMORANDUM ON CENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 289 
 
 in banks, in railways, in mining operations, and other com- 
 mercial enterprises are freely proffered, and if supported by our 
 authorities would create a further bond of union between the 
 countries. Among a people, again, who are so fond of display, 
 and attach so much value to outward forms, it is of the first 
 importance that our mission should be kept up on a very 
 liberal scale, and that presents should be freely distributed — 
 that the diplomatic establishment in fact at Teheran should be 
 Oriental rather than European. A further opportunity has 
 occurred for creating a very favourable impression, and, in 
 fact, inaugurating the new system which is recommended, in 
 the Shah's application for our aid in creating and keeping up 
 a Persian naval force in the Gulf. Considering the singular 
 maritime inaptitude of the Persians, it is not likely that this 
 scheme, even if accorded our full countenance and support, 
 would ever realise the Shah's expectations, but our acquiescence 
 in the proposal would at any rate very much strengthen our in- 
 fluence at Court, and might aid even in developing that com- 
 munity of interests which our joint telegraphic establishment 
 has already initiated.* 
 
 In connexion with these suggested reforms in our Persian 
 diplomacy, it is important to consider whether our relations 
 with that country ought not to be again placed under the 
 India Office. Now there can be no doubt that Persian 
 diplomacy is essentially an Eastern question, and mainly 
 dependent on considerations of Indian policy. It is the ad- 
 vance of Russia towards India, and her demonstrations against 
 Cabul and Her&t, which seem now to require our more active in- 
 terference at Teheran. Every measure of defence, referring 
 either to Persia or Afghanistan, must be organised in India 
 and executed from India. If troops were required, they would 
 
 * (These suggestions in regard to our concession ; but there is still an unac- 
 
 Persiau policy did not find favour countable hanging back and half- 
 
 at the time either in England or in heartedness on our part, the result of 
 
 India. They have been left to fer- excessive caution, which, if persisted 
 
 ment and germinate for the last in, may yet land us in the most serious 
 
 six years, and in the interim have difficulties. The subject is treated 
 
 assumed various incipient shapes of more at length in the concluding part 
 
 development— notably in the Reuter of Chapter 2. — 1874.) 
 
290 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE BAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 be supplied from Peshawer or Sinde. Officers for the Shah's 
 forces would be drawn from the Indian army. Bombay would 
 furnish the naval material for the Gulf. The Persian tele- 
 graph is an Indian establishment. The Indian revenues con- 
 tribute a sum of £12,000 per annum towards the expenses of 
 the Persian mission. There is no single element, indeed, of 
 European diplomacy connected with Persia except the relations 
 of that country with Turkey ; and even these relations, referring 
 almost exclusively to frontier grievances, come more naturally 
 under the jurisdiction of Baghdad, or of Erzeroum, than of 
 Constantinople. It may further be questioned whether the 
 traditions and practice of the Foreign Office, admirably adapted 
 as they are to European diplomacy, are fitted to deal with the 
 peculiarities of Eastern character. Teheran is an Oriental 
 Court of the same type and temper as the Courts of Cabul, 
 of Lahore, of Delhi, Lucknow, or Hyderabad, where the eye 
 must be addressed rather than the reason, and where individual 
 character is of so much more importance and effect than the 
 forms and precedents of office. It may be doubted if the 
 duties of the Teheran mission, recognised as a powerful 
 machine of Indian defence, could be carried out by an ordinary 
 staff of Foreign Office attaches. At any rate it would be 
 infinitely better to employ Indian officers, accustomed to the 
 native character, acquainted with the language, and who would 
 look to Persian and Afghan service as their career in life 
 instead of pining for the luxuries and leisure of Paris and 
 Vienna. One thing may be confidently predicted, that if we 
 neglect the present occasion for retransferring the Persian 
 mission to the India Office, the growth of Indian interests, 
 and complications arising from the continued extension of 
 Bussia towards India, will render such a transfer obligatory 
 at a later period, and probably after we are involved in diffi- 
 culties from which it will require all the vigour and practised 
 skill of our Indian authorities to effect our extrication.* 
 
 (6). In conclusion, the remedial measures recommended for 
 
 * (My views on this subject have question, as connected with her ad- 
 been somewhat modified by the in- vances in Central Asia, with which 
 creasing gravity of the Russian the Foreign Office would seem to be 
 
A*»~* 
 
 Ch. V.] MEMOEANDUM ON CENTfiAL ASIA QUESTION. 291 
 
 adoption in the present state of the Central Asian question 
 may be briefly recapitulated. They are few, but not unim- 
 portant. Shir Ali Khan should be subsidised and strengthened 
 at Cabul, our position at that capital being rendered as secure 
 and paramount as would have been Burnes's position at the 
 Court of Dost Mahomed Khan in 1847, if he had been sup- 
 ported by the full weight of Lord Auckland's authority and 
 resources. The next step should be to recover our lost ground 
 in Persia, so as to prevent the possibility of Russia making use 
 of that country as an instrument to facilitate her own advances 
 towards India. Locally also our communications with the 
 Afghan frontier, considered especially as military lines, should 
 be completed and improved. It is a crying reproach to us 
 that up to the present day no progress should have been made 
 in laying down a railway from Lahore to Peshawer, and that 
 we should still be dependent on the dilatory and uncertain 
 Indus navigation for our communications between Multan and 
 the sea.* 
 
 The only other point refers to the proposed establishment 
 of a fortified outwork at Quetta above the Bolan Pass, 
 a measure which has been strongly advocated in some 
 quarters, and as strongly opposed in others. No one will , 
 be inclined to question the military advantage of such a work. 
 As a " place d'armes " it would cover the frontier, and being 
 held in too great strength to admit of being masked, would in 
 the event of invasion delay our enemy sufficiently to enable us 
 to mass our full forces in the rear. Perhaps also, under 
 present circumstances, the creation of such a fortress would 
 have a salutary effect upon the native mind in India. Our 
 friends are now said to be dispirited at our inactivity, while 
 
 alone competent to deal. The whole two bases of Calcutta and Karachi, 
 subject, however, has been fully dis- extending in one direction to Peshawer 
 cussed in Chapter 2, sect. 6 ; and I and in the other to the foot of the 
 have nothing to add to the views that Bolan pass ; but this is, alas ! the only 
 are there recorded. — 1874. ) one of my proposed remedial measures 
 * (At length this blot is being re- that has been fairly carried out. 
 moved from our escutcheon, and in Persia is still unreclaimed, and the 
 the course of the next few years we support of Shir Ali has been so spas- 
 may expect to have a continuous modic that our position at Cabul is 
 railway on a uniform gauge, from the still unsecured. — 1874. ) 
 
 \£s^ (X &y Os*J) ^ i 6 4WW-4 1w^ I t^tt^~ 
 
 u 2 
 
292 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. V. 
 
 our enemies acquire fresh confidence and power. Breaking 
 ground at Quetta would cheer the one class and would check 
 the others. It would show that our repose had been the 
 repose of strength, that we were fully alive to the gravity of 
 the situation, and prepared to move immediately that the 
 occasion arose. But, on the other hand, it is doubtful how 
 such a proceeding would be regarded at Candahar and Cabul. 
 If our position were already secured with Shir All Khan, and 
 he could thus be led to look upon the Quetta post as a support 
 to his own power, then we should hardly be deterred from 
 undertaking the work by mere considerations of expense ; but 
 if, as is more probable, the tribes in general regarded this 
 erection of a fortress — above the passes, although not on 
 Afghan soil,*- — as a menace, or as a preliminary to a further 
 hostile advance, then we should not be justified, for so small 
 an object, in risking the rupture of our friendly intercourse. 
 London, July 20, 1868. 
 
 * (It must be explained that Quetta of the territory of Kelat, as may be 
 
 belongs to Kelat, and not to Cabul ; thought advisable by the British 
 
 and that we are permitted by treaty authorities. " See Aitchison's Treaties, 
 
 "to station British troops in any part vol. vii. p. 77. — 1874.) 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE LATER PHASES OP THE CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 
 
 1. Lord Mayo's Afghan policy : a. the Amhalla Conference ; J. the proposed 
 Neutral zone. — 2. Negotiations with Russia with regard to the Afghan 
 frontier. — 3. The expedition to Khiva, considered politically, its origin 
 and results. — 4. The Turcoman question and Mefv. — 5. A few Words oh 
 Eastern Turkestan. — 6. Present position of Eussia in Central Asia. — 7. The 
 present relations of England with Afghanistan. — 8. Review of the general 
 question and our future policy considered. 
 
 1. I now proceed to trace in outline the further progress of 
 Central Asian affairs from 1868 to the present day ; and I com- 
 mence the sketch with a brief narrative of the events in 
 Afghanistan which led to the famous Amballa Conference in 
 March, 1869. As early as the autumn of 1867, while Azim 
 Khan was still Amir of Cabul, the danger of prolonged isolation 
 from Afghan politics — for a formal recognition of the de facto 
 ruler could hardly be called interference— had become so 
 apparent that Sir John Lawrence consulted the Secretary of 
 State as to the propriety of furnishing our neighbour above 
 the passes with arms and a subsidy from India. He would 
 have accorded this support to the de facto ruler of the day, who* 
 ever he might be, observing that in the event of revolution 
 " he should be prepared to renew with the successful chief the 
 same terms and favourable conditions as obtained under his 
 predecessor"; but Sir Stafford Northcote, whilst approving 
 of the general principle of intervention, distinctly repudiated 
 a fluctuating support, the effect of which would have virtually 
 been to offer a premium on insurrection. "He had no 
 objection," he said, " to ally ourselves with one chief, 
 so far as to support him with arms and subsidies, should 
 occasion require it, but he would not consent to the proposal 
 that we should subsidize first one and then the other, according 
 as accident brought up Shir Ali or Abdur Rahman to the 
 head of affairs." Sir John Lawrence, being thus armed with 
 
294 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 authority to interfere under certain circumstances, waited on 
 events ; and the crisis eame almost sooner than was expected. 
 I had already anticipated in my Memorandum of July, 1868, 
 that Shir Ali, who under his father's nomination was the 
 rightful heir to the Afghan throne, would in due course re- 
 cover his position at Cabul ; and had recommended in that 
 event that he should be secured at once in our interests, 
 whatever might be the cost and risk of the operation. 
 These suggestions reached Calcutta during the first week of 
 September, 1868, and at almost the same moment of time 
 intelligence arrived from Peshawer, announcing that Aziro. 
 Khan had been signally discomfited, and that Shir Ali was 
 marching victoriously on Cabul. The opportunity which 
 thus offered for interference was all the more favourable as 
 Shir Ali, after his long exclusion from power, was naturally 
 pressed for means, and our aid was essential to his complete 
 success. Sir John Lawrence, therefore, no longer hesitated, 
 but cast to the winds at once and for ever the famous policy 
 of " masterly inaction." A friendly correspondence was 
 opened between Calcutta and Cabul. Arrangements were 
 even proposed for a personal interview between the Viceroy 
 and the Amir with a view to the removal of past misunder- 
 standing and the inauguration of a new policy, the object of 
 which should be to place Shir Ali Khan beyond competition 
 in respect to his rivals, while he was held in grateful, but 
 not humiliating, dependence upon the British Government. 
 Ultimately, on the 9th of January, 1869, three days before the 
 arrival of Lord Mayo in India — pecuniary aid having in the 
 interim been furnished to a limited extent — it was officially 
 announced to the Amir that 12 lakhs of rupees would in all 
 be forwarded to Cabul, together with a considerable supply 
 of arms ; and that in future years at the discretion of the 
 Government he would receive further "practical assistance 
 in the shape of money and materials of war," the only return 
 which was expected by the Governor- General for such liberal 
 aid being " abiding confidence, sincerity, and good will." 
 
 When Lord Mayo landed in Calcutta on January 13, 1869, 
 he thus found the Government of India committed to a policy 
 
Oh. VI.] LATEK PHASES OP CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 295 
 
 which was based on affording moral and material support to 
 the reigning Amir of Cabul, the object being the same which 
 governed the opening of our relations with Dost Mahomed 
 Khan, and which afterwards, impelled Lord Auckland to 
 undertake the Afghan War, namely, " the establishment of a 
 strong, friendly, and independent power in Afghanistan, as 
 a permanent barrier against schemes of aggression on our 
 north-west frontier." But Lord Mayo had a much less 
 favourable field of action in 1869 than Lord Auckland had 
 enjoyed in 1837. At the earlier period Afghanistan was 
 diplomatically a virgin soil, and might have been secured in 
 our interests if we could have obtained for the Amir the 
 restoration of Peshawer from the Government of the Punjab. 
 Now the ruler of Cabul was swayed by a multitude of conside- 
 rations, personal and political, which greatly complicated the 
 question of an English alliance. His feelings indeed on many 
 points conflicted with his interests, and the uncertainty of 
 his character added a further difficulty to our establishment 
 of relations with him on a basis of mutual confidence. 
 
 Lord Clarendon was justified, perhaps — in so far as he pos- 
 sessed any 'knowledge of the intentions of the Indian Govern- 
 ment — in assuring Prince Gortchakoff at Heidelberg that Sir 
 John Lawrence's policy in assisting Shir Ali Khan "had no re- 
 ference to the advances of Russia in Central Asia ; " but no one 
 conversant with the negociations which preceded the Amballa 
 Conference can doubt that these advances did exercise a very 
 important influence on the feelings and conduct of the Amir 
 of Cabul. Shir Ali Khan, it must be remembered, owed us 
 no gratitude prior to 1869. On the contrary, he had always 
 denounced our temporising policy, which subordinated all other 
 considerations to success, as mischievous in the extreme ; and 
 he bore us an especial grudge for our successive recognition of 
 Afzal Khan and Azim Khan as de facto rulers of Afghanistan 
 while he himself still held possession of Her&t.* So keen, 
 
 * He expressed his discontent on they see strongest for the time they 
 
 this occasion in very forcible language. turn to him as their friend. I will 
 
 "The English," he said, "look to not waste precious life in entertaining 
 
 nothing but their own interests, and false hopes from the English, and 
 
 bide their time. Whosoever's side will enter into friendship with other 
 
296 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI 
 
 indeed, were his feelings on this subject that, notwithstanding 
 his necessities, he hesitated for some time after reaching Cabul 
 to follow the suggestion of the British Agent, that he should 
 apply to the Viceroy for assistance, resenting on the one hand 
 our previous neglect, and suspicious on the other that our 
 sudden and unexpected generosity was rather due to the 
 neighbourhood of the Eussians than to a real interest in his 
 welfare. The urgency of the danger, however, with which he was 
 himself threatened overcame his scruples. When he found 
 that General Kaufmann had settled down at Samarcand, and 
 that the shadow of the Eussian eagle darkened along the line 
 of the Oxus, while his own two inveterate enemies, Azim Khan 
 and Abdur Bahman, were still at large, and would not im- 
 probably take refuge beyond the Oxus, the Amir fairly gave 
 in. Minor grievances now vanished, and Shir Ali courted 
 our alliance as eagerly as he had before avoided it. 
 
 (a) Lord Mayo, informed of the change of feeling at Cabul, 
 proposed at once to resume the arrangements for a personal 
 interview which had been initiated under Sir J. Lawrence's 
 viceroyalty, judging with much discrimination of the native 
 character that the impressions which Shir Ali would carry 
 back of the wealth, the power, and good intentions of the 
 British Government would tend more to restore his confidence 
 and confirm his loyalty than any amount of complimentary 
 correspondence or any amount even of treasure, tendered as a 
 retaining fee. It was accordingly arranged that a meeting 
 should take place at Amballa at the end of March, 1869, and 
 preparations were .made for the reception of the Amir on a 
 scale of unusual magnificence. Now it must not be supposed 
 that Lord Mayo and Shir Ali Khan met on this famous 
 occasion with identical views. On the contrary, with the 
 exception of a general desire for friendly union, their views 
 were divergent on all points. Lord Mayo on the one side, 
 while he adopted Sir J. Lawrence's later policy to its full 
 extent, and was thus prepared to increase, if necessary, the 
 
 Governments." This last threat re- alliance in the summer of 1867. 
 
 ferred to Persia, to which Government Wyllie's Precis, No. 2, par. 153. 
 accordingly he made overtures for an 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 297 
 
 amount of material assistance by which it was hoped to 
 strengthen the Amir's position and to secure his fidelity, was 
 equally determined to contract no obligations that should 
 impose on India a liability to support the Cabul ruler with an 
 armed force against internal or external foes. Shir Ali, on 
 the other hand, looked to this guarantee of protection as the 
 main object of his visit to India. He dreaded the advance of 
 Russia ; he dreaded the intrigues of Abdur Rahman, and still 
 more the pretensions of his elder son, Yacub Khan, who had 
 already risen into notice, to succeed to the " musnud," which 
 even at that early period he seems to have destined for his 
 younger but favourite boy, Abdullah Jah. For these reasons 
 he was bent upon forming an offensive and defensive alliance 
 with the British Government, whatever might be the condi- 
 tions imposed on him. It is understood indeed — though 
 perhaps the propositions never took any definite form — that 
 he was prepared to admit British Agents freely throughout the 
 country, excepting only in the city of Cabul; and also to 
 fortify and, if necessary, to garrison with British troops the 
 frontier posts, provided only that he were assured against 
 foreign invasion and domestic disorder, and that the succession 
 were guaranteed to that son whom he might nominate as heir- 
 apparent. Entering on the conference with such very different 
 views and expectations, it is not surprising that the nego- 
 ciators encountered difficulties as they proceeded to explain 
 themselves ; nor that the terms which were ultimately agreed 
 on have since been productive of misunderstanding and em- 
 barrassment. Lord Mayo positively refused to be bound by 
 any treaty obligation either to support Shir Ali against his 
 competitors, or to grant him a fixed annual subsidy. What he 
 did concede after a full and frank explanation was a written 
 declaration that the British Government " would view with 
 severe displeasure any attempt on the part of his rivals to 
 disturb his position ; " and inasmuch as Sir John Lawrence 
 had led the Amir to expect that "practical assistance in the 
 shape of money and materials of war " would be periodically 
 furnished to him in the future " at the discretion of the head of 
 the administration in India," Lord Mayo further confirmed 
 
298 ENGLAND AND KTJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 this promise by assuring Shir Ali that " any representation 
 he might make would always be treated with consideration and 
 respect.'' It is believed that, owing to a certain freedom of 
 translation, these expressions of general interest in his welfare 
 were understood by Shir Ali in a more liberal sense than 
 was intended ; that he considered, indeed, the threat of 
 " severe displeasure " to be equivalent to an assurance of armed 
 support against his rivals, while the promised consideration of 
 his future demands amounted in his view to an almost unlimited 
 credit on the Indian Exchequer. At any rate the brilliant recep- 
 tion accorded to Shir Ali at Amballa, coupled with Lord Mayo's 
 strong assurances of support — an earnest of which was at once 
 afforded by the transfer to the Amir of 10,000 stand of arms 
 and two batteries of guns — obliterated for the time all re- 
 membrance of previous disappointment ; so that Shir Ali re- 
 turned to Cabul, not only satisfied but deeply impressed with 
 the interview, and so completely identified with our political 
 interests that he was immediately suspected by Russia and 
 Persia of aggressive designs in support of them. 
 
 When the report of Lord Mayo's proceedings at Amballa 
 reached the authorities in England there was much difference 
 of opinion regarding the character of his policy. The bolder 
 spirits would have preferred that he had taken a more decided 
 line, that he had at once indeed accepted the liability of an 
 armed intervention by giving the Amir a direct guarantee of 
 protection against insurrection as well as invasion, full ad- 
 vantage being taken of the favourable position we should have 
 thus obtained to secure the Afghan frontiers and to establish 
 our influence permanently throughout the country. My own 
 feelings inclined to this policy, but the more cautious statesmen 
 with whom the decision rested were, on the contrary, of 
 opinion that Lord Mayo had already gone too far, the threat 
 of " severe displeasure " launched upon Shir All's domestic 
 rivals committing us to a more active interference in Afghan 
 politics than had ever before been contemplated, or than was 
 consistent in their view with the interests of India. Lord 
 Mayo explained, however, that without risking the, shipwreck 
 of the whole scheme of our Afghan relations he had no alter- 
 
Oh. VI.] LATEK PHASES OF OENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 299 
 
 native but to use the language complained of, and he further 
 pointed, in justification of his policy, to the results which 
 immediately followed on the Amir's return to Cahul, where 
 faction for the time was hushed, and the discontented nobles, 
 who had hitherto held aloof, now eagerly thronged to offer 
 homage to the honoured guest of the Viceroy of Hindustan.* 
 
 (b) On the very day of the Amballa Conference, Lord 
 Clarendon commenced that remarkable correspondence with 
 St. Petersburg on Central Asian affairs which has been recently 
 submitted to Parliament, and which certainly forms an im- 
 
 * The following extract from a 
 private letter of Lord Mayo's to my- 
 self fully explains his views and 
 justifies his policy : — 
 
 ' ' I was much disappointed to find 
 that some exception had been taken 
 to our use of the words ' ' severe dis- 
 pleasure " in our letter to the Amir. 
 I fear that the difficulty of the situa- 
 tion at Amballa has not been appre- 
 ciated. The Amir had sought the 
 interview. To have refused it would 
 have been insanity. Foreign agents 
 would have been by this time power- 
 ful at Cabul. ■ Shir All made many 
 requests and suggestions, to not one 
 of which would I accede. It was of 
 the last importance then to put some- 
 thing in writing which would by 
 being useful to him give some tan- 
 gible shape to our repeated professions 
 of friendship and good will. With 
 this view he suggested two phrases, 
 both of which I rejected. The words 
 used express the simple truth. We 
 are sincerely desirous that he should 
 maintain his position. We would use 
 any influence we possess to prevent 
 his rivals from attacking him again. 
 It was repeatedly explained to him 
 that we should never send a British 
 soldier to assist him against his rebel- 
 lious subjects. Understanding the 
 words fully in their real sense, he pro- 
 fessed himself perfectly satisfied, and 
 he went away contented. The effect 
 
 has been, as far as we can see, good. 
 Had I taken the other course, and 
 sent him back without a single word 
 that could have been of the least use 
 to him, we should have lost the only 
 opportunity that perhaps will offer 
 for a long time of gaining the friend- 
 ship of Afghanistan. Our twelve 
 lakhs would have been thrown into 
 the fire, and a fair field opened for 
 foreign intrigue and annoyance. . . 
 . . . After full deliberation, much 
 thought, and with the unanimous 
 approbation of my Council, I used the 
 only words that were suitable to the 
 occasion ; and as far as we have seen, 
 the course of events has amply justi- 
 fied what was done. I agree with 
 you that there may still be some diffi- 
 culty about money ; and though his 
 Minister in his interview with the 
 Foreign Secretary threw out many 
 strong hints that a further grant 
 would be very acceptable, he was 
 plainly told that nothing of the kind 
 would be listened to. I am sorry 
 that when the twelve lakhs were given 
 he was not told that it was a donation, 
 not a subscription, but I think he is 
 pretty well aware of that now. It is, 
 however, possible that such a state of 
 circumstances may arise that will 
 necessitate some more help, but this 
 is all for future consideration. " June 
 10, 1869. 
 
300 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VL 
 
 portant chapter in the political history of the East. 
 The increasing disquietude of the Native States along the 
 north-west frontier of India, which was caused by the per- 
 sistent approaches of Russia, had for some years past given 
 rise to discussions both in London and Calcutta as to the 
 advisability of our coming to an understanding with the 
 Emperor's Government, with a view to fixing some territorial 
 limits which neither party should overstep. A general view 
 of the question will be found in a previous chapter of this 
 volume, written in 1865, the result which is there arrived at 
 being that no arrangement involving mutual responsibility 
 was practicable, nor, if practicable, desirable. This was not, 
 however, the view of Lord Clarendon. He seems to have 
 really thought it for the interest of both Governments "to 
 recognise some territory as neutral between the possessions of 
 England and Russia which should be the limit of those 
 possessions, and should be scrupulously respected by both 
 powers ; " and he made a proposition accordingly to the 
 Russian Minister in London.* But the Russian authorities, 
 before replying, required to be informed as to the political 
 geography of the countries beyond their frontier, and to this 
 end obtained from Sir Roderick Murchison, President of the 
 Royal Geographical Society, a map which had been recently 
 compiled by Mr. Weller, a cartographer of some note, and 
 which, being coloured according to ethnic rather than political 
 divisions, gave rise to much embarrassment in the sequel. + 
 In Weller's map, indeed, Afghanistan proper was bounded 
 to the north by the line of the Indian Caucasus, while the 
 whole of Afghan- Turkistan between the mountains and the 
 Oxus, and extending east and west from Badakhshan to 
 Mymeneh, was coloured yellow, as if it constituted an inde- 
 pendent territory. The first proposal accordingly of Russia, 
 in answer to Lord Clarendon's suggestion, was that Afghan- 
 istan, limited as to its northern frontier by the Indian Cau- 
 casus in accordance with the coloured map, should be the 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, Central nistan and Beloochistan, published by 
 Asia, No. 2 (1873), page 1. Philips and Son, 32, Fleet Street, 
 
 f " Weller's Map of Persia, Afgha- 1868." 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 301 
 
 neutral zone within which neither Government should exercise 
 any intervention or interference opposed to the independence 
 of that State ; the effect of such an arrangement being that 
 Russia from her Samarcand base might absorb not only 
 Bokhara and its dependent States of Hissar, Kulab, and 
 Darwaz, north of the Oxus, but all Afghau-Turkistau also 
 south of the river to within one hundred miles of Her£t, with- 
 out England being permitted to address to her a word of 
 remonstrance ; while on our side we could not punish a raid 
 of the Waziris or Momands, or even address expostulations to 
 Cabul without a quasi-violation of our engagements. Lord 
 Clarendon, who was probably not alive to the full extravagance 
 of this proposal, consulted the India Office as to its accept- 
 ance, and was at once advised that it was utterly unsuitable ;* 
 and although Russia afterwards modified her terms in so far 
 as to offer to include the yellow territory of the map — that is, 
 all Afghan-Turkistan between the Oxus and the mountains — 
 within the neutral zone, the notion of concluding an arrange- 
 ment on any such basis was never again seriously entertained. 
 Lord Mayo's Government, indeed, had regarded the pro- 
 posals for a neutral zone almost as an attack on their 
 independent action. "' It is," they said, " in our opinion 
 
 * Lord Mayo's views on the " Neu- Afghanistan, and the territories of 
 tral Zone " question are well stated the Kushbegi — that is to say, to re- 
 in the following extract from the pri- recognise and secure their independ- 
 vate letter, of June 10, 1869, which ence, but to continue to exercise over 
 has been already quoted : — them friendly influence with an nn- 
 
 ' ' I may say that though we dis- questioned power of punishing them 
 
 cussed the question of a neutral zone or their subjects if they misbehaved 
 
 very fully in Council, there was not a if Russia would consent to this and 
 
 shadow of a difference of opinion in agree to a joint solemn public declara- 
 
 respect to it. Indeed the feeling tion with us to that effect, binding on 
 
 amongst us was very strong as to the the honour and the good faith of the 
 
 danger that would arise if any foreign two Governments, I am inclined to 
 
 power could remonstrate against any believe that the 'Central Asia ques- 
 
 action taken by us with regard to our tion' would cease to exist for your 
 
 frontier States or tribes. . . . time and mine. If the present Govern - 
 
 If Russia would only consent to place ment could effect this, it would confer 
 
 herself in the same position as regards on them immense honour, and would 
 
 Khiva, the unconquered part of Bo- create a sense of security both in 
 
 khara, and the independent tribes along England and India that would give to 
 
 her frontier (if she-has a frontier), as us at once an incalculable addition to 
 
 we are willing to do as regards Kelat, our strength." 
 
i^t/ kw-&> %sy- 
 
 302 ENGLAND AND BUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VL 
 
 essential to our strength and power in this country that we 
 should be responsible to no foreign potentate for any of our 
 dealings with the peoples who inhabit our frontiers." If 
 Russia, they suggested, was really anxious to postpone in- 
 definitely her contact with India, the simple course would be 
 to establish a margin of independent States along her southern 
 border, conterminous with a similar margin of independent States 
 along our northern border. In India they were fully prepared 
 to give a definite form to this policy by supporting the inde- 
 pendence of Kelat, Afghanistan, and Yarkend, and they wished 
 that Russia should be invited to adopt the same action in 
 regard to Khiva, Bokhara, and Kokand.* Lord Mayo's Govern- 
 ment was undoubtedly quite sincere in suggesting this 
 thoroughly unselfish policy, but the project was nevertheless 
 hardly practical. To have proposed, indeed, to Russia that 
 she should strengthen and subsidise the Uzbeg Khanates in 
 the same manner as we were strengthening and subsidising 
 Afghanistan, would have seemed like\i irony ; for her aim was 
 notoriously to weaken rather than to strengthen, with a view 
 to eventual absorption ; and she had never, moreover, appeared 
 to understand that the States to the north and to the south of 
 the Oxus were at all in the same condition of relationship to 
 their European neighbours. 
 
 * The passages of the despatch in nations, and would be better suited 
 
 which these views are expressed, and to the position in which civilised 
 
 which was sent to me by Lord Mayo powers must ever stand with regard 
 
 at the time, are quite worthy of being to wild and savage tribes than specific 
 
 quoted. They are as follows : — treaty engagements could ever be." 
 
 " We believe that, as it is for the " Let Russia and England declare 
 interests of both countries that a wide to the world that they have a common 
 border of independent States should mission in Asia, namely, the establish- 
 exist between the British frontier and ment of good government and the 
 the Russian boundary, it would be civilisation of the mighty nations corn- 
 desirable that Russia should be in- mitted to their care, and that as a 
 vited to adopt the policy with regard pledge of good faith it was desirable 
 to Khiva and other kindred States that a line of independent States 
 (Bokhara and Kokand) that we are should exist between their respective 
 willing to pledge ourselves to adopt frontiers. Were this effected, we be- 
 towards Kelat, Afghanistan, and the Heve that public opinion, which is 
 districts around Yarkend." daily growing more and more powerful 
 
 "A pledge of mutual non-interfer- in every part of the world, would be 
 
 ence of this kind, unratified by treaty, amply satisfied. " * June 3, 1870. 
 would be alike honourable to both 
 
o 
 
 Oh. VI.] LATEK PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 303 
 
 There was in reality a very remarkable similarity between 
 the Eussian and English positions in Central Asia, both 
 politically and geographically. The frontier capital of Tash- 
 kend, for instance, on the Eussian side answered precisely to 
 Lahore on the Indian side, their extreme mili tary post of 
 Samarcand, also, beyond the Jaxartes, corresponding with 
 our military post of Peshawer beyond the Indus: Again the 
 independent capitals of Bokhara^ on the one side and of 
 Cabul on the other were about equidistant from these ad- 
 vanced military posts, while in the region beyond, as Bokhara^ 
 ruled the outlying states of Hissar, Kulab, and Darwaz, so 
 Cabul held sway over Balkh, Kunduz, and Badakhshan, 
 the Oxus being the ultimate and common boundary. But 
 this parallelism of position had been systematically ignored 
 by Eussia in all her negociations, whether referring to a 
 neutral zone or to a fixed Afghan frontier. She had assumed 
 — and we had rarely challenged the assumption — to exer- 
 cise an exclusive control over all the territory to the north 
 of the Oxus, in virtue of her quasi-protectorate of Bokhara^ 
 and Kokand; and she had claimed accordingly to restric't- 
 international discussion to the districts south of the river. 
 It would be well perhaps, if any future question should 
 arise regarding frontier relations, to restore the true political 
 status, and to show that we have as much right to interfere 
 with the affairs of Bokhara and Kokand as Eussia has to interfere 
 with those of Cabul and Herat. It is, indeed, neither consistent 
 with our dignity nor our interests to admit that we are indebted 
 to the forbearance of Eussia for the exemption of Afghanistan 
 from political intrigue, unless she also admits that she is 
 indebted to our forbearance for the continued tranquillity of 
 Bokhara and Kokand. No one will question the truth of the 
 remark that has been already quoted from Gregorief, that "it 
 would be derogatory to the dignity of two great nations like 
 England and Eussia " to engage in a contest of petty intrigue, 
 or to strive at mutual injury " by exciting and fostering revolt " 
 among each others' subjects,* but it must always be remembered 
 that Eussia is far more vulnerable than England in this respect, 
 * See ante, page 271. 
 
304 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. "VI. 
 
 and that we could instigate a great anti-Russian Mahomedan 
 movement north of the Oxus with much greater facility than she 
 could stir up the Sikhs and Hindus beyond the Indus. For the 
 sake however of civilisation, in the interests of human progress, 
 of peaceful commerce, and of religion, it is to be hoped that we 
 may never be forced into such an unnatural path of retaliation. 
 2. When the notion had been finally rejected of a neutral zone 
 — that is, of an agglomeration of independent States, intermediate 
 between the Russian and British possessions, and within the 
 limits of which both powers should be prohibited by treaty 
 from interfering — Lord Mayo's Government, still earnestly 
 desiring to substitute certainty for uncertainty along the north- 
 western frontier of India, adopted as the basis of further negocia- 
 tion the assurance which Russia had spontaneously and almost 
 ostentatiously offered, that "Afghanistan was completely outside 
 the sphere within which she might be called upon to exercise 
 her influence." There can be little doubt that when this de- 
 claration was originally made, it was not intended to apply to 
 the whole country subsequently recognised as Afghanistan. 
 Misled by Weller's map, and relying on marked ethnical dis- 
 tinctions, Grortchakoff seems to have thought, in the first 
 instance, that the Amir of Cabul could not establish a right to 
 any portion of the territory between the mountains and the 
 Oxus, inhabited by Uzbegs or by tribes of Persian descent. 
 He would willingly have seen Balkh, Kunduz, and Badakhshan 
 annexed to Bokhara, or, if possible, formed into independent 
 States ; and indeed Russian prejudice was so strong against 
 the so-called territorial extension which the surrender of Afghan - 
 Turkistah would secure for the Afghan power, that it was not 
 until after three years of negociation, supported by unusually 
 strong language on the part of our Foreign Office, and aided at 
 last by the desire of Russia to secure our acquiescence in her 
 Khivan expedition, that the line of the Oxus which we had 
 from the outset asserted to be the true Afghan frontier to the 
 north, was formally and irrevocably accepted. It must be clearly 
 understood that in this determination of the course of the Oxus 
 for the northern boundary of Afghanistan, there was no thought 
 on our part of initiating a new territorial distribution or of in- 
 
Ch. VI.] LATEK PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 305 
 
 troducing any modification of existing obligations. It is true 
 that the line of the Oxus had been from remote antiquity a 
 great national and political boundary. It had separated Iran 
 and Turan, the two ethnic divisions of the early East. It 
 had limited the great Mohamedan satrapy of Mawer-en- 
 nahr. It had bounded the conquests of Ahmed Shah on 
 the first institution of an Afghan monarchy; but these 
 were not the considerations that impelled the Government of 
 Lord Mayo to insist on the recognition of the Oxus as the 
 Afghan boundary of the present day. The Calcutta authori- 
 ties were not concerned to revive an old tradition, nor had they 
 undertaken a new delimitation. All they looked to was the 
 simple verification of an historical fact. The one point, 
 indeed, to which their inquiries had been directed was the true 
 definition of Shir Ah Khan's patrimonial estate ; the identifica- 
 tion, that is, of the various principalities and states which had 
 paid allegiance to Dost Mahomed Khan at the time of his 
 death in 1863, and which his son might thus claim to inherit 
 as his father's full and only representative. Now it is not to 
 be denied but that there were difficulties in ascertaining the 
 exact line of frontier which Shir Ali might thus claim. "When 
 the course of the Oxus was first propounded as the limit of 
 Russian interference, Gortchakoff pointed out that, as Khiva was 
 on the left side of the river, such a limitation would protect her 
 from punishment, however much it might be merited, and might 
 thus be exceedingly inconvenient to Russia ; while it would also 
 interfere with the well-established claims of Bokhara' to the dis- 
 tricts of Charjui and Kirki, which were both on the Southern 
 or Afghan bank of the Oxus. These difficulties it is true were 
 removed by the admission of Shir Ali Khan — and it was only 
 as the interpreter of his wishes and the guardian of his 
 interests that we engaged in a diplomatic contest at all, — that 
 the Afghan dominion had never extended farther down the 
 river than the passage of Khoja Saleh on the high road from 
 BokMrd, to Balkh, so that Kirki and Charjui and the entire 
 oasis of Khiva, which were considerably to the north of that 
 point, were excluded from the argument. But an irregularity 
 of more importance was afterwards noticed, and one which, 
 
306 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. YL 
 
 had the objections to it been pressed, might have shipwrecked 
 the entire negociation. The petty states of Mymeneh and 
 Andkhoi, the most westernly of the dependencies that were 
 claimed by Cabul, had always been of a very fluctuating alle- 
 giance. Of the former chiefship, indeed, Vambe'ry had stated 
 that " Mymeneh alone, at the death of Dost Mohamed Khan, 
 of all the neighbouring States had refused to do homage to 
 the flag of the Afghans," and certainly when the Hungarian 
 traveller passed through that region in 1864, he found the 
 Uzbeg chief in direct dependence on Bokhara. If, therefore, 
 Bussia had objected to include in Afghanistan this outlying 
 district, the geographical position of which — commanding as it 
 does the only access to Herat from Bokhara — renders it of 
 much political importance, we should have found it impossible 
 to substantiate Shir Ali's hereditary claim to it, and must 
 have rested his title upon other grounds ; but fortunately 
 although objection was taken pro forma, the point was not 
 seriously contested, as it was notorious that the present ruler of 
 Mymeneh, who was a staunch personal adherent of Shir Ali's 
 and had followed him through all his fortunes, would not be 
 reannexed to Bokhara 1 except under compulsion, for which 
 the means were wanting on the spot, and which moreover, if 
 attempted, would probably have brought on a general collision 
 between the Afghans and Uzbegs. Accordingly after a very 
 brief discussion it was agreed that a line should be drawn from 
 the passage of Khoja Saleh towards the Persian frontier, so as 
 to include Andkhoi and Mymeneh in the Afghan territory,* but 
 
 * The Government of India stated CaMl in this quarter were defined as 
 
 originally, in reference to this frontier follows : — 
 
 line, that "the north-western boun- "(2). Afghan Turkestan, comprising 
 
 dary, of what, in our opinion, ought the districts of Kunduz, Khulm and 
 
 to be considered Shir All's dominions, Balkh, the northern boundary of 
 
 runs in a south-westerly direction which would be the line of the Oxus 
 
 from a point on the Oxus, between from the junction of the Kokcha river 
 
 Khoja Saleh and Kirki, skirting and to the post of Khoja Saleh inclusive, 
 
 including the provinces of Balkh, on the high road from Bokhara to 
 
 Mymeneh with its dependencies of Balkh. Nothing to be claimed by the 
 
 Andkhoi, &c, and Herat with its de- Afghan Amir on the left bank of the 
 
 pendencies between the Murghub and Oxus below Khoja Saleh. 
 the Heri-rud." Ultimately the terri- "(3) The internal districts of 
 
 tories and boundaries of the Amir of Akoheh, Siripul, Mymeneh, Shib- 
 
Ch. YL] LATER PHASES OE CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 307 
 
 the Eussian Government added the significant remark that 
 great care must be observed in the protraction of this line, so 
 as to exclude from Afghan dependency " the old city of Merv 
 and the adjacent Turcoman districts, which were becoming of 
 much commercial importance."* Further to the eastward the 
 course of the Oxus from Khoja Saleh as far as the junction of 
 the Kokcha was admitted on both sides to be an unexception- 
 able frontier, the whole of this portion of Afghan Turkestan 
 having been undoubtedly in the hands of the Afghans at the 
 time of Dost Mohamed's death, and having been administered 
 by them without interruption ever since ; but beyond that point 
 serious obstacles arose which were discussed with more or less 
 activity for three years, and which are not definitively settled 
 at the present day. There was admittedly a weak point in the 
 Afghan tenure of Badakhshan. It was never contended by us 
 
 bergan and Andkhbi, the latter of 
 which would be the extreme Afghan 
 frontier possession to the north-west, 
 the desert beyond belonging to inde- 
 pendent tribes of Turcomans." Par- 
 liam. Papers. Correspondence with 
 Russia respecting Central Asia. 1873. 
 Page 1. 
 
 It may be inferred from this detail 
 that it was intended to exclude Merv 
 from Afghanistan, and to include it in 
 the independent territory of the Turco- 
 mans, though the point of junction of 
 the Persian, Turcoman and Afghan 
 territories is nowhere stated, and 
 owing to this want of precision, Stan- 
 ford in his last map of Central Asia 
 CArrowsmith's, 1872) has drawn the 
 line of political frontier as high as 38°, 
 considerably to the north of Merv, 
 which he thus leaves "debateable" 
 between Persia and Afghanistan. In 
 the map prefixed to this volume, 
 which is Arrowsmith's map amended, 
 and without Stanford's colouring, the 
 point of junction of the three terri- 
 tories is placed a degree more to the 
 south, Merv being thus assigned to 
 the independent Turcoman Steppe, 
 
 while Serakhs, which is held by a 
 Persian garrison, is included within 
 the limits of Khorassan ;' and al- 
 though perfect accuracy cannot be 
 expected in the delineation of a 
 frontier which has never been scienti- 
 fically surveyed, such may be con- 
 sidered the normal political distribu- 
 tion at the present day. 
 
 * See Parliamentary Papers. Cen- 
 tral Asia, No. 2. (1873) p. 51. This 
 was the first indication that Russia 
 took any particular interest in Merv, 
 the letter being dated September, 
 1870. Later, in September, 1871, we 
 were assured that Russia ' ' could have 
 little inducement to occupy Merv," 
 and in all subsequent negotiations the 
 occupation has been alluded to, as a 
 mere possible eventuality, rendered 
 necessary by the continued hostility 
 of the Tekkeh Turcomans. In reply- 
 ing to Lord Granville's last declara- 
 tion that a Russian expedition against 
 Merv might lead to serious difficulties, 
 Prince Gortchakoff evaded the ques- 
 tion, and merely spoke of punishing 
 the Turcomans. Central Asia, No. 2. 
 (1874). Page 11. 
 
 x 2 
 
308 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. "VI. 
 
 that Dost Mahomed had possessed Badakhshan in the same 
 sense that he had possessed Kunduz and Balkh ; it was 
 merely asserted that he had rendered the Mir tributary,* that 
 his " suzerainete" " had been acknowledged by the payment of 
 " nuzzerdna," by the surrender of the ruby and lapis-lazuli 
 mines and by the obligation of military service ; and it was 
 fairly asked if in the present territorial settlement Badakhshan 
 and its dependencies were not assigned to Cabul to what power 
 could they properly be attached? Russia, had throughout 
 ■"bunded her objections to Shir All's claim to Badakhshan on 
 two grounds, — lstly, on the incompleteness of the title, and 
 2ndly, on the danger of local complications, if the Cabul 
 dominion should be extended into the northern bend of the 
 Oxus adjoining Darwaz and eastward into "Wakhan. She 
 pointed out at an early period of the negociations that her 
 ally the Khan of Kokand intended to attack Kulab, conter- 
 minous with Badakhshan; afterwards that Bokhara had 
 undertaken hostilities against the same state — which was so 
 far true that the Bokhar£ troops did actually occupy Kulab, 
 and even crossed the river into Badakhshan territory in 1870 to 
 the dismay of the Afghans, who however soon forced them to 
 withdraw ; — and finally that Bokhfei and Kokand were pre- 
 paring a joint expedition against Kara-tegin in order to form it 
 into a neutral state ; and she insisted with some show of 
 reason that if Shir All were in military occupation of Badakh- 
 shan during these troubles, the Afghans could not fail to be 
 drawn into the fray. But although the arguments and re- 
 monstrances of Russia, commenced during Mr. Forsyth's visit 
 to St. Petersburgh in 1869 and only finally withdrawn in 1873, 
 were in some respects technically and perhaps diplomatically 
 sound, still they were so thoroughly unpractical, leading to no 
 result and admitting of no remedy — since Bokhara repudiated the 
 Badakhshan connexion, and the establishment of the province 
 in isolated independence was of all possible experiments the 
 most hazardous and unwise — that we were constrained to look 
 
 * The terms imposed by Dost given in detail in the Central Asia- 
 Mahomed Khan, on the submission of Parliamentary Papers, No. 2 (1873). 
 the Mir of Badakhshan in 1859, are Page 17. 
 
Oh. VI.] LATER PHASES OP CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 309 
 
 beyond the natural limits of the question at issue in order to 
 account for the Russian persistency. It was difficult to believe, 
 for instance, that Eussia really contemplated as a substantive 
 danger aggression on the part of Shir Ali Khan against her 
 allies of Bokhara and Kokand (as stated in General Kauf- 
 mann's report), if the Afghan claim to Badakhshan were 
 realised. Still less could we admit the risk of a collision with 
 Russia (to which the General also alluded), in consequence of 
 Wakhan, a dependency of Badakhshan, being conterminous with 
 the territories of Yacub Khan of Kashgar.* What we did see 
 was that the high road of trade in all ages between Western 
 and Central Asia had passed through Badakhshan and Wakhan 
 to Yarkand and Kashgar, and that it was therefore not un- 
 reasonable that a great power like Russia, powerfully interested 
 in the extension of her commerce, should look with disfavour on 
 the permanent control of this line being vested in the hands of 
 the Afghans, the allies and instruments of her great commercial 
 rival in the East. There was also another political considera- 
 tion which, although remote and shadowy, might have entered 
 into the calculation of a far-seeing Government like that of 
 Russia ; namely, that as the two best routes conducting re- 
 spectively from Cashmere and the Punjab, by the Gilgit and 
 Chitral valleys, crossed the great range by open passes and 
 descended on Wakhan, it was desirable with a view to future 
 contingencies that that district, easily accessible from Kokand, 
 should be independent of British control or supervision. There 
 are some circumstances, indeed, which have led us to believe 
 that Russia takes a special interest in the district of Sarik-kul 
 or Tashkurghan,t immediately beyond the Wakhan boundary, 
 
 * Kaufmann says in his report of Correspondencewith Russia respecting 
 
 November, 29, 1872. " By the acqui- Central Asia. 1873. Page 9. 
 
 sition of Badakhshan and Wakhan he t Among other significant facts, it 
 
 would prolong his line of contact with may be noted that Alif Beg, the native 
 
 Bokhara, and would find himself side ruler of Sarik-kul, who was expelled 
 
 by side with Karategin, whence from his government by Yacub Bey in 
 
 Kokand is within easy reach. Finally 1868, has been ever since honourably 
 
 his north-eastern boundary would entertained by the Russians at Tash- 
 
 touch the possessions of Yacub Bey. kend, where he forms one of that baud 
 
 Here is a road which would lead him of political refugees, whose services 
 
 straight into collision with Russia." may be of much use in the future. 
 
310 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. "VI. 
 
 and a position of undoubted strategical value as commanding 
 the passes in the neighbourhood, and if this be true it fur- 
 nishes a further clue to explain the serious and sustained efforts 
 made by the Russian diplomatists to obtain the independence 
 of Badakhshan and its tributary districts. 
 
 It may now be convenient to say a few words regarding the 
 territorial settlement as it was ultimately agreed on. Unfor- 
 tunately our notions of the geography of the upper Oxus in 
 1872 were somewhat hazy. We knew little or nothing of the 
 bend of the river to the northward, between the two points 
 explored by Wood — namely the passage at Yengi-Kileh and the 
 Ruby mines, — and our delineation of the upper feeders descend- 
 ing from Pamir was also far from accurate. When her Majesty's 
 Government therefore, after hanging up the question for two 
 years in the vain expectation of receiving General Kaufmann's 
 promised report on the Afghan boundaries, determined to 
 notify to Russia the extent of territory which Shir Ali claimed 
 on the upper Oxus, and to which they were prepared to recog- 
 nise his right, they could only follow native authority in 
 defining the limitary line, and did not thus express themselves 
 with the geographical precision that should have been observed 
 in such a case. There was moreover a clerical error, caused by 
 the omission of a line in the copy of the dispatch defining the 
 limits of Badakhshan which occasioned further obscurity. The 
 passage in question (with the restored line in italics) was as 
 follows : " (1) Badakhshan with its dependent district of 
 Wakhan from Sarik-kul on the east to the junction of the 
 Kokcha river with the Oxus (or Penjah) on the west; the 
 stream of the Oxus thus forming the northern boundary of this 
 Afghan province through its entire extent." Now such a 
 description, although sufficiently precise in claiming by name 
 the two districts of Badakhshan and Wakhan, was in so far 
 defective that it did not define which among the several feeders 
 of the Oxus was to be considered the main stream of the river. 
 In the criticisms to which the arrangement was subjected, both 
 in the press and in Parliament, it was generally assumed that 
 Wood's river, or the stream issuing from Lake Victoria, was 
 the line indicated ; and the English negociators were accord- 
 
Ch. VI.] LATEB PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 311 
 
 ingly blamed for thus abandoning to Eussia the section of the 
 district of Wakhan to the north of this feeder ; but in reality 
 the main stream of the Oxus now appears from Colonel 
 Gordon's inquiries to be the river which rises in the little 
 Pamir Lake, running in the first instance to the east till it 
 joins the Aktash, then turning to the north-west and circling 
 round the elevated plateau of the " Great Pamir," where it is 
 joined by an effluent from the Kara-kul Lake, and from whence, 
 under the name of the Murgh&bi, it flows down the great Shig- 
 nan valley, and unites with the southern branch of the Oxus at 
 Wamir on the confines of Roshan. This river is well known 
 at the present day to form the northern boundary of Wakhan, 
 and from its size as well as its length has every right to be 
 regarded as the main stream of the Oxus ; so that it is to be 
 hoped that in all future maps it will be adopted as the definite 
 frontier of Afghanistan.* Politically considered, it is of course 
 immaterial whether the Afghan territory be limited by one 
 Oxus feeder or the other — the intervening Pamir Steppe to the 
 northward being an equally effective barrier in either case ; — 
 but it might give rise to local inconvenience if Badakhshan 
 were curtailed of its acknowledged dependencies of Sh&kh- 
 dereh, Gharan, and Shignan, which lie between the two 
 feeders ; and, indeed, as Russia has conceded the main ques- 
 tion of the Afghan right to Badakhshan and Wakhan she 
 is of course bound to accept the established frontiers of these 
 districts as the line of demarcation which limits her own 
 dependencies of Kokand and Bokhara^ to the South. 
 
 A few observations are now required on the moot question of 
 responsibility which arose out of this frontier settlement. When 
 Prince Gortchakoff finally admitted the claim of Shir Ali to 
 Badakhshan and Wakhan, — terming the admission " an act of 
 courtesy " rather than the recognition of a right — he coupled 
 the surrender with an implied obligation on the part of England 
 "to maintain Shir Ali's peaceful attitude, and to restrain him 
 from all measures of aggression or further conquest;" and as 
 
 * The Wakhan frontier as amended the surveys of Colonel Gordon's 
 is laid down approximately in the officers have not yet reached this 
 map prefixed to this volume, though country. 
 
312 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VT 
 
 an obligation of this nature, if it really existed, committed us 
 in case of necessity, to an armed intervention for the preserva- 
 tion of peace, it not unnaturally alarmed timid politicians in 
 England, who were not well acquainted with the localities, and 
 was made the subject of interpellations in Parliament. The 
 matter being thus forced upon the notice of the Government, 
 Mr. Gladstone was obliged formally to repudiate the responsi- 
 bility which Eussia had sought to impose on us,* explaining 
 that we had never proposed to employ anything more than 
 moral influence in keeping the peace between Shir All and his 
 neighbours ; and although this explanation was not well re- 
 ceived by the Eussian official press, there is no doubt but that 
 it was fully justified by the correspondence that had passed upon 
 the subject. But in real truth it may be questioned if Eussia 
 ever seriously meant to hold us responsible for Shir All's good 
 behaviour. It is more probable that in reminding us of our 
 " indisputable influence," and of the good effects that might be 
 expected from it, she was merely giving expression to a diplo- 
 matic platitude, intended to soothe her own ruffled feelings and 
 to cover her retreat from an untenable position. At any 
 rate the controversy which arose as to whether we were, or 
 were not, responsible was essentially unreal, for there never 
 ha"d been, and never could be, any prospect of aggression on the 
 part of Shir Ali against the allies of Eussia on the Badakhshan 
 
 * Mr. Gladstone closed his remark- upon him, in ease of need, in the 
 able speech of April 23, 1873, with the strongest manner our friendly advice, 
 following condensed statement of the ' and to govern our relations with him 
 points at issue. ' ' The engagement in accordance with the action he may 
 referred solely to the moral influence take, in the same way as the Russian 
 possessed by England and Eussia in Government have engaged to act with 
 the East, Eussia engaging to abstain regard to Bokhara?' June 30, 1873. 
 from any attempt to exercise it in In Eussia, the Gazette observed some- 
 Afghanistan, and England engaging what testily, that " Mr. Gladstone's 
 to exercise it for a pacific purpose. " exposition shows that if England has 
 The Government of India in consider- preserved her freedom of action, 
 ing the same subject, observed, Eussia has preserved her own, and 
 '" We have never desired to interfere that consequently the two Govern- 
 with the independence of Afghanistan, ments have in reality not pledged 
 and therefore, we can undertake no themselves to any inconvenient obli- 
 f urther responsibility with regard to gations which might have the effect of 
 the action of the Amfr, than to press placing them in false relations." 
 
Ch. VI.] LATEE PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 313 
 
 and Wakhan frontier, and there was nothing therefore to he 
 responsible for. The Afghan ruler, indeed, had neither the 
 means nor the wish to interfere directly in this remote corner 
 of his dominions. It taxed his resources to the utmost to 
 maintain his hold on Central Badakhsh&n by keeping up a 
 small Afghan contingent at Fyzabad. For what possible 
 reason then should he desire to invade the barren rocks and 
 inhospitable wastes of Kul&b and Darwaz ? If there was any 
 danger of aggression it came entirely from the other side. As 
 the dispossessed chief of Badakhshan, Jehandar Shah, was ever 
 oscillating like an uneasy spirit between Chitral, Shignan, and 
 Kulab, seeking "per fas et per nefas" to embroil the- frontier 
 authorities in the vain hope of recovering his power, there cer- 
 tainly was a risk of Uzbeg forces crossing over from the right 
 to the left bank of the Oxus, — as indeed actually occurred in 
 1870 ; — but that Afghan or Badakhshan soldiers should cross 
 in an opposite direction for hostile purposes was to the last 
 degree improbable. An interval, indeed, of two years has now 
 elapsed since the terms of the Oxus frontier settlement were 
 promulgated in the country, and nothing has occurred to give 
 the least colour to Russia's pretended mistrust of Shir Ali's 
 moderation. His frontier has been menaced by Abd-ur-Rahman 
 and by Ishak Khan, the refugee sons of his brothers Afzal and 
 Azim; and Jehandar Shall, on more occasions than one, has 
 excited troubles in the Eastern districts, but there has been no 
 symptom of retaliation. Shir All's original instructions to his 
 officers were to defend his frontier from Mymeneh to Badakh- 
 shan, and to that defensive policy he adheres, confirmed in 
 his pacific attitude by our friendly counsels, and having no 
 possible inducement to overstep the boundaries allotted to his 
 kingdom. 
 
 3. The history of the Khivan expedition affords an apt illus- 
 tration of the normal course of Russian progress in the East. 
 Up to the year 1869 there was no special grievance against 
 Khiva. The Khan did not, it is true, encourage trade nor 
 cultivate very close relations with Russia ; but, on the other 
 hand, he had carefully held aloof, whilst Kokand and Bokhara^ 
 had been successively humbled and dismembered, and, indeed, 
 
314 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 had studiously avoided giving cause of offence to his powerful 
 neighbour. When the first Eussian detachment, accordingly, 
 crossed the Caspian from Petrofsk to Krasnovodsk, in Nov. 
 1869, and established itself at the latter place, there was 
 no question of punishing Khiva for past transgressions. The 
 object of the expedition was stated " to be entirely com- 
 mercial, as it would open a shorter caravan route to Central 
 Asia, and also give increased security to trade by restraining 
 the predatory practices of the Turcomans ;" * and this expla- 
 nation was repeated whenever questions were asked, either by 
 Persia, who not unnaturally took alarm at the sudden appear- 
 ance of a Russian force within an easy distance of the 
 Khorassan frontier, or by England, who in a new base of 
 operations on the east shore of the Caspian foresaw danger to 
 Khiva immediately and to India more remotely. 
 
 Russian explanations are not always to be relied on, but 
 there seems no reason to doubt that it really was, as stated, a 
 paramount object with the Russian government at this time to 
 open a road into the interior of Asia ; and we are, perhaps, 
 therefore justified in regarding the occupation of Krasnovodsk 
 as intended to be the first step towards the realization of a 
 policy which had recently been put forward by General 
 Romanofski, and which pointed to the establishment of direct 
 and assured lines of communication between the Caspian and 
 the Aral as indispensible to the prosperity — almost to the reten- 
 tion — of the new province of Turkestan ; the only difference 
 indeed between the two programmes, as set forth by Roman- 
 ofski and the Government, being that in the one the strategical 
 value of such lines in connecting Turkestan with the Caucasus 
 was mainly insisted on, and in the other the commercial value, t 
 
 * See Pari. Pap. Central Asia, No. by Romanofski as essential to the 
 
 2 (1873). Page 11. success of his plan, namely, the eon- 
 
 t A more detailed notice of Roma- struction of a ship canal in the old 
 
 nofski's project, and of the arguments bed of the Oxus to its embouchwre in 
 
 by which it is supported, has been the Caspian, and the laying down a 
 
 given in the preceding chapter, page railway from the Caspian to the Aral, 
 
 273. It will, of course, take many between the 45th and 46th parallels 
 
 years to execute the two great engi- of north latitude, but both of these 
 
 neering workB which were indicated operations are now occupying the 
 
Ch. YL] LATER PHASES OF OENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 315 
 
 But whatever may have been the proximate object of the 
 Russian government in 1869 — whether they were conscious 
 that in sending troops across the Caspian they were initiating 
 the most important movement that had been yet made in a 
 great scheme of Central Asiatic Empire, or whether they merely 
 looked to the extension of trade and the better protection of 
 then* commercial interests, — one thing is certain, that the 
 descent of Russian troops on the Turcoman coast was an 
 arbitrary act of power which, according to the law of nations, 
 admitted of no justification. In an international point of 
 view, indeed, Russia had no more right to appropriate the 
 eastern shores of the Caspian than she had to appropriate 
 Ghilan and Mazenderan. The coast was independent terri- 
 tory, inhabited by tribes who owed no allegiance either to 
 Russia or Persia, and were only partially under the sway of 
 Khiva. These tribes had given Russia no provocation, nor 
 had they solicited her protection. It was simply their mis- 
 fortune to be encamped upon a line of country which was 
 required for other purposes, and from which, accordingly, it 
 was necessary to remove them. 
 
 During the three years which followed the settlement of 
 the Russians at Krasnovodsk, their progress was slow but 
 continuous. A certain portion of the neighbouring Turcoman 
 population was conciliated and subsidized. Dependent military 
 posts were established at convenient distances in the interior, 
 and direct negotiations were opened with the Khan of Khiva, 
 requiring his co-operation in organizing a trade route between 
 the Caspian and his dominions. But the Khan naturally 
 regarded the appearance of the Russians in the Bay of Balkan, 
 and the demands which were subsequently made on him in 
 General Kaufmann's letters, as a menace to his independence ; 
 and it is not surprising therefore if he declined to be drawn 
 into a correspondence, or if he even went so far as to endea- 
 
 serious attention of the Russian Go- as to the feasibility of deflecting the 
 
 vermnent ; and as the late careful river to the westward, though, per- 
 
 survey has shown the delta of the haps, if such a canal were once 
 
 Oxus to be 250 feet above the level opened, it would lead to the gradual 
 
 of the Caspian, there can be no doubt desiccation of the Aral. 
 
316 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI, 
 
 vour to concert measures with his Kirghiz neighbours to the 
 north for their mutual defence. His country had, in fact, been 
 invaded, and he was fully justified in retaliating on the in- 
 vaders, but political logic rarely stoops to considerations of 
 this nature. The Khan's continued silence was construed into 
 an affront, and became in due course a direct ground of 
 offence, and when he was further convicted of intriguing 
 with the Kirghiz, — being implicated, indeed, according to 
 Russian statements, in an attack upon the fort at Mangishlak, 
 in which Colonel Eukin and a portion of the garrison were 
 carried off into captivity — the measure of his sins was full. 
 From henceforward the tone of the Russian government 
 became minatory in the extreme, and we were duly notified 
 that, unless the Khan atoned for his transgressions, en- 
 couraged trade, repressed disorder, and gave security for his 
 future good conduct, he would be attacked and punished. 
 
 In the meantime reconnoissances on a scale of considerable 
 magnitude were pushed into the desert, with the undisguised 
 object of testing the practicability to the march of troops of 
 the various routes conducting to Khiva from the Caspian. 
 A new military post was also established at Chikishlar, on 
 the sea-coast near the mouth of the Atrek, from whence in 
 the autumn of 1872 an expeditionary column issued, which 
 marched along the northern skirts of the Kuren-dagh — the 
 range bounding Khorassan to the north — as far as Beurm, 
 forty miles beyond Kizil-Arvat, and which on several occa- 
 sions was engaged in direct hostilities with the Tekkeh 
 Turcomans. The consequence of these various demonstra- 
 tions was of course to keep the Steppe in a constant state of 
 turmoil and excitement, and to increase those disorders which 
 it was the professed object of the Russian authorities to repress. 
 Several vain attempts were now made by the Khan at nego- 
 tiation, but the time for compromise was passed. An expedi- 
 tion in imposing force had been decided on,— partly, perhaps, 
 to gratify the thirst of military ambition, which was so im- 
 portant an element in the political life of Russia, partly to 
 strengthen the national prestige in Central Asia, — but more 
 especially, to give effect to the great scheme of consolidating 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 317 
 
 Turkestan by dominating Khiva and rendering the valleys of 
 the Oxus and Jaxartes directly accessible from the Caspian. 
 It may be presumed, from the magnitude of the means em- 
 ployed, that the original plan included the incorporation in the 
 Eussian empire of the entire Khanate of Khiva, which, indeed, 
 was a part of Romanofski's programme, but the Emperor was 
 notoriously opposed to any such wholesale annexation, and, 
 moreover, it was necessary to avoid creating' serious differ- 
 ences with England ; so that ultimately a more moderate 
 course was decided on, which was announced to us by Count 
 Schouvaloff during his special mission to England in January, 
 1873. No official manifesto, explaining how the " casus belli " 
 with Khiva had arisen, was ever published, but we were told 
 by Schouvaloff that " the object of the expedition was to punish 
 acts of brigandage, to recover fifty Russian prisoners, and to 
 teach the Khan that such conduct on his part could not be 
 continued with the impunity in which the moderation of 
 Russia had led him to believe"; and in continuation of this 
 important declaration we were further informed, that " not only 
 was it far from the intention of the Emperor to take pos- 
 session of Khiva, but positive orders had been prepared to 
 prevent it, and directions given that the conditions imposed 
 should be such as would not in any way lead to the prolonged 
 occupation of Khiva." * 
 
 When Lord Granville, on the direct authority of the 
 Emperor's most trusted minister, gave this positive assurance 
 to Parliament, great satisfaction was expressed throughout 
 England, but I ventured to point out at the time the extreme 
 difficulty of giving practical effect to his Imperial Majesty's 
 benevolent intentions. To evacuate the country indeed imme- 
 
 * See Parliamentary Papers, Cen- Emperor's instructions to Count 
 
 tral Asia, No. 1, 1873, p. 12. It is Schouvaloff on his mission to England, 
 
 understood that the Foreign Office as weUasthe injunctions to Kauffmann 
 
 at St. Petersburg, was disinclined against annexing any portion of the 
 
 from the commencement to offer any Khiva territory, being thus given iu 
 
 explanation to England on the subject opposition to the views of the Foreign 
 
 of the Khiva expedition, alleging that Office, it was foreseen by the poli- 
 
 it was an affair of Russian frontier ticians of St. Petersburg, at an early 
 
 police with which England had no period, that they would be rendered 
 
 right whatever to interfere. The nugatory. 
 
318 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. YI. 
 
 diately after its occupation, and to retire within the old limits 
 of the Empire, would be. not only to sacrifice all the prestige of 
 success, all the advantages indeed of the advance, but to com- 
 promise very seriously the whole Eussian position in Central 
 Asia ; and I was confident, therefore, whatever might be the 
 Emperor's personal feelings on the question, that such an 
 impotent conclusion could never have entered into the calcula- 
 tions of the astute politicians who planned the enterprise.* 
 The result abundantly confirmed the view which was thus 
 expressed, for when Khiva fell before the united efforts of 
 four converging columns, any single one of which would have 
 amply sufficed for its subjugation, terms were imposed, posi- 
 tions were occupied, and finally territory was permanently ceded 
 to Russia, which reduced the country to a perfect state of 
 vassalage, and thus fully secured access to those strategic lines 
 across the Steppe which were essential to Russia's further pro- 
 gress, and which had been, in fact, the primary object of the ex- 
 pedition, t When the terms of the Khivan treaty were published 
 in England the reaction in public opinion was complete. It 
 was felt that we had been grievously deceived, that public faith 
 had been broken, that an Emperor's word had been weighed in 
 the balance and found wanting ; I but no practical means of 
 
 * See Appendix No. VIII. Extracts possibly evacuate the- Khanate at 
 
 from. " Notes on Khiva," read before once without sacrificing all the ad- 
 
 the Royal Geographical Society of vantages, resulting from the expedi- 
 
 London, March 24, 1873. tion, and without leaving the Khanate 
 
 f The following report of a con- a prey to the Turcomans and to in- 
 
 versation with General Kaufmann in ternal commotions. His Excellency, 
 
 December, 1873, explains how and why therefore, wrote to the Emperor, ex- 
 
 the Emperor's wishes were not com- plaining the circumstances which 
 
 plied with. compelled him to remain there a 
 
 "In reference to the late expe- month, and to act as he had done, and 
 
 dition to Khiva, His Excellency said, the Emperor in reply, approved of his 
 
 that His Imperial Majesty had most conduct, and of the annexation of the 
 
 strictly commanded him to retire from lands along the right bank of the 
 
 the Khanate immediately after the Oxus." 
 
 conquest of the place, and the in- t Count Schouvaloff is said to have 
 
 fliction o£ a penalty on the Khan and been greatly shocked at the publica- 
 
 his people, and under no circum- tion of the Khivan Treaty, and to have 
 
 stances to annex to Ttussia any portion requested the Emperor either to dis- 
 
 of the Khiva territory. The General avow the promises which he had made 
 
 had however found that he could not to Lord Granville in his Majesty's 
 
Ch.YL] LATER PHASES OE CENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 319 
 
 vindicating our offended feelings was open to us. Officially we 
 were told that the necessities of the case had overridden all 
 other considerations. Unofficially we heard that the Emperor, 
 despotic as he was, had been forced to yield to Ministerial 
 influence. It was assumed by the public that we had no sub- 
 stantive interests of any moment at stake warranting our 
 further interference, and when the treaty accordingly was 
 communicated to Lord Granville in January, 1874, he merely 
 replied in cold and measured terms that "her Majesty's 
 Government saw no practical advantage in examining too 
 minutely how far the Khivan arrangements were in strict 
 accordance with the assurances given by Count Schouvaloff as 
 to the intentions with which the expedition was undertaken." 
 
 The political provisions of the treaty, independently of those 
 which virtually abolish the Khan's independence, are well 
 worthy, however, of a brief consideration.* By obtaining the 
 whole of the right bank of the river, from Gugertli downwards, 
 Russia entirely isolates Khiva from Bokhara^ — as in a former 
 instance her possession of Samarcand had dissevered Bokhara 
 from Kokand; and she is further enabled to connect her extreme 
 post on the Oxus by an arbitrary line with the Samarcand 
 frontier to the north of Bokhara so as to include the whole 
 area of the Kizil-kum Steppe in the province of Turkestan. 
 Why she should have given up the left bank of the Talduk, 
 
 name or to repudiate the course pur- Treaty; but as General Kaufmann 
 sued by General Kaufmann in an- was vested with full powers, there was 
 nexing Khivan territory to Russia. diplomatically no necessity for ratifi- 
 The Emperor, however, underpressure cation, and it further so happened, as 
 from the Foreign Office, decided on if to obviate the chance of his ar- 
 adopting a middle course, which con- rangements being interfered with, 
 sisted in publishing in the Official that the text of the treaty was pub- 
 Gazette, under date November 30, 1873, lished in the Turkestan Gazette before 
 an explanation of the circumstances it was seen at St. Petersburg an 
 under which Russia had been com- irregularity which the General after- 
 pelled to retain in her own hands the wards described as an " affaire de 
 territory on the right bank of the river, bureau" for which he was not re- 
 and to establish the military post of sponsible. 
 
 Petro-Alexandrofsk for its protection. * For the text of the Russian 
 
 It is probable that had it been left to treaty with Khiva, see Appendix 
 
 the Emperor's personal discretion, he No. VI. 
 would have disavowed the Khiva 
 
320 ENGLAND AND EDS8IA IN THE EAST. [Oh. YI. 
 
 the most westernly branch of the delta of the Oxus, as far as 
 the sea, instead of running the line direct from Kongrad 
 across the Aibugir morass to the Ust-urt is not apparent, 
 nor is it defined in the treaty how far down in the direction 
 of the Caspian, the old bed of the Oxus (now called the 
 Usboi) is to form the boundary between Eussian and Khivan 
 territory, precision on this point having no doubt been de- 
 signedly avoided in order to obtain an elastic frontier for 
 the Trans-Caspian Military Government, which has been 
 since formed in dependence on Krasnovodsk. But the war 
 indemnity is probably the most important article of the treaty. 
 A fine of 2,200,000 roubles (or about £250,000), to be paid 
 by instalments in eighteen years, would not appear a very heavy 
 penalty in European warfare ; but in a petty principality like 
 Khiva, where the sedentary population is scanty and the no- 
 mades are hardly accessible to taxation, it is impossible that 
 an extraordinary annual levy of about £15,000 can be raised 
 and paid with any regularity, so that there will always be an 
 available ground for renewed interference whenever Eussian 
 interests may seem to require it. Serious difficulties, indeed, 
 have already arisen in regard to the payment of the annual 
 instalment, and the Khan is said to have declared his utter 
 inability to enforce payment from the outlying Turcoman 
 tribes, whose allegiance to him, never very willingly paid, has 
 been further shattered by the abolition of the slave trade in 
 the Khiva market and the consequent suppression of their 
 means of livelihood. 
 
 It is not very easy to forecast the future of Khiva. A 
 Eussian force has been intrenched for the last eight months in 
 the new fort of Petro-Alexandrofsk, on the right bank of the 
 Oxus, within an easy distance (about thirty miles) of the 
 capital. The military position, which in its inception was 
 not only hazardous but almost meaningless, has been recently 
 rendered somewhat more secure by the establishment of a 
 second post at Nukus, half way between the advanced station 
 and the Aral; but even with this support and with the prospect 
 of steamers plying on the river so as to keep up a regular com- 
 munication with the sea, the maintenance of a small isolated 
 
Oh. VI.] LATER PHASES OE CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 321 
 
 garrison in such an exposed situation is neither dignified nor 
 useful. The lines, indeed, across the Kizil-kum waste, connect- 
 ing Petro-Alexandrofsk with the Turkestan base either at Cazala, 
 or Fort Petrofski, or Jizakh, are exposed at present to constant 
 interruption, while caravans are plundered almost within sight 
 of the Cossack patrols ; and although the Khan is believed to 
 be personally loyal, it has been nevertheless found necessary to 
 undertake operations on an extensive scale against his Turco- 
 man subjects, who encamp around the skirts of Khiva, in 
 order to prevent the fortress from being beleaguered. 
 
 It would thus seem to be impossible to maintain affairs on 
 their present footing. Either the position must be strengthened 
 by lateral lines of communication connecting the Oxus with 
 the Caspian on one side* and with the Samarcand frontier on the 
 other, or Petro-Alexandrofsk must be abandoned and Russia 
 must be content for the present to hold Kongrad and Nukus, 
 and to restrict her operations to the navigable delta of the 
 river. Which of these two courses she will be most likely to 
 pursue, will be considered in the next section, which treats of 
 the Turcomans and the various important questions arising 
 from the attempts which are now being made to bring them 
 under Russian control. 
 
 4. In the general question of British and Russian relations 
 in the East, the Turcomans play a much more important part 
 than Khiva. Although indeed the expedition against Khiva 
 had a certain bearing on the general politics of Central Asia, 
 in the support which it rendered to the consolidation of 
 Russian power in Turkestan, it only immediately affected 
 British interests by serving as a stepping-stone to the subju- 
 gation of the Turcomans. This source of danger and the 
 particular direction it would take was detected at a very early 
 period of the Khivan difficulties by the observant and expe- 
 
 * To connect Petro-Alexandrofsk state. The only other available line 
 
 with Krasnovodsk on the Caspian, of communication would pass by Merv 
 
 the line of communication must tra- and the Tekkeh country to Chikish- 
 
 verse the Khivan oasis to the old bed lar, and could not be established until 
 
 of the Oxus, which would hardly be after the complete reduction of the 
 
 compatible with the continued exis- Turcoman tribes, 
 tence of Khiva as an independent 
 
322 
 
 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 rienced officer, Mr. B. Thomson, who was then in charge of 
 her Majesty's Mission at Teheran, and who, in reporting to the 
 Foreign Office the arrival of the first Eussian detachment at 
 Krasnovodsk in November, 1869, and the consequent alarm of 
 the Persian Government, stated as follows :— " This danger 
 would appear to be imminent, for in order to open a road to the 
 Oxus from the Caspian the Eussians would have to construct 
 forts and station troops within the Turcoman country, through 
 which it will pass, and this being done, the Turcoman tribes will 
 all, sooner or later, be brought under the protection and authority 
 of Eussia. The desert across which the Eussians now propose 
 to establish a line of communication with Central Asia is ill 
 adapted for the purpose, the supply -of water being insufficient 
 for caravans traversing the plains, and the heat in summer 
 being excessive. It is possible before long that they will find 
 these difficulties insurmountable ; and they may then seek a 
 more practicable route, which will be found by starting from 
 Hassan-Kooli at the embouchure of the Atrek in the bay of 
 Asterabad near Ashoor-ada, the Eussian naval station in the 
 south-east of the Caspian ; following the course of that river 
 eastward and then skirting along the hills to the north of 
 Boojnoord and Kochan in the direction of Merv, which is not 
 more than four marches from the Oxus and within ten easy 
 stages of Herat. " By that line the road would pass for nearly 
 the whole distance from the Caspian through an inhabited 
 tract of country, where an abundant supply of water exists, 
 together with rich pasturage and a salubrious climate at all 
 seasons."* 
 
 I would only supplement this pregnant passage by suggest- 
 ing that the advantages of the Attack route from the Caspian 
 to Merv could hardly require to be discovered by accident, as 
 Mr. Thomson charitably supposes, but were in all probability 
 thoroughly well known to Eussian strategists long before troops 
 were despatched from Petrofsk, and in fact had great weight in 
 determining the Government, in the first instance, to send 
 forth so serious an expedition. At any rate, whether this 
 suggestion be true or not, from the first moment the troops 
 * Parliamentary papers, Central Asia, No. 2 (1873). Page 20. 
 
On. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 323 
 
 landed at Krasnovodsk there was a manifest tendency to the 
 south east. A military post was at once established at Chik- 
 ishlar, near the site of the old Hassan- Kooli station mentioned 
 by Mr. Thomson, and entirely away from the Khivan line, 
 while reconnaissances were pushed along the skirts of the 
 bills in the direction of Merv with even greater boldness and 
 persistency than along the direct route by the old bed of the 
 Oxus towards Khiva. Without going into any details of 
 Turcoman statistics it may bere be sufficient to state that the 
 total number of Turcoman tents, — for the entire race is nomade, 
 — are about 200,000, which gives, perhaps, a million of souls for 
 the aggregate population. Of this vaste horde the only tribes 
 with which the Eussians have bitherto come in contact are the 
 Ch&durs between the Caspian and Khiva ; the Yomut on the 
 Atrek and south-eastern shore of the Caspian and also on tbe 
 outskirts of the Khivan oasis ; the Goklan between the Atrek 
 and Gurgim, and the western Tekkeh along the skirts of the 
 hills from the Atrek towards Merv.* 
 
 * The following extract from 
 " Notes on Khiva " read at the Geo- 
 graphical Meeting of March 24, 1873, 
 conveys the views I had formed of the 
 Turcomans and their probable future 
 relations with Russia, previously to 
 the Khivan expedition. 
 
 "A few observations must now be 
 made on the Turcomans. These tribes 
 are in their origin of the same family 
 as the Uzbegs, though the two races 
 have been long separated. At present 
 the Turcomans number about 200,000 
 tents, or at five persons to h tent, a, 
 million souls. The chief tribes are 
 the Cbidur, of 12,000 tents, between 
 the Caspian and the Aral ; theErsari, 
 of 50,000 tents, along the Oxus ; the 
 Salor and Saruk, of about 20,000 
 tents, on the Murghab and Tejend; 
 the Tekkehs, along the 'Attock' or 
 skirts of the hills from Merv to the 
 Caspian, numbering 60,000 tents, and 
 the most warlike of all the branches 
 of the race ; and, lastly, the Yomtits 
 
 and Goklans, of about 50,000 tents, 
 who dwell along the Persian border, 
 and on the shores of the Caspian, and 
 for the most part own allegiance to 
 Persia. Now there can be no doubt 
 but that the disposition of the Turco- 
 mans, and especially of the Tekkehs, 
 will be of the utmost importance to 
 Russia, both in the advance on Khiva 
 from Chikishlar, and in arranging 
 future relations with the Khanate. 
 If the Turcomans could be conciliated 
 and utilised like the Kirghiz-Kazaks, 
 they would form a most valuable 
 auxiliary force— indeed I should look 
 on a body of 50,000 Turcoman horse 
 of the Tekkeh, Salor and Saruk 
 tribes, under Russian officers, as the 
 most formidable light cavalry in Asia ; 
 but I see little chance, I confess, of thus 
 converting these hereditary brigands 
 and man-stealers into orderly soldiers. 
 It is far more likely that they will 
 remain for ages the scourge of Eastern 
 Persia, and the inveterate enemy to 
 Y 2 
 
324 ENQLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 Now it must be well understood that these four tribes, as 
 well as the other five divisions camping more to the eastward, 
 although belonging to one Turcoman nationality are entirely 
 independent of each other. They are under different chiefs ; 
 they inhabit different localities, and pursue different avocations 
 of pastoral and agricultural life. It was necessary therefore 
 that Russia, aiming as she did at bringing them all under her 
 sway, should pursue a distinct line of policy with each division. 
 The Chadurs to the north, and the Yomuts to the south, soon 
 became more or less amenable to her influence, but the 
 western Tekkehs proved more intractable. Resisting all con- 
 ciliatory overtures they held themselves aloof, until in 1870 a 
 reconnoitring party from Krasnovodsk attacked and took their 
 most westernly station at Kizil-Arvat on the skirts of the 
 Kuren-d&gh. From this time forward a desultory war was kept 
 up with the Tekkehs, until in 1872 a considerable engagement 
 took place between a portion of the tribe and a Russian column 
 w^ch had been sent under Colonel Markosof from Chikishlar 
 to explore the southern route across the Steppe, the Tekkehs 
 Deing subsequently punished severely for their temerity in 
 opposing the Russian advance by the destruction of a large 
 number of their camps and villages and the plunder of their 
 camels and cattle. It was on this occasion that the Russians 
 first gained a practical knowledge of the line conducting to 
 Merv along the skirts of the southern mountains, where in the 
 space of 265 miles there were found to be fifty-nine Tekkeh 
 settlements and forts, including the towns of Kizil-arvat, 
 Kahriz, and Ashkabad. 
 
 The Tekkehs appear to have been so disheartened by the 
 punishment received from Markosof on this occasion that when 
 in the following, spring the substantive expedition against 
 
 civilisation and commerce. If Russia, which would certainly be resented by 
 
 indeed judged it necessary to keep Persia, if she still retained her inde- 
 
 them under control so as to ensure un- pendence, and which would further 
 
 interrupted communication between involve the Russian Government in 
 
 the Caspian and the Oxus, it would political complications with this 
 
 be neeessary to build a line of forts country which might compromise her 
 
 along the ' Attack, ' and to occupy in whole position in Central Asia." 
 force both Serakhs and Merv, measures 
 
Oh. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 325 
 
 Khiva was set on foot and the same General attempted to lead 
 a co-operating column by the southern route, they hardly took 
 any part in the campaign, leaving it, indeed, to the Atabai 
 Yomuts to oppose and harass Markosof 's detachment, both on 
 its advance to Igdy and during its subsequent retirement, 
 baffled, but not subdued, to Krasnovodsk. Had the Tekkehs, 
 indeed, supported the Atabais and pressed on the Russians in 
 their retreat, — utterly exhausted as the soldiers were by the heat 
 and by want of water, — it is probable that the entire column 
 would have perished in the desert. Nor did the Tekkehs come 
 to the assistance of the Yomuts on their next encounter with 
 the Russians, when after the capture of Khiva — for some unex- 
 plained reason — the camps of that tribe along the south-western 
 border of the oasis were attacked by Kauflmann, and fire and 
 sword were carried through the country ;* but this forbearance 
 on the part of the Tekkehs was not held to atone for their 
 previous offences. They were in fact the special objects of 
 Russian hostility, because apparently they held the line of 
 country of which she most coveted the possession ; and it is thus 
 of interest to observe how, although their camping grounds 
 are far removed from any of the commercial or military lines 
 now followed by the Russians, they have been, nevertheless, 
 held accountable for all excesses committed in the Turcoman 
 Steppe, and their misdeeds have been duly registered to form 
 a bill of indictment, should the Russian right to attack them be 
 ever questioned. For instance, immediately after the Khivan 
 settlement, they were accused of maltreating the emissaries of 
 the Khan, who had been sent down to Akhal and Merv to 
 collect the Tekkeh share of the war indemnity. Again it is 
 
 * This attack on the unfortunate kin, an opportunity of distinguishing 
 
 Yomuts, encamped along the south- itself, or whether, as has often been 
 
 western skirts of the Khivan oasis, is stated on Russian authority, the object 
 
 one of the most unpleasant incidents was to exasperate the tribes, and thus 
 
 of the late campaign. It seems clearly lead them to commit disorders which 
 
 established that the nomades had might justify ulterior measures of 
 
 given no just cause of offence, but subjugation, has never been deter- 
 
 whether the attack was planned in mined. The animadversions of the 
 
 order to give Kauffmann's column, Russian press on Kauffmann's conduct 
 
 which had hitherto been eclipsed by iu this matter, have been severe and 
 
 the Orenburg detachment under Veref- have never been answered. 
 
326 ENGLAND AND EDSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 made a serious ground of offence that they rejected the over- 
 tures of the Eussian authorities in Khiva, who wished to enter 
 into friendly relations with them. In September, 1873, they 
 were stated to have crossed the Oxus and pillaged certain 
 stores which were being conveyed from the abandoned fort of 
 St. George at Irkabai to Petro-Alexandrofsk, the same party 
 after extensive plundering being intercepted by a cavalry force 
 from the Eussian garrison in their attempt to recross the Oxus 
 and being nearly exterminated in the conflict which ensued. 
 During the winter they are further said to have repeated their 
 raids from Merv along both banks of the Oxus and to have 
 carried off a Eussian soldier into captivity — and again in last 
 May they axe reported to have plundered a Eussian caravan 
 passing under Yomut escort from Khiva to Krasnovodsk. 
 
 The unfortunate Tekkehs having thus accumulated on their 
 own heads a responsibility for all the disorders of the inner 
 Steppe since the first occupation of Krasnovodsk, it was 
 generally understood, in the autumn of 1873, that, with the 
 avowed purpose of punishing these so-called incorrigible 
 marauders, a Eussian force was to be marched from the Cas- 
 pian along the " Attock," or " skirts" of the Kuren-dagh, to 
 Akhal and Merv; and the co-operation of Persia, who had 
 many wrongs to avenge on the same ruthless tribes, was 
 believed to have been promised by the Shah when he passed 
 through Teflis on his return to Teheran from his European 
 tour. At any rate the Tekkehs were thoroughly alarmed by 
 these rumours and by the threatening messages received from 
 Col. Ivanoff at Petro-Alexandrofsk, and began to cast about 
 for assistance. They first offered their allegiance to Persia, 
 to escape further persecution by Eussia, and when repelled 
 in this quarter they invoked the protection of Afghanistan. 
 Shir Ali being thus obliged to consider the troubles which 
 menaced the Merv and Herat frontier, sought counsel of the 
 Viceroy of India, and in due course at his suggestion we repre- 
 sented the case to Eussia, pointing out in firm but courteous 
 language that a Eussian expedition against Merv, such as 
 was generally reported to be in preparation, would almost 
 infallibly, lead J to complications on the Herat frontier, and 
 
Oh. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 327 
 
 very possibly to our intervention in support of the integ- 
 rity of the Afghan territory. GortchakofF, in replying to 
 Lord Granville's letter on this subject, took no notice whatever 
 of the eventualities that were thus hinted at, but simply said 
 that " Eussia had no intention of undertaking at present any 
 expedition against the Turcomans," but that "if these tur- 
 bulent tribes were to commit acts of aggression or brigandage 
 against us we should be compelled to punish them." * Now, 
 as it was well known that such a pretext for interference would 
 never be wanting, the mere disclaimer of any present intention 
 to attack the tribes could not be considered reassuring ; and 
 in real truth, having advertence to the whole course of Eussian 
 policy subsequent to the debarcation of the troops at Krasno- 
 vodsk, it could scarcely be doubted but that the subjugation of 
 the Tekkeh Turcomans and subsequent occupation of Akhal 
 and Merv was a mere question of time, which it behoved us to 
 consider and make preparations for meeting, irrespective of 
 useless explanations, and without further hesitation or delay. 
 In anticipation, however, of tbe Emperor's arrival in England 
 during last spring, we were informed that the Turcoman expe- 
 dition was deferred at any rate for the year, in order not to 
 allow a shadow of misunderstanding to dim the lustre of so 
 auspicious a visit, and that announcement, regarded in the 
 light of a respite, was so far satisfactory ; but in the meantime 
 local affairs have been leading up to the denouement with steady 
 and unfailing precision. 
 
 A Trans-Caspian military government was instituted on the 
 10th of May, 1874, under General Lomakin, who established 
 his head-quarters at Krasnovodsk, and has been ever since 
 engaged in sowing dissensions among the Turcoman tribes, 
 and attaching to the Eussian cause all whom he can influence 
 by threats, or promises, or substantial favours. A recent 
 proclamation indeed, addressed by this officer to the 
 Turcomans of the Atrek and Gurgan, calling on them to give 
 in their allegiance to Eussia, has occasioned some umbrage to 
 
 * See the letters from Earl Gran- Baron Brunnow, of January 21, 1874, 
 ville to Lord A. Loftus of January 7, in Parliamentary Papers, Russia, No. 
 1874, and from Prince GortchakofF to 2 (1874). 
 
328 ENGLAND AND KUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. YI. 
 
 Persia as interfering with her territorial rights, which are 
 admitted to extend to the former river, and explanations 
 even have been demanded as to the General's intentions ; * 
 but there seems no reason to doubt that in spite of small in- 
 terruptions of this nature, Lomakin is making good way in 
 the country by his persistent pressure, and that, in fact, at 
 present not only the Yomuts and Goklans generally, — in 
 so far as they can withdraw themselves from Persian super- 
 vision, — but that the western Tekkehs also, reaching to Kahriz, 
 nearly half-way to Merv, are more or less inclined to welcome 
 the Kussian troops and assist them in their onward march. 
 The eastern Tekkehs, however, still hold out in their dogged 
 determination to resist the Russian advance, and have re- 
 cently attacked the villages of their apostate brethren to the 
 west, to mark their hatred of the invaders — extending their 
 raids even, it is said, to the Yomut villages round Khiva, who 
 since Ivanof's last winter's campaign, in which they were 
 severely punished, have paid unfaltering fealty to the Khan 
 and his Russian protectors. 
 
 A further element of confusion has been introduced into the 
 Turcoman question by the pretensions of Persia. There is no 
 doubt but that she has suffered grievously from the raids of 
 the Tekkehs. Ever since Nadir Shah, in the last century, 
 placed a colony of warlike Kurds along the frontier to arrest 
 irruption from the " Attock," there has been a chronic state 
 of warfare in Khorassan, from Merv to Asterab£d. Whole 
 districts have been ravaged and depopulated ; trade has been 
 suspended ; the high road has been rendered impassable to 
 travellers ; while many thousands of unfortunate Persians have 
 been yearly carried off to the slave-markets of Khiva and 
 Bokhara. Even during the present year, while the Tekkehs, 
 
 * The explanation, which was given in testifying to the extreme sensitive- 
 
 in due course, stated that Lomakin's nesa of Russia as to any interference 
 
 proclamation was addressed to the from without in support of Persian 
 
 Turcomans of the Gurgan by mistake, interests, notwithstanding that the 
 
 and that there was no intention of Governments of England and Russia 
 
 calling in question the right of Persia are bound by a sort of mutual under- 
 
 to the territory between the two rivers. standing equally to respect the integ- 
 
 The incident was thus of no political rity of the Shah's dominions, 
 significance, and was only remarkable 
 
Ch. VI.] LATEE PHASES OF OENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 329 
 
 distracted apparently with terror at the imminency of a 
 Russian invasion, have been appealing for succour to Cabul, 
 they have on two occasions burst, 4000 strong, across the 
 border and harried the country to the gates of Meshed. 
 Persia has therefore substantial grievances to redress, and 
 cannot be expected to remain passive while the fate of her 
 implacable enemies is in the balance ; but the danger now is 
 that she may further complicate the position by premature 
 activity. Acting, indeed, as much, perhaps, under the impulse 
 of her old besetting sin of territorial greed, as from a legiti- 
 mate desire to protect her frontiers, she is now inclined to 
 reassert her rights upon Merv and to anticipate the Russian 
 movement by throwing forward an efficient body of her own 
 troops from Serakhs, — as she did in 1857 and 1860, — and estab- 
 lishing herself in strength upon the Murghab. Experience 
 has shown that Persia can thus occupy Merv whenever she 
 finds it necessary to do so, but that the retention of the posi- 
 tion, unless the Turcomans are controlled in other quarters, is 
 difficult and costly. If then she insists on pushing her claims 
 at the present time it will be very unwise both in her own 
 interests and in those " of .>the ■■ neighbouring countries. A 
 failure to make good hejr position ,at Merv would stimulate the 
 warlike ardour of thejj Turcomans and encourage them in 
 those acts of brigandage which would justify foreign inter- 
 ference, while on the other hand the most complete success 
 would only facilitate the Russian advance and thus accelerate 
 the crisis of Russia's contact with the Afghan frontier. The 
 probable issue of the Turcoman difficulty, which is now daily 
 increasing in importance, will be considered further in the 
 summing up on the general question of the Anglo-Russian 
 position in Central Asia. 
 
 5. A survey of our political position in Central Asia would 
 be incomplete without a brief notice of Eastern Turkestan, 
 though the country is hardly of the same importance in regard 
 to India as the regions more to the westward. We were first 
 introduced to an acquaintance with this province of the " six 
 cities," or "seven cities," as it is indifferently named, by the visit 
 of Mr. Johnson, of the Survey Department to Khoten in 1865, 
 
330 ENGLAND AND HUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VL 
 
 followed by the visit of Messrs. Shaw and Hayward as private 
 travellers to Yarkend and Kashgar in 1869. In the interval 
 between these visits Yacub Beg, an adventurer from Kokand, 
 had raised himself to power on the ruins of the old Chinese 
 dominion, which had been in the first instance, shattered by 
 the Tungan rebellion. He had already, before the arrival of 
 the English travellers at Kashgar, been in communication 
 with Eussia, a certain Capt. Eeinthal having been deputed to 
 "him from Tashkend on commercial business, in October 1868, 
 and a return mission under Mirza Shadi having been immediately 
 despatched by Yacub Beg to St. Petersburg. The Eussian 
 government however, at this period, were not prepared to 
 recognize Yaciib Beg as an independent Sovereign ; nor, though 
 they required from, him the same protection and privileges for 
 their trade which they had enjoyed under the Chinese, would 
 they even permit the Foreign Office at St. Petersburg to treat 
 directly with the Kashgar envoy. As late indeed as December 
 1869, when Mr. Forsyth was in Eussia, Prince Gortchakoff 
 still regarded Yacub Beg merely as a " successful insurgent," 
 and maintained that to open friendly diplomatic relations with 
 him, or to send a force across the Thian-Shan range against 
 him, would be equally to break solemn treaty engagements with 
 China; but notwithstanding this assumption of indifference, 
 and notwithstanding that Mr. Forsyth was authorized to assure 
 Yacub Beg that he need be under no apprehension of Eussian 
 hostility,* there can be no doubt that the two parties did in 
 reality regard each other from the commencement with a mutual 
 
 * Prince GortchakofPs language is against the authority of the Chinese 
 
 thus reported by Sir A. Buchanan in Emperor. His Excellency further 
 
 his despatch to Lord Clarendon of said that the Ataligh Ghazi had 
 
 November 2, 1869. nothing to fear from Russia ; but ' as 
 
 "He then said that Mr. Forsyth the Government have no relations 
 
 had also spoken to him of the expe- with him, and the Government of 
 
 diency of establishing friendlyrelations India, appear to have dealings with 
 
 with Kashgaria and the government him, you can assure him on my 
 
 of the Ataligh Ghazi ; but he said, authority, that Russia has no hostile 
 
 though that ruler might have estab- intentions towards him, or any desire 
 
 lished a government 'de facto,' to make conquests in his territories. " 
 
 Russia had treaties with China and Parliamentary Papers, Central Asia, 
 
 would not enter into diplomatic re- No. 2 (1873), p. 11. 
 lations with a Buocessful insurgent ' 
 
Oh. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 331 
 
 and a deep-seated mistrust. Yaciib Beg had witnessed the 
 Russian encroachments in Kokand and Bokhara, and he naturally 
 anticipated a similar fate for Kashgar in due course of time, re- 
 garding, indeed, the commercial ventures which were sent by 
 Russian merchants in spite of all discouragement into the country, 
 and the urgent requisitions addressed to him, to protect and en- 
 courage trade, as mere preliminaries to an active interference ; 
 while Russia, on the other hand, could not but look with 
 jealousy at the establishment of a powerful and indepen- 
 dent state, under a Mahomedan ruler, on her immediate fron- 
 tier, stimulating disaffection among the recently annexed 
 populations on the Jaxartes, and impeding her own extension 
 further to the East. It is probable, therefore, that the fitful 
 anxiety which Yacub Beg has displayed at intervals, ever since 
 Mr. Shaw's first visit to Kashgar in 1869, to cultivate relations 
 with British India, has been in a great measure owing to real 
 apprehensions of Russia, not unmixed, however, with the usual 
 Oriental disposition to play off one power against the other, 
 and further, perhaps, tempered by a natural desire to deprecate 
 the hostility of his powerful Northern neighbour. Our own 
 dealings with him may be described in a few sentences. 
 
 As soon as Mirza Shadi returned in 1869 from St. Peters- 
 burg, where he had been indifferently received, he was des- 
 patched by his master to Calcutta to prosecute those relations 
 which Mr. Shaw had unofficially commenced ; and as it con- 
 sisted with Lord Mayo's policy at this time that India should 
 be surrounded with a " cordon " of strong, friendly and inde- 
 pendent states, the Kashgar overtures, supported by Mr. 
 Shaw's very favourable report of the country, were cordially 
 welcomed, and a public mission was at once organized to 
 accompany Mirza Shadi on his return. This first attempt, 
 however, to open diplomatic relations turned out a failure, not 
 through any fault of Mr. Forsyth's, but because Lord Mayo, 
 from an excess of caution, had absolutely prohibited the envoy 
 from wintering beyond the mountains — a prohibition which, as 
 Yacub Beg was then employed in battling with the Tungans 
 on the eastern frontiers of the province, rendered it impossible 
 for the English party to reach his camp within the prescribed 
 
332 . ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 limits of time, and thus obliged them to return bootless from 
 Yarkend. It is probable that Yacub Beg— or the Ataligh Grhazi, 
 as he was then called — resented this abortive proceeding, which 
 being unexplained, must have appeared as an affront. At any 
 rate, beyond sending an envoy with letters to the Queen and 
 the Viceroy at the end of 1871, he attempted no further com- 
 munication with Calcutta till the summer of 1873, when Syud 
 Yacub Khan, a near relation of the Ataligh's, who had been 
 deputed on a confidential mission to Constantinople, presented 
 himself at Calcutta with formal offers of friendship. 
 
 In the interval, negociations of some importance had passed 
 between the Ataligh and the Eussian Government. The 
 Russians having occupied Kulja in June, 1871, after expelling 
 and crushing the Taranchis, and having subsequently extended 
 their frontier along the crest of the Thian-Shan considerably 
 to the eastward, appeared to menace the towns of Turfan, 
 Urumchi and Manass which the Ataligh at about the same 
 period of time had captured from the Tungans. The con- 
 struction of a .Russian ; fort on the Naryn within an easy 
 distance of Kashgar, seems to have still further discomposed 
 the Ataligh, who accordingly in April 1872, invited Baron 
 Kaulbars from Tashkehd,' to give an opportunity for explana- 
 tion, and in fact, as it turned out, to negociate a formal treaty of 
 peace and friendship. Russia had still some scruples as to 
 acknowledging the Ataligh's independence. In the Official 
 Journal of the period, he was designated as the " de facto chief 
 of thej Seven Cities," and was said to have merely confirmed 
 the Chinese engagements ; but at the same time, in his per- 
 sonal capacity he was considered by signing the treaty, and by 
 his unreserved communications with Baron Kaulbars, to have 
 fairly given in his adhesion to the Russian cause.* The 
 
 * The Russian Official Journal of ditions in all sincerity, and that he 
 
 October 31, 1872, contains a, remark- will be guided by them in all matters 
 
 able notice of Baron Kaulbars' mission, concerning our merchants. He has 
 
 and of the treaty concluded with been able to judge by the example of 
 
 Yacub Beg. The article finishes the Sultan of Kulja, of the conse- 
 
 with the following passage : — quences of obstinacy and bad faith in 
 
 "There is reason to believe that regard to us. The example of his 
 
 Yacfib Beg has accepted these con- neighbour, the Khan of Kokand has 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OF OENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 333 
 
 •treaty, which in so far as it was made public was confined to 
 commercial matters, was ratified in due course;* another 
 Eussian Officer (Stcherbinski) having returned with it to 
 Kashgar in December 1872, and finally an Ambassador was 
 sent to St. Petersburg with an autograph letter to the 
 Emperor in July 1873, and Kashgar was formally recognized 
 by Eussia as an independent state. 
 
 But notwithstanding these outward appearances of cor- 
 diality, it may be doubted if the Ataligh's confidence in 
 Eussian promises or Eussian forbearance, was ever very deep 
 or very lasting. The deputation at any rate of Syud Yacub 
 Khan to Constantinople in 1873 indicated renewed suspicion, 
 and the result of that mission was certainly unfavourable for a 
 time to the further development of Eussian influence at 
 Kashgar. In the Turkish capital, the envoy found the anta- 
 gonism of Eussia to the interests of Islam to be a standard 
 article of faith, while her boundless ambition was the theme of 
 universal comment, and was deplored by all true believers. 
 The reactionary party, who were straining every nerve to sus- 
 tain the interests of Mahomedanism, hailed with eagerness the 
 prospect of a " revival " in the far East. The Ataligh, through 
 their influence, was granted by the Sultan the title of Amir-el- 
 Mumenein (or " commander of the faithful ") formerly held by 
 the Caliphs of Baghdad, and it was agreed that the Kashgar 
 money should in future bear the Sultan's superscription, as 
 the head of the Mahomedan world. Personally also, the 
 envoy was treated with every mark of consideration, and 
 presents of rifled guns and improved arms were sent for his 
 master, not so much for military use, as to gratify and attach 
 this new champion of Islam. It was only natural that General 
 Ignatief, who has a large personal experience of Central Asia, 
 and has always denounced the danger of Mahomedan propa- 
 gandise!, should endeavour to check this growing intimacy 
 
 on the other hand, served, as he him- but that, on the contrary, all the small 
 
 self said in his letter to General Kauff- states enjoy security by the grace of 
 
 mann, to show that whoever has come potent Russia." 
 
 to terms of peace with Eussia, and has * The text of the treaty is given in 
 
 secured her friendship, has suffered Appendix No. IX. 
 
 neither from prejudice nor oppression, 
 
334 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. VI. 
 
 between the West and East, by the ordinary arts of diplomacy. 
 Attempts were probably made by him to tamper with the 
 Syud's fidelity to his master, and to instill into his mind 
 suspicions of the sincerity of his English allies, but it is 
 not believed that any such efforts were successful. The 
 Syud returned from Constantinople with his guns and arms 
 in the autumn of 1873, just in time to join Mr. Forsyth who 
 had been a second time appointed Envoy to Kashgar, and who 
 was then in full march for Yarkend. They travelled together 
 to the court of the Amir, and by their joint efforts a treaty was 
 negociated on February 2, 1874, the object of which was stated 
 in the preamble to be " to confirm and strengthen the good 
 understanding which exists " (between England and Kashgar), 
 and "to promote commercial intercourse between their re- 
 spective subjects."* 
 
 It will be observed that commercial interests have been 
 put in the first rank both by Russia and England in all 
 negociations with Kashgar, and this definition of the Amir's 
 relations with the European powers has been generally 
 accepted as sufficiently correct ; but it is impossible to over- 
 look the fully equal importance of the political aspect of 
 the country. Whatever may be the extent of the importation 
 of Russian goods into Kashgar — and in native, if not in 
 European hands, it is no doubt considerable, — the trade with 
 India, at any rate, across Thibet is utterly insignificant. + It 
 never indeed has been and never can be, owing to the physical 
 
 * See, for text of Kashgar Treaty, been abolished, and special officers ap- 
 
 Appendix No. X. pointed to watch over the interests of 
 
 + The following extracts from the traders, the total value of the trade 
 Proceedings of the IAeutenant-Gover- with Eastern Turkestan, though the 
 nor of the Punjab, dated May 26, greatest on record, amounted last year 
 1874, are sufficient authority for the to less than £60,000, a great increase 
 unfavourable opinions here expressed compared with what it was ; but, after 
 as to the British trade with Kash- all, an amount which must be con- 
 gar: — sidered altogether insignificant. 
 
 " It is to be remembered that though ****** 
 
 the development of trade between " Again, it must, be confessed, that 
 
 Yarkend and British India has re- the greater our experience of the 
 
 ceived the careful atteution of the routes between India and Yarkend, 
 
 British Government for upwards of the greater do the difficulties appear 
 
 six years ; though transit duties have in the way of establishing a satisfac- 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OP CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 335 
 
 difficulties of the route, of sufficient magnitude to produce any 
 perceptible effect on the revenues or the prosperity of the 
 Empire. Without contesting, therefore, the good faith of our 
 sanguine commercial negoeiators, I shall here dwell more par- 
 ticularly on the political features of the question, which they 
 would seem rather to have neglected, but which are, in my view, 
 of vastly superior importance to any trade interests that can be 
 possibly involved. Eussia has certainly always dreaded the 
 effect on her inflammable Asiatic subjects of the formation of 
 a strong and prosperous Mahomedan power in their immediate 
 neighbourhood, and she has thus looked with intense jealousy 
 on any assistance, moral or material, that might be furnished 
 by England to this end. For some time she tried the effect of 
 intimidation on Kashgar. She called the Amir "a bad neigh- 
 bour," complained that in spite of treaty-engagements he 
 opposed and hampered trade ; that he intrigued with her dis- 
 affected subjects, with the Kirghiz on one side, the Turcomans 
 on the other ; that he was in fact thoroughly unfriendly to her, 
 and that. the more his power was consolidated the more would 
 his unfriendliness be felt. She asked even for explanations as to 
 the guns and arms contributed by Turkey, which accompanied 
 Mr. Forsyth's last mission, and also as to the military instructors 
 and artificers which were said to have been furnished from 
 India, and the whole tenor of her conduct and language led 
 us to expect that she was preparing to put pressure on the 
 Amir, with a view of preventing the further development of his 
 power, and of rendering him more amenable to her influence. 
 Quite recently, however, a change seems to have come " o'er the 
 spirit of her dream." So far from using a threatening tone, the 
 
 tory trade-route, owing to the length small difficulties, and taxed the re- 
 
 of the journey, the enormous altitudes sources of the country, both as re- 
 
 to be traversed, the arid and unpro- gards carriage and supplies, to the 
 
 ductive character of a large portion of utmost. If such were the case with 
 
 the country, the absence of population, an expedition proceeding with all the 
 
 and the deficiency of carriage and sup- prestige and advantages of an Imperial 
 
 P lies - Embassy, the successful performance 
 
 "The expedition of last year, of the journey by large caravans under 
 
 though aided by all the influence of less favourable circumstances must be 
 
 the Government officials of British considered problematical. " 
 India and Cashmere, met with no 
 
336 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. Tf. 
 
 Russian press now speaks approvingly of the Amir's conduct ; 
 but whether this change of tone be owing to an altered policy, 
 or whether the relations between Russia and Kashgar may 
 really have improved, it is impossible to say. No doubt the 
 uninterrupted success which attended the march of the several 
 Russian columns across the Steppes in the late expedition 
 against Khiva must have powerfully impressed the native mind 
 throughout the East, whilst the unexpected moderation of 
 Russia, in forbearing to take any part in the recent Kokand 
 disturbances, may have also reassured Amir Yacub as to his 
 own position, and have thus rendered him more docile and 
 considerate. 
 
 The policy of England in the mean time in regard to Kash- 
 gar has never altered; though negative in its object, it is clearly 
 defined, and needs neither concealment nor excuse. It would 
 undoubtedly be inconvenient to us if Russia, either by force of 
 arms or at the invitation of the native ruler, succeeded in estab- 
 lishing a protectorate over Eastern Turkestan — similar to her 
 protectorate of the Usbeg Khanates, — and were thus brought 
 into contact, through Thibet with Cashmere, and through 
 Wakhan with Cabul. Our interest, therefore, irrespective of 
 commercial considerations, is clearly to maintain the Amir in 
 independent power. We desire to see him ruling over a con- 
 tented and orderly population, giving offence neither to Russia 
 nor to China, contracting his frontiers within manageable 
 limits, devoting himself to the improvement of his country, and 
 laying the foundations of a permanent dynasty. Fortunately 
 we have not the same dread as Russia of the contagion of 
 Mahomedan influence, the Musselmans of India, prone as they 
 may be to mischief, being outnumbered and controlled by 
 Hindoos and Sikhs. Turkestan, indeed, like Afghanistan and 
 Persia, may help to buttress our Indian Empire ; but it can 
 never, so long as it retains its independence, be to us a source 
 of danger or uneasiness. Our envoys, therefore, to Kashgar 
 have invariably counselled prudence and moderation. We 
 have recommended the Amir, as a measure of precaution, to 
 withdraw his garrisons from Urumchi and Manass, and to 
 remain content with the submission and tribute of the Tungans, 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OF OENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 337 
 
 Above all things we have insisted that he should strictly fulfil 
 his treaty-engagements with Russia, and leave no opening for 
 reprisals. 
 
 It is not possible of course to see very far ahead in this 
 region of nebulous politics. There are difficulties, both ex- 
 ternal and internal, which may shipwreck the most carefully 
 considered plans. If China, for instance, should recover from 
 the military paralysis, which for some years past has stricken 
 her extremities, she might possibly reassert her claim to Kash- 
 gar, and thus necessitate a European armed intervention, the 
 result of which it would be impossible to foresee. Or Kokand 
 and Bokhara, inspired from without, might follow up the call 
 they are said to have already made on Amir Yacub's alle- 
 giance, by invading his territories, which would certainly 
 embroil Kashgar with Russia. But the most serious indica; 
 tions of danger come from within. The Amir Yacub has 
 been by no means single-minded in his dealings with us. 
 His experience of Russia had rendered him suspicious of 
 all Europeans ; and as an Oriental , prince, moreover, cannot 
 understand the meaning of a commercial mission, but always 
 supposes there is some deep political design shrouded under 
 the mask of trade, so in the Amir's reception of Mr. Forsyth — 
 notwithstanding that it was marked with a lavish hospitality 
 and much personal attention — still there was from the com- 
 mencement an undercurrent of mistrust, which it required the 
 nicest circumspection not to rouse into activity. There was in 
 fact no reason why the Amir should especially affect our friend- 
 ship except as a defence against Russia, and when the suspicion 
 therefore crossed him, — partly perhaps from the recent matri- 
 monial alliance of the two Royal families, and partly from our 
 interposition in favour of Russian interests, — that the two 
 powers might have coalesced to compass his ruin, he showed 
 undoubted signs of recalcitration. With the intuitive love 
 also for duplicity which characterises all Orientals, he has 
 apparently desired to steer his course midway between Scylla 
 and Charybdis, concluding treaties of friendship with both 
 powers, but never committing himself irretrievably with either.* 
 
 * Id support of this charge of du- two accounts of Amir Yacub's language 
 plicity, I place in juxtaposition the to the Russian and English missions 
 
33S ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 As he has made known his communications with Eussia to us, so, 
 if we had exposed our hands, or had had any hands to expose, 
 he might have made known our communications to Eussia. 
 Passingthen from this shadowy ground of intrigue and deception 
 to practical life, we can at any rate repose with satisfaction on 
 our own honesty of intention, and take further consolation from 
 the knowledge that under no circumstances can we incur real 
 danger from the hostility of Kashgar; since invasion through a 
 country like Thibet, entirely destitute of supplies, and seamed 
 with passes 18,000 feet in height, is beyond the scope of 
 modern warfare, while the only other access to India from 
 Turkestan, by the Chitral route, is closed by stubborn moun- 
 taineers who have never succumbed to an invader since the 
 days of Timur, as well as by the proud and stern resistance 
 of the free-born tribes of Afghanistan. 
 
 6. There is a difficulty, which it would be affectation to 
 ignore, in seizing the leading features of Eussia's policy in 
 Central Asia, and tracing in broad lines, as we should in 
 regard to other countries, the natural course of its future 
 progress and development; and this difficulty arises not so 
 much from her movements being shrouded in mystery, or 
 from any uncertainty as to their scope and direction, as from 
 the many conflicting influences which control her policy, and 
 
 respectively. When Baron Kaulbars Forsyth was presented to the Amfr at 
 
 in his first interview with the Amir Kashgar, on December 11, 1873, the 
 
 explained the object of his mission, following speech was addressed to 
 
 and alluded to the possibility of a him : — 
 
 good understanding between Russia " The Queen of England has shown 
 and Kashgar, " Yacub's countenance me great favour, and done me very 
 wore an expression of lively satisfaction highhonour. I look mainly to England, 
 which he could not conceal. " 0n a and I consider myself most fortunate 
 second occasion, Yacub said to Baron in obtaining the friendship of the 
 Kaulbars, " I consider you (Russians) English nation. The Queen of Eng- 
 as my friends " ; and being afterwards land, is a great sovereign, whose friend- 
 left alone with the Baron, he told him ship is to be greatly desired, for it is 
 " that the English had already sent always most beneficial to those who 
 plenipotentiaries to him, but that he possess it. I look to the English for 
 preferred the protection of the sovereign favour and goodwill. I prefer their 
 of Russia, his nearest and most potent friendship. The Queen of England is 
 neighbour." — "Journal de St. Pgters- as the sun to me, making poor people 
 bourg," August, 23, 1872. like me happy, when shining on 
 « Eighteen months later, when Sir D. them." 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 339 
 
 which, being for the most part arbitrary and abnormal, baffle 
 any determinate calculation. On one side, his Majesty the 
 Emperor, who, being at the head of a despotic government, 
 must be supposed to have the ultimate decision on all dis- 
 puted points in his hands, has repeatedly declared that he 
 considered " extension of territory to be extension of weak- 
 ness," and that " he was directly opposed to any further 
 conquests" ; and in corroboration of these sentiments we know 
 that he proposed in 1869 to restore Samarcand to Bokhara^ 
 that in 1&&3 he distinctly forbade the annexation of any 
 portion of the* Khivan territory, and that still more recently 
 he suspended the preparations for an expedition against the 
 Turcomans. But, on the other side, all such good intentions 
 have proved in practice to be mere temporary interruptions in 
 one uniform career of extension and aggrandizement. And in 
 addition to the results of our own experience, which, as we are 
 interested parties might be supposed to incline rather to the 
 side of suspicion, we have further been assured by sagacious 
 foreign observers, free from all national prejudice, but who have 
 watched the progress of events, and have been more or less 
 admitted behind the scenes, that the continued advance of 
 Bussia in Central Asia is as certain as the movement of the 
 sun in the heavens. Whether it be from a natural law of 
 increase, or from the preponderating weight of the military 
 classes, thirsting for distinction, or from the deliberate action 
 of a government which aims at augmented power in Europe 
 through extension in Asia, or from all these causes combined, 
 we are told on high authority that, in spite of professions of 
 moderation, in spite of the Emperor's real pacific tendencies, 
 in spite even of our remonstrances and possibly our threats, 
 Bussia will continue to push on towards India until arrested 
 by a barrier which she cannot remove or overstep. If this 
 programme be correct, it means of course contact and collision, 
 and such I believe, as far as my own means of observation 
 extend, to be the inevitable result in due course of time. The 
 only uncertain element in the calculation seems to me to be 
 the interval that may elapse before the crisis, an interval to 
 be employed by us in active, but well-considered, preparation. 
 
 z ? 
 
340 ENGLAND AND BUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 Premising, then, that I am alone responsible for the views 
 that I am about to enunciate, I will commence with a review 
 of the Russian position from the Caucasus in the west to 
 the Thian-shan in the east. 
 
 In Persia quite recently there has been unwonted activity. 
 The plan of a railway from the frontier to Tabriz, originated 
 by a private company, has been pressed on the acceptance of 
 the Shah's government by the full weight of Russian official 
 influence, against his Majesty's wishes, and in flagrant dis- 
 regard of the rights of Baron Reuter, the annulment of whose 
 concession, although formally notified by Persia, has never 
 been accepted either by the individual or by his protecting 
 government. There can be no question that the interference 
 of the Russian government in this matter has far transcended 
 ihe limits of advice or even solicitation tendered by a friendly 
 power, and has given a rude shock to the Shah's independent 
 authority ; but the incident is not likely to lead to serious 
 misunderstanding, since the Reuter privileges cannot certainly 
 be maintained in their entirety, and if they are annulled, 
 either partially or wholly, it is probable that a compromise 
 will be effected between the Baron and the Russian company. 
 Considerable uneasiness at the same time is felt by Persia at 
 the facilities which such a railway would afford for the military 
 occupation of Tabriz by Russia in the event of war between 
 the two countries ; but this question is, in my opinion, hardly 
 worth considering, since the northern Persian capital has 
 always been and still is completely at the mercy of the Russian 
 forces cantoned on the frontier, within a week's march of the 
 city, and the danger therefore of such an operation is not in 
 any essential degree augmented by the railway. Of far more 
 importance is the eventual destination of this line, which, it 
 is understood, is to be protracted through Kurdistan towards 
 Baghdad, so as to give access to a part of the Turkish Empire 
 where the Porte is, in a political point of view, especially 
 vulnerable, but which has been hitherto supposed by its re- 
 mote position to be secured from attack from the north- 
 ward. 
 
 The most important negociations, however, on which Russia 
 
Oh. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 341 
 
 is now engaged with Persia refer, no doubt, to the Turcomans. 
 General Lomakin, the new governor of the Trans-Caspian 
 military district, is making strenuous efforts to withdraw the 
 Yomuts and Goklans from their Persian allegiance, with a view, 
 no doubt, to employing them as auxiliaries against the recal- 
 citrant Tekkehs, and Persia is thus subjected to the danger 
 of not only losing her subjects, but of seeing her Asterab&l 
 frontier completely exposed. As the Turcoman campaign, 
 however, proceeds, and Persian interests become more and 
 more involved in the contest of Russia with the nomades, it is 
 not at all improbable that important territorial adjustments 
 may take place on this frontier. The advance of Russia, 
 indeed, along the Caspian has been so steady and persistent, 
 and the possession of Asterab£d is so manifestly necessary to 
 the further extension of her power to the eastward, that I can 
 hardly doubt but that in the course of a few years, unless we 
 interfere actively to prevent it, the territory at the south-east 
 corner of the Caspian will have become, either by conquest, or 
 cession, or exchange, the property of the Russian crown. 
 
 A scheme of territorial settlement is said to have been much 
 discussed in influential quarters in the early part of the present 
 year, by which it was thought the Turcoman respite might be in- 
 definitely prolonged, so as to remove all future cause of disagree- 
 ment between England and Russia, so indeed as to restore peace 
 permanently to Central Asia. !_ According to this scheme, Russia 
 was to declare her territory between the Caspian and the Aral to 
 be bounded on the south by the ojd bed of the Oxus throughout 
 its course, recognizing all.th'e region beyond as the "inde- 
 pendent Turcoman Steppe." Now it seemed incredible that 
 Russia should voluntarily consent to a surrender of this nature, 
 which would compromise the safety of the military and com- 
 mercial lines that she had been at such pains to establish 
 across the Steppe, and would further necessitate a withdrawal 
 from Petro-Alexandrofsk, which could not be permanently held 
 without lateral support from the Caspian; but we were never- 
 theless assured that the project had been approved by the 
 peace party in Russia, and that a moderate degree of pressure 
 on the part of England was alone required to ensure its adap-. 
 
342 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 tion. That pressure certainly was not exerted, and the project, 
 if it ever existed, except in the imagination of certain enthu- 
 siastic politicians, accordingly fell through. In its place we 
 are now informed that the long contemplated expedition 
 against the Turcomans is on the eve of accomplishment, a 
 double column of attack having been organized, with instruc- 
 tions to advance simultaneously into the country of the Tek- 
 kehs from Chikishlar and the bay of Michaelofski, south of 
 Krasnovodsk, and to commence serious operations against the 
 nomades. By many, no doubt, this movement will be regarded 
 as " the beginning of the end ;" but, for my own part, I ven- 
 ture to think that "the end is not yet." The present expedition 
 may pave the way to important results, but time is required 
 before anything serious can be accomplished. Large prepa- 
 rations indeed must be made : stores and supplies must be 
 concentrated both to the east and west ; and, above all, grave 
 explanations must take place with England, and negociations 
 with Persia, before Russia can settle down in Merv, throw up 
 intrenchments, found a colony, draw in populations, and directly 
 threaten the Afghan frontier. What is proposed at present is 
 probably to sweep up the Yomuts and Goklans as the force 
 marches to the eastward, and thus make a strong demon- 
 stration against the Tekkehs.* The western division of this 
 
 * As these last sheets are passing being accounted her subjects. If 
 through the press, it is announced that Russia overrule this claim, and insist 
 operations have commenced, the Rus- on her right to regard the main stream 
 sian column from Chikishlar having ap- of the Atrek from its embouchure to 
 peared on the Atrek, with the avowed its source as the boundary between 
 intention of attacking and occupying Russian and Persian territory, the 
 the Yomfit post of K.ari-kileh, on the Shah will lose some of the fairest 
 Simbar, which is the most westernly districts of Khorassan, and Russia will 
 affluent of the Atrek on its right bank. command not only the Attock route 
 This demonstration then raises the to Merv, but the high-road to Meshed 
 frontier question in a direct and from the Caspian. Of course the pro- 
 tangible form. Persia maintains her test of Persia against what she calls 
 frontier to be marked not by the main a violation of frontier would be un- 
 stream, but by the watershed of the availing unless warmly supported by 
 Atrek, the valleys of all the affluents England, and Russia does not seem 
 of that river from the north, of which disposed to admit of our right of 
 the Simbar, often called the Kari- interference in such a matter. (Ao- 
 kileh, is one, belonging to her, and cording to still more recent intelli- 
 the Tomtits who inhabit those valleys gence, the expedition alluded to, which 
 
Oh. VI.] LATER PHASES OP CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 343 
 
 tribe, already more or less demoralized, is not likely to 
 offer any sustained resistance — though desultory skirmishes 
 may be expected to occur — and General Lomakin will accord- 
 ingly be able as he advances to establish along the skirts 
 of the hills a line of posts, connecting the advanced station at 
 Kahriz — or possibly at Ashkabad — with the Eussian base on the 
 Caspian. At the extreme point to which the columns may 
 penetrate, a fort will no doubt be erected, from whence the 
 same influences, both of conciliation and pressure, will be 
 directed against the Tekkehs of Akhal and Merv that have 
 already been so successfully employed against their western 
 brethren from Krasnovodsk and Chikishlar. Disunion will 
 be introduced amongst the Eastern Tekkehs as amongst the 
 Western ; portions of the tribe will give in their allegiance, 
 while the stubborn who elect to fight for their ancestral pas- 
 tures will be denounced as rebels and marked down for future 
 chastisement. But Eussia will no doubt proceed in this 
 matter with the same wariness and skill that have charac- 
 terized her previous movements. The first expedition is 
 always tentative. A second expedition will in all probability 
 be organized next year, but even that effort may perhaps ex- 
 tend Eussia's dominion no further than Akhal, and a third 
 expedition may thus be necessary before the great and crown- 
 ing success be attained in the capture and occupation of Merv; 
 the Oxus, in the meantime, however, being thoroughly opened 
 up to navigation, and regular communication being established 
 by means of a line of wells and military posts between the 
 Oxus and the Murghab.* This last-named precaution, indeed, 
 is absolutely necessary, with a view of connecting Petro- 
 Alexandrofsk with Merv, and thus forming a continuous frontier ; 
 and it will be not less important both to the growth of Merv as 
 
 seems to have been a mere reconnais- and the Oxus will ultimately prove 
 sance, has returned to the sea-coast in all probability to" be the weakest 
 after selecting a suitable position for a point in the whole line of the Russian 
 Russian fortified post on the right frontier towards India, the water sup- 
 bank of the Atrek at the distance of ply at present in the intervening 
 80 miles from the mouth of the desert being very limited, without 
 river.) any visible means of increasing it. 
 * This hiatus between the Murghab 
 
344 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 a commercial emporium and to its strength and stability as the 
 extreme Russian post to the south that there should he a 
 thorough understanding with -Persia and a secure passage across 
 the desert which intervenes between Merv and Serakhs. 
 
 If these auxiliary measures should be fully executed, and 
 Merv, whose natural advantages are of the highest order, should 
 thus, in due course of time, take rank with Samarcand andTash- 
 kend as one of the bulwarks of the Eussian position towards 
 India, then, and not till then, would the danger of collision 
 with England assume a tangible form. The Amir, Shir 
 Ali, has already foreseen under such circumstances that the 
 Eastern Tekkehs, together with the Saruk and Salor tribes, who 
 encamp to the south of Merv, would be driven up the valley of 
 the Murghab and be thus forced to take refuge across the 
 border in the Afghan district of Badgheis, from whence they 
 would continue to raid and plunder as is their wont, throwing 
 the whole frontier into confusion and provoking pursuit and 
 punishment. But retribution exacted from the Turcomans 
 on Afghan soil would inevitably lead to collision with Afghan 
 subjects, with the Jamshidis and Tymiiris especially, who 
 guard the north-western frontier, and any such aggression on 
 Herat territory would be the sure prelude to our own inter- 
 ference. Putting aside, indeed, the obligation on our part to 
 protect Afghanistan from invasion — an obligation which was in- 
 dicated by Lord Derby in his very important speech of lastMay — 
 the mere fact of Russian troops being stationed in any consider- 
 able number at Merv — although drawn to that point in their 
 legitimate pursuit of the Tekkehs and detained there in order 
 to hold the tribes permanently in check — would be fraught 
 with such peril to our Indian interests that we could not re- 
 main passive, even if we wished. There is one point, indeed, the 
 pivot of the whole Eastern Question, which must never be lost 
 sight of — we cannot afford to expose Herat to the risk of being 
 taken by a Russian coup -de-main. If a Eussian force is suffi- 
 ciently near to threaten the safety of the key of India, we 
 must also have a British force sufficiently near to protect it. 
 
 All other questions relating to the Eussian position in 
 Central Asia are, as far as British interests are concerned, of 
 
Ch. VI.] LATEE PHASES OE CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 345 
 
 much inferior importance to the Turcoman expedition and its 
 results. At the present moment, indeed, it may be assumed 
 that the attention of Eussia is steadily turned in the direction 
 of Merv and Herat, and that she will be mainly guided in her 
 general Asiatic policy by considerations affecting this special 
 question. Whether, for instance, the Khan of Khiva becontinued 
 in the nominal chiefship, or whether he be superseded by a 
 Eussian governor, will depend upon which arrangement 
 promises best for the control of the Turcoman tribes ; and even 
 the great engineering works, the ship-canal and railway between 
 the Caspian and the Aral, which are about to be commenced, 
 are probably regarded by Eussia as of more value in strengthen- 
 ing her position on the Oxus, with a view to the occupation 
 and restoration of Merv, than as improving the communica- 
 tions with Turkestan. c 
 
 Her further relations again with Bokhara aud Kokand will 
 no doubt await the issue of the Turcoman crisis. No one 
 questions but that the general feeling at Bokhara is intensely 
 hostile to Eussia, and that the Amir has had, and still has, the 
 utmost difficulty in preventing his subjects from breaking out 
 and declaring a holy war against the Infidels.* Eepeated 
 rumours, indeed, have been circulated of the intention of 
 Muzeffer-ed-din to abdicate in favour of his son — weary of the 
 perpetual conflict between his feelings and his interests, and 
 despairing of the future of his country ; and it is not at all impro- 
 bable that such may be the result of the pending troubles at 
 Bokhara ; but a revolution of this nature, unless accompanied 
 with direct outrage upon the Eussians, will hardly precipitate 
 their occupation of the Khanate. It is, indeed, so manifestly 
 to their advantage to procrastinate until their lines of com- 
 munication are completed that no amount of mere provocation 
 
 * It is rarely that Russian officers Maeff, the editor of the Turhestdn 
 venture to criticize the political con- Gazette, which gave an alarming 
 duct of the Government, or to publish account of the state of public feeling 
 remarks disparaging to the national among the Mahomedan subjects of 
 interests. In November 1872, however, Eussia in Central Asia at that period ; 
 some very interesting letters appeared and as far as our means of information 
 in the St. Petersburg Ooloss, from the extend, the situation, instead of un- 
 pens of M. Kaeffski, who had resided proving, has since then become still 
 .some time in Tashkend, and of M. more precarious. 
 
346 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 will probably induce them at present to interfere. By retain- 
 ing in their hands a complete command of the water supply of 
 Bokhara^ as well as by exhibiting an imposing military force 
 upon the Samarcand frontier, they are enabled to control the 
 government almost as effectively as if they maintained a garri- 
 son in the capital city, whilst at the same time they avoid the 
 expense as well as the dangers of occupation. But it is well 
 understood that this vicarious government cannot be permanent. 
 As soon as there is rapid and direct communication between the 
 Caucasus and Turkestan, a Kussian governor-general will take 
 the place of the Amir, and then, if we may judge by our own 
 Afghan experience, the Russian difficulties will commence. On 
 one side the military expenses will be prodigious, with a very 
 poor set-off from trade or revenue ; on another side the friction 
 and irritation which must arise from the Russian soldiery 
 being brought into daily contact with a fanatical Mahomedan 
 population will neutralize all efforts at improvement, and 
 finally Russia will find the mountaineers of Hissar and 
 Dehinow and Shahr-i-Sebz at least as impatient of control as 
 her old enemies the Lezghies and Daghestahis, and insurrec- 
 tion will thus be chronic along the southern frontier. 
 
 In Kokand the prospect is better, inasmuch as the inhabi- 
 tants generally are neither so fanatical nor so warlike, while the 
 upper valley of the Jaxartes, studded with populous and 
 important cities, is far better able to repay the expense of 
 occupation. Even in that quarter, however, Russia is not yet 
 prepared for intervention. If she had had troops available to 
 garrison the large towns of Kokand, Nemengan, Andijan, Oosh, 
 and Marghilan, it is incredible that she should have resisted the 
 temptation to enter in and take possession which was afforded in 
 the recent civil war between the Kirghiz and Kipchak parties, 
 when either side invited her interference, and would have 
 willingly submitted to her rule. For the moment it is believed 
 that Khodayar Khan has silenced his opponents, and that he 
 will thus be allowed to continue in power, acting, when neces- 
 sary, as a lever against Amir Yacub in virtue of the old money 
 claims of Kokand upon Kashgar,* until railways and steam 
 The precise conditions are unknown under which the rulers of 
 
Oh. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 347 
 
 vessels have brought the military resources of European 
 Eussia into the heart of Turkestan, and have thus rendered 
 the annexation of the whole province a mere question of 
 administrative expediency. But even with all the impulsive 
 force of civilization and all the appliances of modern warfare, 
 which may thus be brought to bear on the position, it is not 
 clear that Eussia, although she may be in complete possession 
 of the Jaxartes valley, will be able to realise her sway over the 
 southern dependencies of Kokand, any more than over the 
 mountain ranges of Bokhara\ It is far more likely that for 
 long years Kulab, Darwaz, and Karategin will be virtually in- 
 dependent, and that whatever may happen to the westward, we 
 shall thus, at any rate, escape the inconvenience of direct 
 Eussian contact with Afghan territory along the borders of 
 Badakhshan and "WakMn. 
 
 It only remains to consider the future Eussian relations with 
 Kashgar. It is said that ever since Mr. Forsyth's last visit to 
 Kashgar, the Amir Yacub has assiduously cultivated the friend- 
 ship of Eussia, treating her merchants with exceptional 
 liberality, and showing a becoming deference to her counsels 
 and her wishes. In fact he is now emphatically called a " good 
 neighbour," as he was formerly called a " bad neighbour." 
 Eussia is not inclined at the same time to attribute this change 
 of conduct in any great degree to the advice of the British 
 Envoy ; she rather explains it as the result of the Amir's con- 
 viction that England is unwilling — perhaps unable — to afford 
 him material support, and that his only chance of safety, 
 therefore, consists in his disarming Eussian jealousy and 
 proving himself the obedient vassal of the Emperor. Under 
 present circumstances this recantation of his errors — this 
 truce, if it may so be called — coincides sufficiently well with 
 Eussian interests. She is certainly not prepared for a direct 
 rupture with Kashgar. Her objects, political as well as com- 
 mercial, are better served by securing through moral pressure 
 
 Kokand, through their Ak-Sakals, or the amount is stated to have been 
 
 resident consuls, levied tribute from as much as £16,000 per annum, ob- 
 
 the Mahomedan inhabitants of Kash- tained from this single city, 
 gar during the Chinese dominion, but 
 
348 ENGLAND AND KTJSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. VI. 
 
 a dominant influence at the court and in the country at large, 
 by means of which she may exclude, or curtail, British com- 
 merce, check the contagion of Mahomedan success, and improve 
 the general security of her Turkestan frontier. Of course if this 
 subservience of the Amir were carried too far, it might lead to 
 unpleasant consequences, as England could not allow her treaty 
 rights to be disregarded, and might even be obliged in case of 
 necessity to employ pressure through Cashmere or Afghanistan. 
 But it is not likely that any such extreme measures can ever 
 be required. Our new Envoy, Mr. Shaw, who is thoroughly 
 acquainted with the country and enjoys much personal popu- 
 larity, is now proceeding to Kashgar, where it is to be hoped 
 by tact and address he may tide over the present period of 
 difficulty, waiting with patience till the Amir reassert his natural 
 confidence, and set himself to redress the balance between his 
 European allies.* v '■ 
 
 7. We must now look; nearer home. When Lord North- 
 brook reached Calcutta in May, 1872, the only Afghan 
 questions then under discussion were the definition of the 
 northern frontier along the Oxus, and the Seistan arbitration- 
 Bussia's acquiescence in the line of the Oxus and her 
 recognition of Shir All's right to Badakhshan and Wakhan 
 were communicated to the British Government in January, 
 1873, and soon afterwards the Seistan negociations terminated 
 
 * The special object of Mr. Shaw's amity at Kashgar, but their execution 
 
 deputation was to convey to Kashgar would require the nicest care, since 
 
 the Viceroy's ratification of the Com- there is nothing probably more dis- 
 
 mercial Treaty, but he was als$ in 1 tasteful to Russia — as she showed on 
 
 structed amongst other matters, j " in the occasion of the Russian captives 
 
 the event of questions arising be- at Khiva being liberated by Shake- 
 
 tween the Amir and the Russian speare in 1841 — than the sense of 
 
 Government, to take care, if the being indebted to English intercession 
 
 opportunity arises, to impress on the for any political success in Central 
 
 Amir the risk of complications with Asia, where she aims at being supreme, 
 
 that Government, and the import- and claims to confer obligations in- 
 
 ance of avoiding any step that might stead of receiving them. Mr. Shaw's 
 
 unnecessarily prejudice amicable re- residence at Kashgar will not, how- 
 
 lations with its representatives." ever, in all probability be sufficiently 
 
 These instructions were formed, no protracted to occasion much jealousy 
 
 doubt, in the most benevolent spirit, or irritation, 
 and with a view to promoting general 
 
VI.] LATBE PHASES OF OENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 349 
 
 in the withdrawal of the Persian protest, and the final accept- ' 
 ance of General Goldsmid's arbitral award. In September of 
 the same year, Shir All's confidential agent, Syud Nur 
 Mahomed Shah, who had been associated with General Pollock 
 in the Seistan commission, waited on the Viceroy at Simlah 
 to discuss the general question of the Indo-Afghan relations. 
 Matters of great importance are understood to have 
 been brought forward at this interview, and the Afghan 
 alliance may be considered from the date in question 
 to have entered on a new, and a not altogether satisfactory, 
 phase. The Amir was pleased at the territorial settle- 
 ment on the Oxus, but was displeased with the settlement 
 in Seistan, and as injuries notoriously make a deeper impres- 
 sion than favours, he was thus on the whole rather prepossessed 
 against us at the opening of the negociations. But graver 
 matters followed for discussion, and it soon became apparent 
 that the Amir of 1873, speaking through his Envoy, was a very 
 different individual from the Amir of 1869. His four years of 
 unchallenged rule had relieved him from all apprehension of 
 competitors, and had made him proud and self-reliant. It had 
 also given him an insight into foreign pontics which rendered 
 bim not only extravagant in his demands, but stubborn in 
 pressing those demands, and sullen when they were negatived. 
 The Viceroy, who was fully prepared to support Lord Mayo's 
 policy, and who earnestly desired to strengthen the Afghan 
 alliance, announced a programme of unexampled liberality. 
 The Amir, in the spring of 1872, had received a present of two 
 lakhs of rupees, to enable him to carry out certain administra- 
 tive reforms. He was now promised ten lakhs in addition, of 
 which one half was to be expended in compensating his subjects 
 for losses sustained through the Seistan arbitration, and the 
 other half was to meet the urgent wants of the Government at 
 Cabul. Still more valuable assistance was tendered in the 
 allotment of 10,000 Enfield and 5000 Snider rifles for the 
 armament of the Afghan troops ; but it soon appeared that the 
 Amir's expectations went far beyond a mere temporary and 
 regulated scale of relief. His contention was that the British 
 Government was bound by the terms of Lord Mayo's Amballa 
 letter to comply with any request that he might prefer, and as 
 
350 ENGLAND AND BUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. YI. 
 
 lie now believed, or affected to believe, that his country was 
 in danger from the advances of Eussia, he would have thrown 
 on us the whole expense and responsibility of placing Afghan- 
 istan in a position to meet the contingency of invasion. 
 Whether the Amir really felt the alarm that he expressed, or 
 whether he magnified the danger in order to give increased 
 force to his demands, has never been ascertained. He cer- 
 tainly made out a very fair case to justify his present appeal. 
 He had been told, he said, by Lord Mayo that Russia had 
 pledged herself not to interfere with Afghanistan, and he 
 regarded this assurance at first as almost equivalent to a treaty 
 engagement, but as time wore on, he began to lose faith in the 
 promises of Russia, which were so often evaded or falsified. 
 His right to Badakhshah, for instance, had been acknowledged 
 when Mr. Forsyth was at St. Petersburg in 1869,* yet it was 
 not till January 1873 that Russia finally withdrew her opposi- 
 tion. The promised restoration also of Samarcand to the 
 Amir of Bokhara had been formally announced to him, yet 
 Russian troops were still in possession. His anxiety, again, 
 at the time of the Khivan expedition, had been met by the 
 assurance that no part of the territory would be annexed, and 
 yet he now found the Russians permanently established on 
 the Oxus within hail almost of his own frontier. The famous 
 case even was cited in which Russia took advantage of the 
 Franco- German war to escape from the Black Sea clauses 
 of the treaty of Paris. Over and over again he had been told 
 there would be no further extension of Russian territory to the 
 south, and yet her troops were ever moving on, resistless as 
 fate. It was clear to all the world that the Turcomans would 
 now be attacked in succession to the Uzbegs, that they would 
 be projected on Afghan territory, that a quarrel would thus arise 
 between him and the Russians, and that the old assurance of the 
 inviolability of Afghanistan would then be scattered to the winds. 
 There was much in this catalogue of grievances that was 
 unanswerable. In some respects, as we, no doubt, pointed out, 
 
 * Sir A. Buchanan sent a telegram, Petersburg ; Amfr of Cabul's' right to 
 No. 235, of Nov. 7, 1869, "announe- Badakhshan having been acknow- 
 ing Mr. Forsyth's departure from St. lodged. " 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OE CENTEAL ASIA QUESTION, 351 
 
 he had not done justice to the good faith of Bussia, especially 
 as regarded her refusal to sanction or encourage the intrigues of 
 Abdur Eahman, or to allow Bokhara" to disturb the Afghan 
 frontier. On the essential question of invasion, we could only 
 say that there appeared to us to be no sufficient ground for the 
 Amir's apprehension, certainly not sufficient grounds to justify 
 any large expenditure on preparations for defence; that we 
 did not anticipate any foreign interference with Afghanistan, 
 but that, " if, in the event of any aggression from without, 
 British influence were invoked and failed by negociation to 
 effect a satisfactory settlement, it was probable that the British 
 Government would afford the Amir material assistance in 
 repelling an invader."* 
 
 If the Amir had been actuated by no other feeling 
 than one of genuine alarm at the advance of Russia, 
 and a desire to be shielded from danger, it is hardly 
 conceivable but that this implied promise of protection 
 would have satisfied and reassured him. As events turned 
 out, however, it seems to have entirely failed in restoring his 
 confidence and good feeling towards us. His Envoy left 
 Simlah disappointed and compkining, and from that time to the 
 present our relations with Cabul have become daily more 
 strained and disagreeable. For many months the Amu- 
 hesitated to receive either our money or the arms which had 
 been sent to Peshawer for his acceptance. He refused to 
 permit any English officer to visit Cabul, extending the pro- 
 hibition even in a most ungracious manner to Mr. Forsyth's 
 party, who were desirous of returning to India from Kashgar by 
 that route. He further interfered— apparently, however, under 
 a misconception — with the transit of our native Agents, 
 
 * It was in reference to this com- independence of Afghanistan would 
 munication that Lord Derby at the he regarded by Her Majesty's Govern- 
 close of his important speech in the ment as a very grave matter, requiring 
 House of Lords of May 8, 1874, made their most careful and serious con 
 use of the following significant Ian- sideration; and as one which might 
 
 ^f^ - ■ • «. . • mvol ve serious danger to the peace of 
 
 To maintain the integrity and India. I think if such an interference 
 
 territorial independence of Afghanis- occurred, to put the matter mildlv 
 
 ™rta nt ir t r i'^n,*/ r 8 * im ; a is %% probaue «*<* ««• °™^ 
 
 portant object of English feeling; and would interfere." 
 any interference with the national 
 
352 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 who have hitherto been allowed to pass freely throughout 
 Asia. His nomination of Abdullah Jan as heir-apparent to- 
 wards the close of last year was promulgated independently of 
 any consultation with his British allies, although they were 
 naturally much interested in the question of the succession, 
 while his recent arrest of Yacub Khan, who had been sum- 
 moned to Cabul under a promise of safe conduct, shows a 
 reckless disregard of our good opinion, which augurs most 
 unfavourably for the maintenance of even formal relations of 
 amity. Finally, the British Agent at Cabul does not occupy 
 that position of independence and authority to which he is 
 entitled as the representative of the Government of India, being 
 unable, it is believed, either to obtain or to communicate any 
 trustworthy information of a confidential character. 
 
 It may be assumed, then, that the Amir of Cabul is for the time 
 being displeased with his English allies, and it is further evi- 
 dent that an estrangement of this nature may lead to serious 
 consequences, unless we can fathom the grounds of his ill- 
 humour and bring him to a better sense of his duties and his 
 interests. To follow the course of thought in an Asiatic mind 
 is always difficult, and in this case the difficulty is enhanced by 
 the presumed multiplicity as well as complicity of the agencies 
 at work. It was the spectacle of Russian activity as contrasted 
 with English inertness which in the first place probably arrested 
 his attention and disturbed his judgment. He could not under- 
 stand why Russia should advance year by year from conquest 
 to conquest with unvarying success, while England remained 
 inactive within her ancient limits, except on the supposition 
 that we were the weaker power of the two. An Oriental again 
 always desires to have an alternative resource, and it is thus 
 not at all improbable that Shir Ali, like Amir Yacub, may have 
 proposed to steer a middle course, and may have even thought 
 he saw his advantage in playing off one power against the 
 other. At any rate he has openly exchanged correspondence 
 with General Kaufmann as a neighbouring friendly potentate, 
 
 * 
 
 * The Russian press has often ostentatious self-satisfaction. In one 
 
 alluded to this correspondence, which of his letters General Kaufmann 
 
 after all seems to have been of a very expressed his abhorrence of Yacub 
 
 common place character, in terms of Khan's rebellion, and congratu- 
 
Oh. VI.] LATER PHASES OE CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 353 
 
 and it is not impossible that the location at some future time 
 of Russian Agents at Cabul, and at other points in Afghan- 
 istan, to which the Amir's Envoy alluded at Simlah, may have 
 been discussed confidentially between them.* But the Amir, no 
 doubt, further considers that he has special grievances against 
 England. He certainly believed Lord Mayo to have promised 
 him unlimited support, and he thought that the present time, 
 when we were supposed to be thoroughly alarmed at Eussia's 
 approach through the Turcoman country, was favourable for 
 urging his pretensions. When he found accordingly that he 
 had misunderstood the Viceroy's language, and that, in engaging 
 to treat his requests " with respect and consideration," it was 
 intended that the Government should decide in the first 
 instance on the propriety of those requests, he was dis- 
 appointed and irritated. It must be remembered also that 
 the Amir has never thoroughly trusted us from the beginning. 
 He bore us an ancient grudge — not without reason, as is 
 thought by many — for our time-serving policy during his 
 early struggles with his brothers, and though he may have been 
 captivated for a season by Lord Mayo's frank and cordial bear- 
 ing, and may have honestly desired to reciprocate the attentions 
 which he then received, still when the novelty of the situation 
 wore off, he could not but remember that the English were bis 
 hereditary enemies, the people who had, in times gone by, 
 invaded his country and proscribed his family, and who were 
 still viewed with deep hostility by a large and powerful section 
 
 lated the Amir on having at length officially intimated (as recorded in the. 
 
 received his submission. This Ian- Parliamentary Blue Book) that while 
 
 guage, it appears, gratified the Amir he saw no objection to English officers 
 
 exceedingly, and was contrasted by going to Cabul, he agreed with Lord 
 
 him with the Viceroy's intercession Mayo that Russian agents should not 
 
 in Yacub Khan's behalf, "the Eng- do so. It is quite possible, however, 
 
 lish," as he remarked, "supporting in the sequel, if matters should become 
 
 sons against fathers, while the Bus- at all complicated, that this subject 
 
 sians upheld the authority of fathers may be revived, and that Russia may 
 
 over sons." It is possible that this wish to have a mission at Cabul. 
 
 trivial circumstance may have further Diplomatically perhaps, we could 
 
 contributed to the Amir's ill humour hardly object to such' an arrange- 
 
 with his English allies. ment, but we might at any rate insist 
 
 lhe Envoy was informed on this on sending at the same time a British 
 
 subject that Prince Gortchakoff had mission to Bokhara. 
 
 A A 
 
354 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. YI- 
 
 of the priests and nobles of his court. The same misgiving, 
 too, which had prevailed at Kashgar, as to the chance of our 
 coalescing with Eussia with a view to the extinction of the 
 independent Asiatic States, seems to have been not unknown 
 at Cabul, being fostered, perhaps, by the otherwise unaccount- 
 able union of the royal families of Eussia and England, as 
 well as by the programme of " a friendly partition of Asia, 
 leaving no intermediate zone," which was advocated by an 
 influential portion of the Eussian press. 
 
 At the same time it is difficult to believe that this estrange- 
 ment can be other than temporary. The Viceroy, we may 
 be sure, has been most careful not to aggravate the mis- 
 understanding. A dignified and distant tone has marked, no 
 doubt, his sense of the Amir's ungracious attitude, but he has 
 never condescended to reproach or threaten. Exhibiting, 
 indeed, the most perfect temper and a very sound discretion, 
 he would seem to have treated Shir All's rudeness as the petu- 
 lance of a spoilt child rather than the deliberate provocations 
 of an enemy. At any rate, it is satisfactory to know that it is 
 not owing to his strained relations with England that those 
 domestic differences have arisen in the Amir's family, which are 
 now causing us so much anxiety and which threaten, sooner or 
 later, to convulse the country. The nomination of Abdullah 
 Jan as heir-apparent was probably due to female influence 
 rather than to any political motive, and the recent arrest 
 of Yacub Khan, though imprudent, and under the circum- 
 stances most regretable, appears to have been dictated by 
 a sense of personal insecurity rather than by any desire 
 to give offence to England. Although, indeed, we have 
 often counselled the Amir to consolidate his power and to 
 make such timely arrangements in his family as should ensure 
 the transmission of that power undivided to his heir, we 
 have never interfered in the succession question, in so far as 
 to identify -ourselves with the claims of either candidate, 
 or even to indicate a decided preference for one over the other. 
 Since Abdullah 3ka was proclaimed the position of the elder 
 brother, Yacub Khan, at Herat, has been no doubt intolerable 
 and even dangerous. Deprived of what he regarded as his 
 
Og. VI.] LATBE PHASES OF CENTKAL ASIA QUESTION. 355 
 
 birthright, and menaced with deposition from his government, 
 he could hardly fail to renew the old intrigues with Persia, 
 which had never, indeed, entirely ceased, and these unlawful 
 dealings with the enemy have been the ostensible cause of his 
 present disgrace. How the dead-lock which at present exists, 
 owing to the antagonistic interests of the two princes, is to 
 terminate no one can pretend to foresee, and it is useless 
 therefore to discuss the question ; but there are certain general 
 principles connected with Afghan government, which these 
 troubles have brought into prominent notice, and to which our 
 attention must be directed as seriously affecting our future 
 relations with the country. It should be remembered, then, 
 that Afghanistan never has had, and never can have, the co- 
 hesion and consistency of a regular monarchical government. 
 The nation consists of a mere collection of tribes, of unequal 
 power and with divergent habits, which are held together, more 
 or less closely, according to the personal character of the chief 
 who rules them. The feeling of patriotism, as known in 
 Europe, cannot exist among the Afghans, for there is no com- 
 mon country. In its place is found a strong, turbulent love of 
 individual liberty, which naturally rebels against authority, 
 and would be equally impatient of control, whether exercised 
 by English or Eussians, or Persians, or even Duranis. There 
 is no natural or ethnical reason why Herat and Candahar 
 should be attached to Cabul. Herat is inhabited by races 
 entirely alien to the Afghans, by Jamshidis, Eymaks, and 
 Hazarehs; while at Candahar, though the lands were par- 
 celled out by Nadir Shah in the middle of the last 
 century among the Durani aristocracy, and their descen- 
 dants still exist as a privileged class, the peasantry are every- 
 where of Persian, or Tajik, or Turkish descent, and have no 
 community of feeling with the northern and eastern Afghans, 
 who are the dominant party at Cabul, and who are especially 
 opposed to the English alliance. Looking, then, to the 
 natural incoherency and indocility of this heterogeneous popu- 
 lation, looking especiaUy to the discord now introduced into 
 the administration by the jealousies of Shir Ali's sons, to the 
 serious disturbance threatened on the north-western frontier 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 ENGLAND AND RUSSDA. IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 by the inroads of the Turcomans, the pursuit of the Eussians, 
 and the pressure of the Persians,- — looking also to the pro- 
 bability of further troubles in Afghan- Turkestan from the 
 renewed intrigues of Abdur Rahman and other pretenders, 
 I confess that, however the present embroglio at Cabul may 
 terminate, I see little prospect of any settled government in 
 the country during Shir Ali's further tenure of power. It has 
 never hitherto consisted with our interests nor our wishes to 
 draw attention to the evils of Afghan maladministration, 
 after the fashion of Russia, who is in the habit of ad- 
 vertizing the disorganized condition of the Uzbeg Khanates 
 and the Turcoman ■ Steppe : on the contrary, we have 
 sought to extenuate rather than to accuse, because we 
 desire to avoid, not to court, intervention; but if we were 
 to chronicle all the frontier raids that we have had for 
 years past to endure, if we were to show how long the 
 Bolan and Khyber passes have been absolutely closed to 
 trade, if we were to record the many injuries and indignities 
 we have received, our bill of indictment against the Afghans 
 would be at least as heavy as that which heralded the Khivan 
 expedition, or which now threatens to bring retribution on 
 the Tekkehs. The principles of our policy, no doubt, remain 
 the same as ever. We desire to have a strong, friendly, and 
 independent power on our north-western frontier; but, of course, 
 forbearance has its limit. We are quite able to right ourselves, 
 if pushed beyond endurance, and above all, we cannot under 
 present circumstances afford to leave an unfriendly power at 
 liberty to create mischief unobserved upon our Indian border. 
 
 8. It remains to consider the general question and briefly to 
 suggest what should be our policy in the future. Our position 
 in India is strong and flourishing. The social condition of the 
 people is rapidly improving. The revenue is increasing. New 
 paths of industry are being opened up, in the advantages of 
 which the governors and the governed equally participate. The 
 interests, indeed, of the two classes are becoming identified. 
 Education in the mean time is spreading — perhaps too rapidly. 
 Crime is being repressed, and even-handed justice is every- 
 where administered. Since the mutiny, insurrection has been 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OP CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 357 
 
 rendered impossible, and the embers of discontent, save in some 
 of the native states, are hardly to be seen ; not that the elements 
 of mischief are extinct, but that they are checked for the time 
 by moral and material prosperity. All that we want is rest — 
 rest from foreign wars, rest from political disturbance ; and 
 this is precisely what we are not likely to obtain. The power 
 which scares away our confidence, and obliges us to embark on 
 the troubled waters of political strife, is Eussia. If we were 
 assured that Eussia would remain within the limits of her pre- 
 sent frontiers, or would stir no further than was necessary to 
 protect those frontiers, we might fold our hands in peace, care* 
 less of the Turcomans, careless of Kashgar, careless even of 
 the repellent attitude of Cabul ; but past experience tells us 
 that it would be folly to pin our faith on such an issue. Obser- 
 vation shows that whether it be from accident or from design, 
 the continuous advance of Eussia towards India is certain, and 
 that we must prepare, therefore, for the contact. The present 
 expedition against the Turcomans is merely one of a series of 
 movements that will almost infallibly lead the Eussians to 
 Merv. The stereotyped mode of proceeding in such cases 
 would be to ask for explanations, and, if necessary, to protest ; 
 but knowing as we do that we have no means of effectually 
 arresting the march of the troops, is it wise or dignified thus to 
 commit ourselves to a mere "brutum fulmen?" We have already 
 pointed out the complications that are almost certain to arise 
 if the Turcomans are driven up the Murghab into the Afghan 
 hills, and our representations have been treated with a studied 
 indifference, which certainly does not encourage their repeti- 
 tion. We might possibly, by interference in Persia, retard, or 
 even frustrate, a Eussian movement upon Merv ; but such an 
 intervention would be costly in its conduct, and uncertain in 
 its issue, besides entailing on us the possible responsibility of 
 defending Persia from subsequent attack. 
 
 Our proper course, then, as it seems to me, is in the first 
 place to assure ourselves of the principles of the policy that we 
 are in future to pursue in Central Asia, and in the second place 
 to keep the execution of that policy exclusively under our own 
 .control, and as far as possible in our own hands. 
 
338 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 There have been — I know not if there are — politicians who, 
 in considering the possible invasion of India by a Russian 
 army, have advised us to fight upon the Indus. Their argu- 
 ment is simply this, that the further Russia advances from her 
 base the weaker she becomes, owing to extended communica- 
 tions and the awakened hostility of the nations on whom she 
 tramples in her progress ; while, of course, the nearer we 
 remain to our resources, to our depots, our magazines, and 
 especially to our sea base, the stronger is our military position ; 
 but this view of the question entirely leaves out of consideration 
 the discouraging — nay, the disastrous — moral effect that would 
 be produced in India by our remaining inactive and apparently 
 paralysed until called on to stake our empire on a frontier 
 battle ; and it equally ignores the danger of our fair provinces 
 being desolated under such circumstances by hordes of barba- 
 rians, who, in thirst of plunder, would accompany the European 
 invaders, — the descendants of those wild warriors who rode with 
 Nadir Shah to Delhi. There is not, of course, at present — 
 and probably there never will be — any question of such an 
 extreme alternative ; but as a mere matter of argument it seems 
 like fatuity to pretend to set off the vital danger of defeat on our 
 immediate frontier against the possible inconvenience of incurring 
 the hostility of the mountain tribes by a forward movement. 
 
 Taking it for granted, then, that we shall never wait to be 
 attacked, in which case the troubles in our rear would probably 
 be more serious than those in front, the next point to consider 
 is how and where we are to meet the enemy. At what point 
 are we prepared to say to Russia, " Thus far shalt thou go and 
 no further?" Along the northern limits of India and its 
 dependencies Russia has herself drawn a line — the line of the 
 Oxus — which she is bound not to transgress ; but this limitation 
 hardly meets the general question, since the road into India from 
 Russia's European base is not from the northward across the 
 Hindu-kush to Cabul, but from the north-westward by Merv, 
 Herat, and Candahar, and upon this line there has been hitherto 
 no understanding as to a finality of advance, nor perhaps is it 
 advisable that there should be an understanding which would 
 hamper England but leave Russia free. Without, therefore, 
 
Ch. VI.] LATEE PHASES OE CENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 359 
 
 making any offensive notification to Eussia about the limitation 
 of her advance, and reserving to ourselves the right, in the 
 interests of the Afghans, to impede her occupation of Merv if 
 it seem advisable, I submit that we should at any rate make up 
 our own minds that she shall not follow up the Murgh&b valley 
 from Merv into the Afghan territory unopposed. In fact the 
 facility of taking Her&t by a " coup-de-main " from Merv is so 
 patent, while the consequences of that movement to British 
 India might be so fatal, that it seems a fair matter for conside- 
 ration whether the Eussian occupation of the one city should 
 not be immediately followed by the British occupation of the 
 other. Should the crisis be delayed for another year or two — 
 and it seems only a fair surmise that it will be so delayed — the 
 clouds that now obscure the Cabul horizon will in all proba- 
 bility be blown away, and Shir All will then be the first to 
 suggest the necessity of holding the "key of India" with a 
 British garrison. 
 
 To some Indian statesmen, — and especially to those who have 
 been bred up in the modern school of political puritanism, — 
 the notion of occupying Her£t with a British force, under any 
 conceivable circumstances, may appear wild and extravagant. 
 Visions will arise on their troubled imaginations of murdered 
 envoys, of imprisoned ladies, of decimated legions, of England's 
 honour trailed in the dust, of defeat, of bankruptcy, of ruin. 
 It is time that all this puerile absurdity, the stale refuse of a 
 bygone period of panic, should cease. I am not insensible to 
 the gravity of the step suggested, to the many weighty objections 
 that may be urged against sending another British army above 
 the passes, on the score of expense, and especially on account 
 of the danger of reviving dormant enmities and bringing on 
 political complications both with Persia and with Cabul ; but, 
 in a professional point of view, the movement on Her£t would 
 be a mere bagatelle. If the Amir of Cabul, indeed, concurred 
 in the operation, as an auxiliary measure of Afghan defence, 
 the expedition, advancing from Scinde by Quetta and Canda- 
 har to Herat, would realize probably what was formerly promised 
 to LordKeane's army, "a military promenade," with just enough 
 variety to break the monotony of a march, but hardly enough 
 
360 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 to provoke a sense of danger. The distance, it must be re- 
 membered, from our base in Upper Scinde to Herat is consider- 
 ably less than the distance from Orenburg to Khiva or from 
 the Caspian to Merv, while the country to be traversed is far 
 better provided with carriage and supplies, and the tribes on 
 the line of march, even if they were disposed to resist, would 
 be less formidable opponents than the Kirghiz and Turco- 
 mans. Of course, if the perversity of the Amir were to con- 
 tinue, and he were inclined to thwart the expedition from 
 feelings of jealousy or from a mistrust of our intentions, the 
 difficulties of the march would be much increased, and our 
 preparations would require to be made upon a larger scale, in- 
 cluding, perhaps, a demonstration at the mouth of the Khyber ; 
 but under no circumstances need the expeditionary column, as 
 far as I can form an opinion, exceed a strength of 10,000 men 
 (the greater part being, of course, Europeans), 5000 being 
 allotted to the garrison of Herat, and 3000 to Candahar, 
 while 1000 men might occupy Quetta and Pishin, keeping up 
 the communications in the lower section of the line, and the 
 remaining 1000 would be distributed between Girishk and 
 Farreh, so as to connect Candahar with Herat. 
 
 It would be premature, perhaps, at present to discuss in any 
 detail the political arrangements that might be rendered neces- 
 sary in order to support this large military operation, since so 
 very much must depend on the contemporary march of events 
 both in Eussia and in India. I would not propose, under exist- 
 ing circumstances, that a British force should occupy Cabul, or 
 that we should interfere with the Government of the Amir. 
 It should be rather understood that we had no views of ag- 
 grandizement or territorial conquest, but, on the contrary, that 
 the occupation of Candahar and Herat was purely a measure of 
 military defence forced upon us by the aggressive attitude of 
 Eussia. If the Amir went along with us in this policy, and 
 placed the resources of Western Afghanistan at our disposal for 
 the purposes of the expedition, — as was the case in our former 
 occupation of the country, — there would be no occasion to super- 
 sede the ordinary civil administration, or, in fact, to behave 
 otherwise than as temporary visitors in a friendly country. 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OF CENTRAL ASIA QUESTION. 361 
 
 The Amir's officers would collect the revenues and be respon- 
 sible for the maintenance of discipline and order, merely 
 attending to our requisitions, and treating us as an auxiliary- 
 army of occupation ; or if it were found that this double juris- 
 diction produced friction and tended to disorder, we might 
 lease Candahar and Herat from the Amir for the time being, 
 paying him a liberal sum as rental, and administering the dis- 
 tricts through our own officers. I can see no reason why we 
 should not remain on terms of perfect amity and good will with 
 the Amir under such an arrangement. Our jurisdiction would 
 be restricted to the districts which comprised orflanked our lines 
 of communications, to Shawl and Pishin, the plain of Candahar, 
 the lower valleys of the Turnuk and Arghand£b, Girishk and 
 Zamin-Dawer, Farreh, Sabzar, and the fertile plain of Herat. 
 The Amir would rule over all the rest of Afghanistan, from 
 Mymeneh to Wakhan, from Kelat-i-Ghilzye to the Khyber, and 
 he would receive for the first time since he rose to power a good 
 surplus revenue from Candahar and Herat. 
 
 What this occupation might lead to it is impossible to say. 
 Kussia might recoil from contact with us, or we might mutually 
 retire to a convenient distance from each other, or in our re- 
 spective positions at Merv and Herat, Russia being able to draw 
 on her European resources through the Oxus and the Caspian, 
 while a railway through Candahar connected our advanced 
 garrison with the Indus, we might lay the foundation of that 
 limitary relationship along the whole line of frontier, which, 
 although unsuited to the present state of affairs in Central 
 Asia, must inevitably be the ultimate condition of our joint 
 dominion in the East. 
 
 And here I might conclude this outline sketch of our pro- 
 posed policy in Central Asia were it not that the argument 
 seems imperfect without a brief notice of some of the drawbacks 
 and objections which maybe used on the other side. The first 
 question that is likely to be asked is, What is the particular evil 
 or clanger to be apprehended from the presence of the Russians 
 at Merv, or even at Herat, which can require to be counteracted 
 by so enormously expensive a measure of defence ? 
 
 The answer to this question would be to the following effect. 
 
362 
 
 ENGLAND AND EUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Oh. VI. 
 
 Russia by advancing on Merv evidently means mischief. She 
 would never embark on an enterprise of so perilous a nature 
 for mere purposes of trade or police. Political objects of high 
 import could alone justify the movement. Those objects 
 necessarily point to Herit, which would lie at the mercy of a 
 European power holding Merv, and from whence India would 
 be seriously threatened. Her&t possesses natural advantages 
 of quite an exceptional importance. It is the frontier town 
 between Persia and India. It is connected by high roads with 
 the capitals of all the surrounding countries, with Cabul 
 through the Haz&reh hills, with Balkh and Bokhara through 
 Mymeneh, with Khiva through Merv, with Meshed, with Yezd 
 and Isfahan, with Seistan and with Candahar. It enjoys an 
 admirable climate, and is situated in the midst of one of the 
 most fertile and populous valleys in Asia. Above all, the city 
 itself is surrounded by earth works of the most colossal 
 character, dating from pre-historic times, and which, with the 
 adaptations and improvements of modern science, might be 
 rendered quite impregnable to an Asiatic force.* Russia in 
 possession of Herat would have a gripe on the throat of India. 
 She would, indeed, in virtue of the position, command the 
 military resources, both of Persia and Afghanistan, and would 
 thus oblige us at once to increase our frontier army by at least 
 20,000 fresh British troops. Viewing, then, the question as 
 merely one of finance, it may be assumed that our advance 
 above the passes and occupation of Herat would be the cheapest 
 insurance against Russia that we could effect for the benefit of 
 our great Indian estate. Let it be further remembered that 
 all these considerations have been already discounted by our 
 statesmen in regard to the smaller question of a Persian occu- 
 
 * The city of Herat occupies an a wet ditch of 45 feet in width and 16 
 
 area of nearly a mile square, and is feet in depth ; and an ark or citadel 
 
 surrounded by an earth-work, which of considerable strength. A most' 
 
 measures about 250 feet in width at elaborate report on the defences of 
 
 the base, and from 50 to 60 feet in Herat, extending over 30 pages, by 
 
 height, and which is surmounted by a Major Sanders, Bengal Engineers, who 
 
 wall, 14 feet thick at the base, 9 feet visited the place in 1838, after the 
 
 thick at the top, aud 18 feet high, ex- Persian siege, is to be found in M'Gre- 
 
 clusive of the parapet. There is also gor's Central Asia, Part II. p. 341. 
 
Ch. VI.] LATER PHASES OF OENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 363 
 
 pation of Herat. "We sent a considerable expedition to the 
 Gulf in order to oblige Persia to raise the siege of Her&t in 
 1838, and when Persian troops occupied the place in 1856, we 
 actually went to war with the Shah for the purpose of com- 
 pelling their withdrawal. If, then, such measures were justi- 
 fiable in order to prevent the Western Afghan capital from 
 falling into the hands of Persia, who was only to be feared as 
 the minion or precursor of Russia, much more must they be 
 required when the danger comes directly from Russia herself. 
 I will not pretend to calculate the cost of sending an expedition 
 to Herat. Any estimate, based on the uncertain premises which 
 are alone at present available would be fallacious ; but I may 
 point out that the expenses of our defensive position, however 
 great, must be far less than those encountered by Russia in con- 
 structing and maintaining her elaborate system of attack. For 
 when Russia is established at Merv, and has completed the 
 communications of that post with the Caspian on one side and 
 with the Oxus and Turkestan on the other, she will have at 
 least 50,000 soldiers in Central Asia, and it is not too much to 
 assume that the main object of bringing that large body of 
 troops into the field, towards whose support the conquered 
 Uzbeg States contribute little or nothing, will have been to 
 enable her to threaten India. 
 
 There is one other aspect of the question that requires ex- 
 planation. Some of our best authorities on Central Asian 
 politics maintain that not only should we incur an enormous 
 and useless expenditure in advancing to meet Russia above the 
 passes, but that we should be intensifying tenfold the difficulties 
 of our position. They believe that we should everywhere meet 
 with hatred and resistance, that we should thus throw the 
 Afghans into the hands of Russia, who would, in fact, when she 
 advanced, be hailed by them as a deliverer rather than opposed 
 as an invader. My own experience points in an exactly con- 
 trary direction, and I am happy to find my views corroborated 
 by the independent testimony of our latest travellers.* Be- 
 
 * The following extracts from Dr. the Indus to the Tigris," page 148, 
 Bellew's recent work, entitled "From convey his impressions derived from 
 
364 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE EAST. [Ch. VI. 
 
 lieving, as I do, the Western Afghans to be the most contemp- 
 tible of enemies, and hardly, therefore, caring to consider the 
 possibility of a skirmish in the Bolan or Khojek passes, the 
 only defensible positions on the line from Scinde to Herat, I 
 still feel satisfied that we should generally receive the warm 
 support of the great mass of the population in the districts that 
 we traversed. The Syuds of Pishin, the Atchikzyes of the 
 Khojek, who adhered to us in all our troubles in 1841-42, 
 the Parsiwan peasantry of Candahar, the mercantile and agri- 
 cultural classes throughout the country, would one and all 
 throng to us for support and protection. Mindful of past 
 benefits, hopeful of future favours, they would bring in their 
 camels from the desert and empty their granaries of corn to 
 supply our wants, as they did in those days when, although 
 Ghizni and Cabul were lost and an army had perished in the 
 passes, we were safe and strong and triumphant at Candahar. 
 The only parties from whom we should experience ill-will 
 would be the priesthood and a few of the Durani chiefs ; and 
 they might be called upon to retire to Cabul. Most assuredly, 
 as far as the disposition of the natives is concerned, we should 
 not have more difficulty in governing Candahar and Herat than 
 the Russians encounter in governing Tashkend and Samarcand ; 
 whilst our long familiarity with Eastern administration, our 
 special knowledge of Western Afghanistan, our consideration 
 
 personal observation of the present short-lived British rule in this province 
 
 feelings of the inhabitants of Can- when we consider that our occupation 
 
 dahar. of the country was but a military 
 
 "The discontent of the people is aggression, 
 universal, and many a secret prayer "But even if they had never had a 
 
 is offered up for the speedy return practical experience of British rule, 
 
 of the British, and many a sigh ex- the desire of the Kandaharis for the 
 
 presses the regret that they ever left establishment of our authority, and 
 
 the country. Our just rule and extension of the British government 
 
 humauity, our care of the friendless to their province, is explained by the 
 
 sick, our charitable treatment of the glowing accounts they receive from 
 
 poor, and the wealth we scattered their returning merchants of the pros- 
 
 amongst the people, are now remem- perity, happiness, and liberty that 
 
 bered with gratitude, and eager is the reign in India, whilst such accounts 
 
 hope of our return. This is not an ex- render them more impatient of the 
 
 .aggerated picture, and speaks well tyranny under which they are forced 
 
 for the philanthropic character of the to groan." 
 
Ch. VI.] LATEE PHASES OF OENTEAL ASIA QUESTION. 365 
 
 for Mahomedan prejudices, our prestige, our high reputation 
 for justice and good faith, ought to make the task of maintain- 
 ing the position far more easy to us than to our less expe- 
 rienced Northern neighbours.* 
 
 I will only say one word in conclusion, that I counsel nothing 
 rash or premature. If Eussia remained encamped on the 
 Caspian, we should not, of course, leave the valley of the Indus. 
 So long as she held aloof from Merv, we should hold aloof from 
 Herat; but if she deliberately threw down the gauntlet, she 
 must expect it to be taken up. We could not, as the guardians 
 of the interests of India, permit her, on the pretext of curbing 
 the Turcomans or establishing a trade route through Asia, to 
 take up a position unopposed on the Murghab, which would 
 compromise the safety of Herat. That city is both strategically 
 and politically an indispensable bulwark of India, and we can- 
 not and will not allow its future fate to be at the disposition 
 of a foreign power. 
 
 December, 1874. 
 
 * The recently discovered gold field skilful European miners, duly f ur- 
 
 of Candahar, though comparatively nished with the improved machinery 
 
 worthless in the hands of the Afghans, of the present day. The auriferous 
 
 who have no mining experience what- region, indeed, along the hills to the 
 
 ever, and employ only the rudest pro- north of Candahar, is apparently so 
 
 cess in extracting the metal, would, extensive that the produce of this 
 
 according to Dr. Belle w (p. 140), who single district in our hands might very 
 
 examined the locality, yield a very well pay the whole expense of the 
 
 considerable revenue, if worked by Western Afghan occupation. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Engagement of the Persian Government regarding Herat, Jan. 25, 1853. — 
 2. Preliminary Treaty of Peshawer, March 30, 1855. — 3. Definitive Treaty of 
 Peshawer, Jan. 26, 1857.— i. Treaty of Paris with the Shah of Persia, 
 March 4, 1857.— 5. Abstract of Router's Concession, July 25, 1872. — Russian 
 Treaty with Khiva, August 25, 1873.— 7. Russian Treaty with Bokhara, 
 Sept. 28, 1873.— 8. Extracts from "Notes on Khiva," March 25, 1873.— 
 9. Russian Treaty with Yaeub Beg of Kashgar, June 8, 1872.— 10. English 
 Treaty of Commerce with the Amir of Kashgar, Feb. 2, 1874. 
 
 ENGAGEMENT OF THE PERSIAN GOVERNMENT REGARDING 
 
 HERAT. 
 
 Translation.® 
 
 15th Rebbel-oo-Sanee, 1269 (January 25, 1853). 
 
 The Persian Government engages not to send troops on any account to 
 the territory of Herat, excepting when troops from without attack that 
 place, that is to say, troops from the direction of Cabul or from Candahar, 
 or from other foreign territory ; and in case of troops being despatched 
 under such circumstances, the Persian Government binds itself that they 
 shall not enter the city of Herat, and that immediately on the retreat of 
 the foreign troops to their own country, the Persian force shall forthwith 
 return to the Persian soil without delay. 
 
 The Persian Government also engages to abstain from all interference 
 whatsoever in the internal affairs of Herat, likewise in (regard to) occu- 
 pation or taking possession, or assuming the sovereignty or government, 
 except that the same amount of interference which took place between 
 the two in the time of the late Zuheer-ood-Dowlah, Yar Mahomed Khan, 
 is to exist as formerly. The Persian Government therefore engages to 
 address a letter to Syed Mahomed Khan, acquainting him with these con- 
 ditions, and to forward it to him (by a person) accompanied by some one 
 belonging to the English Mission who may be in Meshed. 
 
 The Persian Government also engages to relinquish all claim or pre- 
 
 * This translation was made in 1857 from the original Persian, as some 
 doubt was raised as to the correctness of the translation made in 1853. 
 
APPENDIX. 367 
 
 tension to the coinage of money and to the " Khootbeh,'' or to any other 
 mark whatever of subjection or of allegiance on the part of the people of 
 Herat to Persia. But if, as in the time of the late Kamran and in that of 
 the late Yar Mahomed Khan, they should, of their own accord, send an 
 offering in money and strike it in the Shah's name, Persia will receive it 
 without making any objection. This condition will also be immediately 
 communicated to Syed Mahomed Khan. They also engage to recall Abbas 
 Koolee Khan, Peeseean, after four months from the date of his arrival, so 
 that he may not reside there permanently ; and hereafter no permanent 
 agent will be placed in Herat, but intercourse will be maintained as in 
 the time of Yar Mahomed Khan. Neither will they maintain a permanent 
 agent on the part of Her&t in Tehran. There will be the same relations 
 and privileges which existed in Kamran's time, and in that of the late 
 Yar Mahomed Khan. For instance, if at any time it should be necessary 
 for the punishment of the Toorkomans, or in case of disturbance or re- 
 bellion in the Shah's dominions, that the Persian Government should 
 receive assistance from the Heratees, similar to that afforded by the late 
 Yar Mahomed Khan, they may, as formerly, render assistance of their own 
 accord and free will, but not of a permanent nature. 
 
 The Persian Government further engages, unconditionally and without 
 exception, to release and set free all the chiefs of Herat who are in 
 Meshed or in Tehran or in any other part of Persia, and not to receive 
 any offenders, prisoners, or suspected persons whatsoever from Syed 
 Mahomed Khan, with the exception of such persons as having been 
 banished by Syed Mahomed Khan from Herat, may come here and 
 themselves desire to remain, or to enter the service. These will be 
 treated with kindness and favour, as formerly. District orders will be 
 issued immediately to the Prince Governor of Khorassan to carry out these 
 engagements. 
 
 The above six enga gements on the part of the Persian Government are 
 to be observed and to have effect ; and the Persian Ministers, notwith- 
 standing the rights which they possess in Herat solely out of friendship, 
 and to satisfy the English Government, have entered into these engage- 
 ments with the English Government, so long as there is no interference 
 whatsoever on its part in the internal affairs of Herat and its dependencies ; 
 otherwise these engagements will be null and void, and as if they never 
 had existed or been written. And if any foreign (State), either Afghan 
 or other, should desire to interfere with or encroach upon the territory of 
 Herat, or its dependencies, and the Persian Ministers should make the 
 request, the British Government are not to be remiss in restraining them 
 and in giving their friendly advice, so that Herat may remain in its own 
 state of independence. 
 
 Seal and autograph of the Sadb Azim. 
 
 Translated by 
 
 (Signed) Bonalb Thomson. 
 
368 APPENDIX. 
 
 II. 
 
 TREATY CONCLUDED BETWEEN SIR JOHN LAWRENCE, CHIEF 
 COMMISSIONER OP THE PUNJAB AND SIRDAR GHOLAM 
 HYDER KHAN AT PESHAWUR, March 30, 1855. 
 
 Article I. — There shall be perpetual peace and friendship between the 
 Honourable East India Company and His Highness Dost Mahomed Khan, 
 The Amir of Kabul, his heirs and successors. 
 
 Article II. — The Honourable East India Company engages to respect 
 and never interfere with the territories now in possession of His Highness 
 the Amir. 
 
 Article III. — His Highness Dost Mahomed Khan engages, on his own 
 part, and on the part of his heirs and successors, to respect the territories 
 belonging to the Honourable East India Company ; to be the friends of 
 its friends, and the enemies of its enemies. 
 
 III. 
 
 Articles of Agreement made, at Peshawur, on the 26th January 1857 
 (corresponding with Jamadi-ul-awwal, A.H. 1273) between Amir Dost 
 Muhammad Khan, Ruler of Kabul, and of those countries of Afgha- 
 nistan now in his possession, on his own part, and Sir John Law- 
 rence, K.C.B., Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, and Lieut.-Colonel 
 H. B. Edwards, C.B., Commissioner of Peshawur, on the part of the 
 Honourable East India Company, under the authority of the Right 
 Honourable Charles John Viscount Canning, Governor-General of 
 India in Council. 
 
 1. — Whereas the Shah of Persia, contrary to his engagement with the 
 British Government, has taken possession of Herat, and has manifested an 
 intention to interfere in the present possessions of Amir Dost Muhammad 
 Khan, and there is now war between the British and Persian Govern- 
 ments ; therefore, the Honourable East India Company, to aid Amir Dost 
 Muhammad Khan to defend and maintain his present possessions in Balkh, 
 Kabul and Kandahar against Persia, hereby agrees, out of friendship, to 
 give the said Amir one lakh of Company's rupees monthly during the 
 war with Persia, on the following conditions : — 
 
 2. — The Amir shall keep his present number of cavalry and artillery, 
 and shall maintain not less than 18,000 infantry, of which 13,000 shall 
 be regulars, divided into 13 regiments. 
 
APPENDIX. 369 
 
 3. — The Amir is to make his own arrangements for receiving the 
 money at the British treasuries, and conveying it through his own 
 country. 
 
 4. — British officers, with suitable establishments, and orderlies, shall 
 be deputed, at the pleasure of the British Government, to Kabul or Kan- 
 dahar or Balkh, or all three places, or wherever an Afghan army be 
 assembled to act against the Persians. It will be their duty to see gene- 
 rally that the subsidy granted to the Amir be devoted to the military pur- 
 poses for which it is given, and to keep their own Government informed 
 of all affairs. They will have nothing to do with the payment of the 
 troops, or advising the Kabul Government, and they will not interfere in 
 any way in the internal administration of the country. The Amir will be 
 responsible for their safety and honourable treatment while in his country, 
 and for keeping them acquainted with all military and political matters 
 connected with the war. 
 
 5. — The Amir of Kabul shall appoint and maintain a vakil at 
 Peshawur. 
 
 6. — The subsidy of one lakh per mensem shall cease from the date on 
 which peace is made between the British and Persian Governments, or at 
 any previous time, at the will and pleasure of the Governor-General o£ 
 India. 
 
 7. — Whenever the subsidy shall cease, the British officers shall be 
 withdrawn from the Amir's country ; but, at the pleasure of the British 
 Government, a vakil, not a European officer, shall remain at Kabul, on 
 the part of the British Government, and one at Peshawur on the part of 
 the Government of Kabul. 
 
 8. — The Amir shall furnish a sufficient escort for the British officers 
 from the British border when going to the Amir's country, and to the 
 British border when returning. 
 
 9. — The subsidy shall commence from 1st January, 1857, and be pay- 
 able at the British treasury, one month in arrears. 
 
 10. — The five lakhs of rupees which have been already sent to the 
 Amir (three to Kandahar and two to Kabul) will not be counted in this 
 agreement. They are a free and separate gift from the Honourable East 
 India Company ; but the sixth lakh, now in the hands of the Mahajans of 
 Kabul, which was sent for another purpose, will be one of the instalments 
 under this agreement. 
 
 11. — This agreement in no way supersedes the treaty made at Pesha- 
 wur on 30th March, 1855 (corresponding with the 11th of Bajjab 1271), by 
 which the Amir of Kabul engaged to be the friend of the friends, and 
 enemy of the enemies, of the Honourable East India Company ; and the 
 Amir of Kabul, in the spirit of that treaty, agrees to communicate to the 
 British Government any overtures he may receive from Persia, or the 
 allies of Persia, during the war, or while there is friendship between the 
 Kabul and British Governments. 
 
370 APPENDIX. 
 
 12. — In consideration of the friendship existing between the British 
 Government and Amir Dost Mahomed Khan, the British Government 
 engages to overlook the past hostilities of all the tribes of Afghanistan, 
 and on no account to visit them with punishment. 
 
 13. — Whereas the Amir has expressed a wish to have 4000 muskets 
 given him in addition to the 4000 already given, it is agreed that 4000 
 muskets shall be sent by the British Government to Tall ; whence the 
 Amir's people will convey them with their own carriage. 
 
 IV. 
 
 TREATY OF PEACE BETWEEN HER. MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF 
 THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GBEAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, 
 AND HIS MAJESTY THE SHAH OF PERSIA.— March 4, 1857. 
 
 In the name of God, the Almighty, the All-Merciful, Her Majesty the 
 Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His 
 Majesty the Shah of Persia, being both equally and sincerely animated by 
 a desire to put a stop to the evils of a war, which is contrary to their 
 friendly wishes and dispositions, and to re-establish on a solid basis the 
 relations of amity, which had so long existed between the two exalted 
 States, by means of a peace calculated for their mutual advantage and 
 benefit, have appointed as their Plenipotentiaries for carrying into effect 
 this desired object the following, that is to say : — 
 
 Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 
 Ireland — the Right Hon. Henry Richard Charles, Baron Cowley, &c. 
 
 And His Majesty the Shah of Persia — His Excellency the Abode of 
 Greatness, the Favourite of the King, Ferokh Khan, &c. 
 
 Who, having exhibited and exchanged their full powers, and found 
 them to be in due form, have agreed upon and concluded the following 
 Articles : — 
 
 Article I. — From the day of the exchange of the ratifications of the 
 present treaty there shall be perpetual peace and friendship between Her 
 Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 
 on the one part, and His Majesty the Shah of Persia on the other, as like- 
 wise between their respective successors, dominions, and subjects. 
 
 Article II. — Peace being happily concluded between their said Ma- 
 jesties, it is hereby agreed that the forces of Her Majesty the Queen shall 
 evacuate the Persian territory, subject to conditions and stipulations here- 
 after specified. 
 
 Article III. — The high contracting parties stipulate that all prisoners 
 taken during the war, by either belligerent, shall be immediately 
 liberated. 
 
APPENDIX. 371 
 
 Article IV. — His Majesty the Shah of Persia engages further, im- 
 mediately, on the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty, to publish 
 a full and complete amnesty absolving all Persian subjects who may 
 have in any way been compromised by their intercourse with the British 
 forces during the war, from any responsibility for their conduct in that 
 respect, so that no persons, of whatever degree, shall be exposed to 
 vexation, persecution, or punishment on that account. 
 
 Article V. — His Majesty the Shah of Persia engages further to take 
 immediate measures for withdrawing from the territory and city of Herat, 
 and from every other part of Afghanistan, the Persian troops and 
 authorities now stationed therein ; such withdrawal to be effected within 
 three months from the date of the exchange of the ratifications of this 
 treaty. 
 
 Article VI. — His Majesty the Shah of Persia agrees to relinquish all 
 claims to sovereignty over the territory and city of Herat and the countries 
 of Afghanistan, and never to demand from the chiefs of Herat, or of the 
 countries of Afghanistan, any marks of obedience, such as the coinage, or 
 " Khotbeh," or tribute. 
 
 His Majesty further engages to abstain hereafter from all interference 
 with the internal affairs of Afghanistan. His Majesty promises to 
 recognize the independence of Herat, and of the whole of Afghanistan, 
 and never to attempt to interfere with the independence of those States. 
 
 Incase of differences arising between the Government of Persia and 
 the countries of Herat and Afghanistan, the Persian Government engages 
 to refer them for adjustment to the friendly offices of the British Govern- 
 ment, and not to take up arms unless those friendly offices fail of effect. 
 
 The British Government, on their part, engage at all times to exert 
 their influence with the States of Afghanistan to prevent any cause of 
 umbrage being given by them, or by any of them to the Persian Govern- 
 ment ; and the British Government, when appealed to by the Persian Govern- 
 ment, in the event of difficulties arising, will use their best endeavours to 
 compose such differences in a manner just and honourable to Persia.' 
 
 Article VII. — In case of any violation of the Persian frontier by any 
 of the states referred to above, the Persian Government shall have the 
 right, if due satisfaction is not given, to undertake military operations for 
 the repression and punishment of the aggressors ; but it is distinctly 
 understood and agreed to, that any military force of the Shah which may 
 cross the frontier for the above-mentioned purpose, shall retire within its 
 own territory as soon as its object is accomplished, and that the exercise 
 of the above-mentioned right is not to be made a pretext for the permanent 
 occupation by Persia, or for the annexation to the Persian dominions, of 
 any town or portion of the said States. 
 
 Article VIII. — The Persian Government engages to set at liberty 
 without ransom, immediately after the exchange of the ratifications of 
 this treaty, all prisoners taken during the operations of the Persian troops 
 in Afghanistan and all Afghans who may be detained either as hostages 
 or as captives on political grounds in any part of the Persian dominions, 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 APPENDIX. 
 
 shall, in lite manner be set free ; provided that the Afghans, on their 
 part, set at liberty, without ransom, the Persian prisoners and captives 
 who are in the power of Afghans. 
 
 Commissioners on the part of the two contracting powers shall, if 
 necessary, be named to carry out the provisions of this Article. 
 
 Article IX. — The high contracting parties engage that in the estab- 
 lishment and recognition of Consuls, General Consuls, Vice-Consuls, and 
 Consular Agents, each shall be placed in the dominions of the other on the 
 footing of the most favoured nation ; and that the treatment of their 
 respective subjects and their trade, shall also, in every respect, be placed 
 on the footing of the treatment of the subjects and commerce of the most 
 favoured nation. 
 
 Article X. — Immediately after the ratifications of this treaty have 
 been exchanged, the British Mission shall return to Teheran, when the 
 Persian Government agrees to receive it with the apojogies and ceremonies 
 specified in the separate note signed this day by the Plenipotentiaries of 
 the high contracting parties. 
 
 Aeticle XI. — The Persian Government engages, within three months 
 after the return of the British Mission to Teheran, to appoint a Commission, 
 who, in conjunction with a Commissioner to be appointed by the British 
 Government, shall examine into, and decide upon, the pecuniary claims 
 of all British subjects upon the Government of Persia, and shall pay such 
 of those claims as may be pronounced just, either in one sum or by 
 instalments, within a period not exceeding one year from the date of the 
 award of the Commissioners. And the same Commissioners shall examine 
 into and decide upon, the claims upon the Persian Government of all 
 Persian subjects, or the subjects of other powers, who, up to the period 
 of the departure of the British Mission from Teheran, were under British 
 protection, which they have not since renounced. 
 
 Aeticle XII. — Saving the provisions in the latter part of the pre- 
 ceding Article, the British Government will renounce the right of protecting 
 hereafter any Persian subject not actually in the employment of the 
 British Mission, or of British Consuls, General Consuls, Vice-Consuls or 
 Consular Agents, provided that no such right is accorded to or exercised 
 by, any other foreign powers ; but in this as in all other respects, 
 the British Government requires, and the Persian Government engages, 
 that the same privileges and immunities shall in Persia be conferred upon 
 and shall be enjoyed by the British Government, its servants, and its 
 subjects, and that the same respect and consideration shall be shown for 
 them, and shall be enjoyed by them, as are conferred upon and enjoyed 
 by, and shown to the most favoured foreign Government, its servants 
 and its subjects. 
 
 Aeticle XIII. — The high contracting parties hereby renew the agree- 
 ment entered into by them in the month of August 1851 (Shawal 1267), 
 for the suppression of the slave trade in the Persian Gulf, and engage 
 further that the said agreement shall continue in force after the date at 
 which it expires, that is after the month of August 1862, for the further 
 
APPENDIX. 373 
 
 space of ten years, and for so long afterwards as neither of the high 
 contracting parties shall, by a formal declaration, annul it ; such declara- 
 tion not to take effect until one year after it is made. 
 
 Article XIV. — Immediately on the exchange of the ratifications of 
 this treaty, the British troops will desist from all acts of hostility against 
 Persia ; and the British Government engages, further, that as soon as the 
 stipulations in regard to the evacuation, by the Persian troops, of Herat 
 and the Afghan territories, as well as in regard to the reception of the 
 British Mission at Teheran, shall have been carried into full effect, the 
 British troops shall, without delay, be withdrawn from all ports, places, 
 and islands belonging to Persia ; but the British Government engages 
 that, during this interval, nothing shall be designedly done by the com- 
 mander of the British troops to weaken the allegiance of the Persian 
 subjects towards the Shah, which allegiance it is, on the contrary, their 
 earnest desire to confirm ; and, further, the British Government engages 
 that, as far as possible, the subjects of Persia shall be secured against 
 inconvenience from the presence of the British troops, and that all 
 supplies which may be required for the use of those troops and which the 
 Persian Government engages to direct its authorities to assist them in 
 procuring, shall be paid for at the fair market price by the British comr 
 missariat, immediately on delivery. 
 
 Article XV. — The present treaty shall be ratified, and the ratifications 
 exchanged at Baghdad, in the space of three months, or sooner, if 
 possible. 
 
 In witness whereof the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the 
 same, and have affixed thereto the seal of their arms. 
 
 Done at Paris, in quadruplicate, this Fourth day of the month of 
 March, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty 
 Seven. 
 
 (Signed) Cowley. 
 
 (Signed) Feroks (in Persian.) 
 
 V. 
 
 CONCESSION OF THE PERSIAN GOVERNMENT TO BARON 
 EEUTEB (ABSTRACT), 
 
 July 25, 1872. 
 
 I. Authorises Baron Renter to establish in London a company, or any 
 number of companies, for carrying out the works specified in the 
 concession. 
 
 II. Authorises Baron Reuter, or his associates, or representatives, to 
 construct a railway between the Caspian and the Persian Gulf, as well as 
 any other railways he may think fit. This important privilege excludes 
 competition, and is awarded for a period of seventy years. 
 
374 APPENDIX. 
 
 III. Extends the railway privilege to tramways, referring to Articles 
 IV. V. VI. for the rules to be observed in establishing and working these 
 two kinds of lines. 
 
 IV. Relates to the land required for the construction of railways, 
 tramways, and the buildings and works connected with them. The Govern- 
 ment land wanted will be handed over free of expense ; the land belonging 
 to private persons may be appropriated at current prices. In the land 
 required for the line is included the permanent way wide enough for a 
 double set of metals, and a space of thirty metres on either side. 
 
 V. Allows the concessionaire (who is throughout identical with the 
 company or companies representing him), the gratuitous use of the stone, 
 sand, gravel, &c, on the Government domains, which may be required in 
 the construction and maintenance of the works. The Government also 
 engages to see that the persons employed by the company be supplied 
 with provisions, beasts of burden, &c, charges not exceeding the ordinary 
 prices of the country. 
 
 VI. Enacts that all the "materiel" imported by the concessionaire, or 
 company or companies, both for railway or other purposes, shall be exempt 
 from any duty, toll, custom, or excise whatsoever. All the concessionaire's 
 lands, works, and employes will be free from any impost whatever ; all 
 business will be conducted free from impost ; all his products, manufac- 
 tures, &c, will be allowed to circulate in the country, or to be exported 
 from the country, free of impost. 
 
 VII. Stipulates that the details of the construction and working of the 
 line shall be laid down in a " cahier de charge," to be appended to the 
 concession. 
 
 VIII. Demands that the sum of 40,OOOZ. be deposited as caution money 
 in the Bank of England, in the name of the Persian Government and the 
 concessionaire. Should the works not be begun within fifteen months of 
 the date of the concession, the caution money will be forfeited to the 
 Persian Government. If the works are begun within the time specified, 
 the caution money reverts to the concessionaire, in exchange for a certifi- 
 cate from the Government of Resht, confirming the arrival at Enzeli of the 
 quantity of rails necessary for the construction of the line between Eesht 
 and Teheran. 
 
 IX. Allots to the Government 20 per cent, of the net profits resulting 
 from the working of the line. 
 
 X. The line, or lines, after a period of seventy years, revert to the 
 Government free of charge, unless another agreement has been previously 
 concluded between the Government and the concessionaire or concession- 
 aires. As to the buildings, &c, belonging to the line, or fines, they will 
 have to be paid for under any circumstances by the Government at the 
 prices accorded by the most liberal governments on such occasions. 
 
 XI. and XII. Introduces the subject of mines. With the exception 
 of gold, silver and precious stones, any mine situate on Government 
 land may be appropriated and worked by the concessionaire free of 
 
APPENDIX. 375 
 
 charge, his sole obligation consisting in handing over to the Government 
 15 per cent, of the net proceeds. Any mine situate on private property, 
 unless it has been worked five years previous to the concessionaire ex- 
 pressing a wish to acquire it, will have likewise to be handed over to him. 
 Any mine discovered by the concessionaire may be bought by him at the 
 price currently paid for the mere superfices of the grounds in which it is 
 situate. 
 
 XIII. The land required to work the mines, as well as the land to put 
 them in communication with railway, tramway, or high road, if belonging 
 to the State, is handed over gratis to the concessionaire. The exemptions 
 accorded to railway and tramway in Article VI. are expressly extended to 
 the mines, which likewise come under the seventy years' clause contained 
 inX. 
 
 XIV. Accords to the concessionaire for seventy years the sole and ex- 
 clusive privilege of making the most of the Government forests, all the 
 land not cultivated up to the date of the concession being expressly 
 included in .this clause ; 15 per cent, of the proceeds of the forests belong 
 to the Government. If the concessionaire cuts down a wood, the land 
 thus gained must be sold to him in preference to other buyers. 
 
 XV. Passes on to canals, wells, and other subjects connected with the 
 natural and artificial water-courses of the country. All such works are 
 the exclusive privilege of the concessionaire who receives the necessary 
 land without payment, but undertakes to indemnify those proprietors who 
 are injured by the innovation. Any cultivated land made, productive 
 by these works, belongs to the concessionaire, who will enter into an 
 understanding with the Government respecting the price of the water 
 to be sold. 15 per cent, of the net profits of the works belong to the 
 Government. 
 
 XVI. Empowers the concessionaire and his associates to raise a capital 
 of 6,Q00,000Z. by means of shares and obligations to commence the 
 construction of the railway and other works. The concessionaire to be left 
 at liberty to determine the mode of raising the sum. 
 
 XVII. Contains a guarantee of the Persian Government to Undertake 
 to pay an interest of 5 per cent., and an additional 2 per cent, as a 
 sinking fund on all capital raised or to be raised by the concessionaire, his 
 associates or representatives. 
 
 XVIII. Pledges the income of the Government mines, forests, water- 
 courses, and customs for the payment of the 7 per cent, accorded. The 
 guarantee comes into force only after the construction of the line between 
 Eesht and Isfah&w, the concessionaire, his associates, and representatives, 
 undertaking to pay interest upon the capital issued up to that time. 
 
 XIX. The Government engage to hand over the management of their 
 customs to the concessionaire or concessionaires for a period of twenty- 
 five years, beginning March 1, 1874. The concessionaires engage to pay 
 for this privilege 20,000Z. a year in excess of what the Government now 
 receive. The price thus fixed will hold good for the first five years, after 
 that period the Government to receive for the remainder of the term 60 
 
376 APPENDIX. 
 
 per cent, of the difference between the annual net proceeds and the 
 amount realized at present. 
 
 XX. Records that if the Persian Government should determine to per- 
 mit the establishment of a bank or any other credit institution in their 
 country, the concessionaire or concessionaires will be allowed the first re- 
 fusal, in preference to any other parties. 
 
 XXI. Extends this right of preference enjoyed by the concessionaire 
 to all enterprises connected with the providing gas, roads, telegraphs, 
 mills, manufactures, forges, pavement, &c. Improvements in the capital 
 and post-offices are also included in this clause. 
 
 XXII. Provides that the right accorded in this concession can be trans- 
 ferred to other parties at any time. 
 
 XXIII. Stipulates that the works connected with the mines, forests, 
 and water courses shall be begun simultaneously with the construction of 
 the line ; the Government engaging to supply the requisite amount of 
 manual labour at current prices, and to protect the agents, employes, and 
 property of the company. 
 
 XXIV. The French text of the concession, in preference to the Persian 
 text, is declared the one by which all difficulties shall be decided. 
 
 An additional Article stipulates that the 7 per cent, shall not be paid 
 by the Government direct, but be taken from the proceeds of the customs, 
 mines, forests, and water courses in case of need. 
 
 VI. 
 
 TREATY OP PEACE CONCLUDED BETWEEN GENERAL VON 
 KAUFMANN AND THE KHAN OF KHIVA UNDER DATE 
 AUGUST 25, 1873 :— 
 
 Clause I. — Seid Muhammed Rachim Bahadur Khan professes himself 
 the obedient servant of the Emperor of All the Russias. He renounces 
 the right of entertaining direct relations with neighbouring sovereigns 
 and Khans. He will neither conclude commercial nor any other treaties 
 with these sovereigns and Khans, nor will he engage in hostile operations 
 against them without the cognizance and sanction of the supreme Russian 
 authorities in Central Asia. 
 
 Clause II. — From Kukertli to the point where the most westerly 
 branch of the Amu Darya leaves the main stream, that river is to form 
 the frontier between the Russian and Khivese territories. Further down 
 the frontier runs along the most westerly branch of the river to the shore 
 of Lake Aral, then proceeds along the shore to the Promontory of Urgu 
 
APPENDIX. 377 
 
 and from the latter point follows the southern slope of the Ust Urt 
 plateau along the so-called ancient bed of the Amu. 
 
 Clause III. — All the land on the right bank of the Amu, as well as 
 the territories belonging to it, and hitherto regarded as Khivese, with all 
 inhabitants both sedentary and nomad, are ceded by the Khan to Eussia. 
 In this cession are included any districts which may have been conferred 
 by the Khan upon private persons or dignitaries. The former proprietors 
 of these districts shall be entitled to no indemnity from the Eussian 
 Government, but the Khan is at liberty to indemnify them by lands on 
 the left bank of the Amu. 
 
 Clause IV. — In the event of the Emperor of Eussia surrendering a 
 portion of the territory on the right bank of the Amu to the Khan of 
 Bokhara, the Khan of Khiva will acknowledge the latter sovereign as the 
 legitimate proprietor of the districts thus ceded, and will refrain from all 
 attempts to restore his authority in these districts. 
 
 Clause V. — Eussian steamers and other ships, whether belonging to 
 the Government or to private persons, will enjoy the right of free navi- 
 gation on the Amu ; the said right will belong exclusively to the said 
 ships. Khivese or Bokharese ships will be permitted to navigate the Amu 
 only with the special sanction of the supreme Eussian authorities in 
 Central Asia. 
 
 Clause VI. — The Eussians will have the right of constructing harbours 
 and piers at any points on the left bank of the Amu which they may 
 regard as necessary or convenient for their purposes. The Government 
 of the Khan of Khiva will be responsible for the security of these har- 
 bours and piers. In the event of any such points being selected by the 
 Eussians, the choice will require to be confirmed by the Eussian supreme 
 authorities in Central Asia. 
 
 Clause VII. — Besides theBe harbours and piers, the Eussians will be 
 entitled to have factories and storehouses on the left bank of the Amu. 
 Any lands near these factories which may be selected by the Eussian 
 supreme authorities in Central Asia will have to be given up by the 
 Khivese Government. Such lands are to be unencumbered with any 
 population, and to be sufficiently extensive to admit of the construction 
 of harbours and piers, of magazines and offices, as also of dwelling-houses 
 for those serving in the factories or having business there. It shall like- 
 wise be legal for the Eussians to establish farms and carry on agriculture 
 on these lands. The factories, with all their inhabitants, chattels, and 
 merchandise are placed under the immediate protection of the Khan's 
 Government, which will be responsible for their safety. 
 
 Clause VIII. — All towns and villages of the Khanate of Khiva will 
 henceforth be open to Eussian trade. Eussian caravans and merchants 
 will be at liberty to travel in all parts of the Khanate, and will enjoy the 
 direct and special protection of the local authorities. The Khivese 
 Government will be responsible for the security of the caravans and 
 stores. 
 
37S APPENDIX. 
 
 Clause IX. — Considering that Khivese merchants have never paid 
 zakat on the Kasalinsk road, or at Orenburg and the Caspian ports, 
 Russian merchants trading in the Khanate will be likewise exempt from 
 the payment of the zaket or any other impost on trade levied in Khiva. 
 
 Clause X. — The right of sending their goods across the Khanate free 
 of any transit dues, is expressly accorded to Eussian merchants. 
 
 Clause XL — For the better supervision of their trade, and the main- 
 tenance of direct relations with the local authorities, the Eussian merchants 
 will be entitled to keep agents in the town of Khiva, as well as in the 
 other towns of the Khanate. 
 
 Clause XII. — Eussian subjects are accorded the right of possessing 
 real property in the Khanate. Eeal property of this description may, 
 with the sanction of the Eussian supreme authorities in Central Asia, be 
 subjected to the land tax. 
 
 Clause XIII. — Commercial obligations mutually contracted by Eussians 
 and Khivese must be conscientiously fulfilled by both parties. 
 
 Clause XIV. — Any complaints or claims against Khivese subjects 
 preferred by Eussian subjects will be inquired into at once by the Khivese 
 Government, and if just, satisfied without delay. In the event of mutual 
 claims being made on each other by Eussian and Khivese subjects, the 
 Eussian claim shall be first inquired into and adjusted before the claim of 
 the Khivese is proceeded with. 
 
 Clause XV. — Any complaints or claims on Eussian subjects living in 
 the Khanate which may be preferred by Khivese, are to be inquired into 
 and decided upon by the nearest Eussian authorities. 
 
 Clause XVI. — No persons arriving from Eussia, whatever nationality 
 they may belong to, will be admitted by the Khan's Government, within 
 the Khivese frontiers unless provided with a Eussian permit. Should a 
 Eussian criminal attempt to evade pursuit by hiding in the Khivese 
 territory the Khan's Government will be obliged to take measures for his 
 apprehension, and to deliver him to the nearest Eussian authorities. 
 
 Clause XVII. — The manifesto published on July 25, by Seid 
 Muhammed Eachim Bahadur Khan, setting at liberty all slaves in the 
 Khanate and abolishing for ever slavery and the traffic in human beings 
 remains. in full force, the Khan's Government expressly engaging with all 
 its might to compel the strict and conscientious fulfilment of the provisions 
 here detailed. 
 
 Clause XVIII. — A fine of 2,200,000 roubles is hereby imposed upon 
 the Khivese Government, to cover the expenses of the Eussian Exchequer 
 in the last war, kindled by the Khivese Government and people. Con- 
 sidering, however, the scarcity of ready money in the Khanate, and more 
 especially in the coffers of the Government — considering also the diffi- 
 culty the Government would have in paying the fine within a brief period 
 — the Government is allowed the option to pay the sum exacted in instal- 
 ments, with five per cent, interest thereon, on condition that in the first 
 two years the Khivese Government is to pay 100,000 roubles annually, in 
 
APPENDIX. 379 
 
 the second two years 125,000 roubles annually in 1877 and 1878, 150,000 
 roubles each year after that, 175,000 roubles annually during the two 
 
 succeeding years, and in the year 1881 — that is, nine years hence 
 
 200,000 roubles ; and every succeeding year till the final liquidation of the 
 debt, 200,000 roubles, at the very least. The instalments to be made in 
 Russian " billets de credit " or in current Khivese coin, at the option of the 
 Khivese Government, and the first instalment to be handed over on the 
 13th of December, 1873. To facilitate the payment of the first instal- 
 ment, the Khan will be allowed to levy this year's taxes on the inhabitants 
 of the right bank of the Amoo, the amount of these taxes being calculated 
 in accordance with the existing standard of taxation, and the collection to 
 cease on December 13, unless another date should be fixed by the local 
 Russian and Khivese authorities. Subsequent instalments to be paid 
 annually on November 13, till the final liquidation of capital and interest. 
 In nineteen years after the payment of 200,000 roubles on November 13, 
 1892, there will remain still a rest of 70,054 roubles for the Government 
 of the Khan to pay, and on November 13, 1893, he will have to pay the 
 last 73,557 roubles. 
 
 Should the Khan's Government wish to shorten the term of payment, 
 it will enjoy the right of making the annual instalments greater than 
 fixed in the above. 
 
 All these stipulations have been laid down and accepted for constant 
 guidance and conscientious fulfilment by the Governor-General of 
 Turkistan, Adjutant-General Kaufmann, and by the Ruler of Khiva, 
 Seid I. Muhammed Rachim Bahadur Khan, in the gardens of Gendemain, 
 the site of the Russian camp at Khiva, on August 25, 1873, being the 1st 
 day of the month of Radshab of the year 1290. 
 
 (Signature and seal) Von Kaufmann. 
 
 (Signature and seal) Seid Muhammed Rachim Bahadur Khan. 
 
 VII. 
 
 TEXT OP THE NEW RUSSIAN TREATY WITH THE AMEER OF 
 BOKHARA, DATED SEPTEMBER 28, 1873. 
 
 Clause I. — The frontiers between the possessions of His Imperial 
 Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, and His Worship the Ameer 
 of Bokhara remain unchanged. 
 
 The Khivese territory on the right bank of the Amoo having been 
 embodied with the Russian Empire, the former frontier between Khiva 
 and Bokhara, from the Oasis of Kholat to Gugertli, is altered in this 
 wise : — The possessions of the Ameer of Bokhird are augmented by the 
 addition to them of the lands between the former Khiva-BokhArA frontier 
 
380 APPENDIX. 
 
 on the right bank of the Amoo, from Gugertli to Meschekli, and from 
 Meschekli to the point where the former Khiva-Bokhara frontier met the 
 frontier of the Russian Empire. 
 
 Clause II. — In consequence of the right bank of the Amoo being 
 severed from Khiva, the caravan roads going from Bokhara north to the 
 Russian possessions, traverse Bokharese and Russian territory exclusively. 
 The Russian and Bokharese Governments, each in its own territory, will 
 watch over the safety of these caravan roads and the commerce along 
 them. 
 
 Clause III. — Russian steamers and other vessels, whether belonging 
 to the Government or to private persons, will have the right to navigate 
 without let or hindrance the Bokharese portion of the Amoo, equally with 
 Bokharese ships. 
 
 Clause IV. — Any locality on the Bokharese banks of the Amoo which 
 the Russians may select for the construction of piers or storehouses may 
 be used by them for this purpose, the Bokharese Government being respon- 
 sible for the safety of the erections thus established. The final and 
 definitive selection of these localities depends upon the supreme Russian 
 authorities in Central Asia. 
 
 Clause V. — All the towns and villages of the Khanate of Bokhara 
 will be open to Russian commerce. Russian merchants and caravans will 
 be allowed to travel freely in the whole Khanate, and will enjoy the 
 special protection of the local authorities. The safety of the Russian 
 caravans on Bokharese territory is expressly guaranteed, by the Bokhara 
 Government. 
 
 Clause VI. — On all merchandise belonging to Russian traders, whether 
 imported from Russia to Bokhara, or from Bokhara to Russia, an ad 
 valorem tax of 2^ per cent, will be levied in Bokhara. In the Russian 
 province of Turkestan the goods mentioned in the preceding sentence are 
 to pay a tax amounting to one-fortieth of their value. No other tax, 
 duty, or impost whatsoever will be levied upon merchandise of the 
 description mentioned. 
 
 Clause VII. — Russian merchants will be entitled to send their goods 
 through Bokhara free of transit dues. 
 
 Clause VIII. — Russian merchants will be entitled to have caravan- 
 series for the storing of merchandise in all Bokharese towns. The same 
 right is accorded to the Bokharese merchants in the towns of the province 
 of Turkestan. 
 
 Clause IX. — The better to direct the course of commerce, insure the 
 levying of the above tax, and regulate their relations with the local 
 authorities in mercantile matters, Russian merchants are accorded the 
 right of keeping commercial agents in all towns of the Khanate. . The 
 same right is accorded to the Bokharese merchants in the towns of the 
 province of Turkestan. 
 
 Clause X.— Commercial engagements between Russians and Bokha- 
 rese must be considered as sacred, and be unconditionally carried out by 
 
APPENDIX. 381 
 
 both parties. The Bokhara Government promises to look after the honest 
 fulfilment of commercial engagements, and the fair and conscientious 
 conduct of commercial affairs generally. 
 
 Clause XI. — Bussian subjects will enjoy an equality of right with 
 Bokharese subjects in carrying on in Bokharese territory all branches of 
 industry and handicraft allowed by the law of Sharigat. A corresponding 
 right is accorded to Bokharese subjects on Bussian territory, with regard 
 to the exercise of all trades and handicrafts permitted by the Bussian 
 law. 
 
 Clause XII. — Bussian subjects are permitted to possess houses, gar- 
 dens, arable land, and eveiy species of real property in the Khanate, such 
 property to be subject to the land-tax assessed on Bokharese property. A 
 corresponding privilege is accorded to Bokharese subjects in the whole 
 territory of the Bussian Empire. 
 
 Clause XIII. — Bussian subjects are admitted to the Bokharese terri- 
 tory when provided with permits signed by the Bussian authorities. They 
 may travel freely in the whole Khanate, and are placed under the special 
 protection of the Bokharese authorities. 
 
 Clause XIV. — In no case will the Bokharese Government receive on 
 Bokhara territory persons arriving from the Bussian territory, whatever 
 nationality they may belong to, unless provided with a special permit duly 
 and satisfactorily signed by the Bussian authorities. If criminals who are 
 Bussian subjects should take refuge on Bokharese territory, they will be 
 arrested by the Bokharese authorities and delivered to the nearest Bussian 
 authorities. 
 
 Clause XV. — With a view to the maintenance of direct and permanent 
 relations with the supreme Bussian authorities in Central Asia, the Ameer 
 of Bokhara will appoint one of his intimate counsellors to be his resident 
 envoy and plenipotentiary at Tashkend. This plenipotentiary will live 
 at Tashkend in the house and at the expense of the Ameer. 
 
 Clause XVI. — If it chooses to do so, the Bussian Government may keep 
 a permanent representative at Bokhara, attached to the person of his 
 worship the Ameer. As the Ameer's representative at Tashkend, so the 
 Russian plenipotentiary at Bokhara will live in the house and at the 
 expense of the Bussian Government. 
 
 Clause XVII. — To please the Emperor of all the Bussias and enhance 
 the future glory of His Imperial Majesty, His Worship the Ameer Seid 
 Mustafar, of Bokhara, has determined as follows : — The traffic in human 
 .beings, being contrary to the law which commands man to love his neigh- 
 bour, is abolished for ever in the territory of the Khanate. In accordance 
 with this resolve, the strictest injunctions will be given by the Ameer to 
 all his Beys to enforce the new law, and special orders will be sent to all 
 border towns where slaves are transported for sale from neighbouring 
 countries that, should any such slaves be brought there they shall be 
 taken from their owners and set at liberty without loss of time. 
 
382 APPENDIX. 
 
 Clause XVIII. — His Worship the Ameer Seld Mustafa being sincerely 
 desirous to strengthen and develope the amicable relations established five 
 years for the benefit of Bokhara, approves and accepts for his constant 
 guidance the above 17 clauses, constituting an agreement relative to the 
 friendship between Eussia and Bokhara. This agreement has been made 
 out in two copies, each copy in the two languages — Bussian and Turkish. 
 In proof of his having sanctioned this agreement and accepted it for his 
 own guidance, as well as for the guidance of his successors, the Ameer 
 Seid Mustafa has affixed to it his seal. 
 
 Done at Shaar on the 28th of September, 1873, A.D., being the 19th 
 day of the month of Shayban of the year 1290, a.h. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM "NOTES ON KHIVA," READ BEFORE THE 
 
 ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, Makch 24, 1873. 
 
 (See " Times " March 25, 1873.) 
 
 I abstain from any speculations as to the immediate issue of the expe- 
 dition. If the four columns, numbering 12,000 men, and having 40 pieces 
 of artillery, concentrate in Khiva without mishap, the military success of 
 the expedition is assured ; but it is important to remember that the more 
 complete this success may be, the more inevitably will Russia be lodged 
 on the horns of a political dilemma. If, indeed, by the mere pressure of 
 a powerful demonstration the Khan were brought to submit without a 
 struggle, yielding to such terms as Russia might choose to impose in the 
 interests of her policy, as well as of her commerce, then would she indeed 
 have achieved a great result, honourable to herself and beneficial to 
 humanity at large ; but if hostilities once supervene, and after defeating 
 the Uzbeg troops in two or three decisive engagements, she proceed to 
 occupy the country, her difficulties will then commence. To retreat 
 indeed, or to remain in the country, will be equally injurious. She has 
 volunteered a declaration — and apparently in all honesty — that her object 
 is a mere vindication of her honour, and that she has no intention to 
 annex the country, or hold it as a conquered province ; but she has not 
 sufficiently considered, I think, that by thus evacuating the country after 
 having once occupied and ruled it, she will lose far more than she gained 
 before. Orientals can only explain such evacuations — and not altogether 
 wrongly — as the result of weakness, and let me ask what effect such a 
 serious blow to her prestige would be likely to have on the kindred com- 
 munities of Tashkend and Samarcand ? We have had ourselves bitter 
 experience of thus trifling with Oriental feeling. Although we fully 
 retrieved our Afghan disasters in 1842, and did not evacuate Cabul and 
 Candahar till the whole country lay completely at our mercy, yet it is 
 still generally believed throughout Asia that we were driven out of the 
 country, and the Seikh invasion of India, and more remotely the great 
 
APPENDIX. 383 
 
 Indian mutiny, were both attributable to the blow which our political 
 credit thus sustained. In the same way the disgrace of a retreat from 
 Khiva would obliterate all the glory of the advance, and hold out a most 
 dangerous example to otherjaubject races impatient of a foreign yoke. 
 
 But if this danger of a loss of prestige were patent to Eussia, and 
 induced her to disregard her promises in regard to evacuating Khiva, as 
 cognate circumstances have induced her to forfeit her pledges for the 
 restoration of Samarcand to Bokhara, then, by remaining in the country, 
 she would be committed to an enormous expenditure, as far as I can see, 
 for no commensurate object, and she would seriously weaken, I think, her 
 general political position in Central Asia. It is quite certain that Turkes- 
 tan costs Russia half a million a year, and, considering the peculiar con- 
 dition of Khiva, the impoverished state of the country, the paucity of 
 inhabitants, and the difficulty of obtaining an immigrant population to 
 supply the requirements of irrigation and agriculture, considering also the 
 necessity of sustained vigilance against the Turcomans, and the expense 
 of constructing and garrisoning forts and sinking wells in order to keep 
 up the communication with the Caspian, I cannot suppose that Khiva could 
 possibly be retained as a subject province at a less cost than Turkestan. 
 What is there, then, to compensate Eussia for throwing away a million a 
 year, not to speak of the sacrifice of the lives of many thousand soldiers ? 
 Those, I believe, who wish her ill, would desire that she should hold on in 
 this career of improvidence and territorial extension. Her friends would 
 rather see her relegated to her old position on the northern border of 
 the Kirghiz Steppe. At any rate, if she does advisedly maintain her 
 position in Khiva and Turkestan, regardless of the burden which it entails 
 on her finances, it will show the excessive value which she attaches to her 
 commercial and political rivalry with England, and it will give some 
 colour to the opinions of those who suspect her of important ulterior 
 designs. For my own part, I will only say that though I should have 
 preferred, in the interest of peace that Eussia had not entered on a 
 career of conquest along the Jaxartes and the Oxus, yet I see no reason 
 at present to feel any anxiety about the advance towards India. Asia is 
 large enough for both of us, and we may well pursue our respective paths 
 and fulfil our respective missions, without jostling or jealousy. Our 
 position in Asia is at present quiescent while hers is progressive. Our 
 position improves daily in solidity, whilst hers becomes daily more in- 
 secure. We can, therefore, well afford to wait, forbearing but vigilant, 
 and conscious that if real danger approaches at any time, we are strong 
 enough to arrest and crush it. 
 
384 APPENDIX. 
 
 IX. 
 
 CONDITIONS OP FBEE TEADE PEOPOSED BY GENEBAL AIDE- 
 DE-CAMP VON KAUFMANN TO YAKUB-BEK, CHIEF OF 
 DJETY-SHAHE. 
 
 I. All Eussian subjects, of whatsoever religion, shall have the right 
 to proceed for purposes of trade to Djety-Shahr, and to all the localities 
 and towns subjected to the Chief of Djety-Shahr, which they may desire 
 to visit, in the same way as the inhabitants of Djety-Shahr have hitherto 
 been and shall be in the future entitled to prosecute trade throughout the 
 entire extent of the Eussian Empire. The Honourable Chief of Djety- 
 Shahr undertakes to keep a vigilant guard over the complete safety of 
 Eussian subjects within the limits of his territorial possessions, and also 
 over that of their caravans, and in general over everything that may 
 belong to them. 
 
 II. Eussian merchants shall be entitled to have caravanseries, in which 
 they alone shall be able to store their merchandise, in all the towns of 
 Djety-Shahr in which they may desire to have them. 
 
 III. Eussian merchants shall, if they desire it, have the right to have 
 commercial agents (caravan-bashis) in all the towns of Djety-Shahr, whose 
 business it is to watch over the regular courts of trade and over the legal 
 imposition of customs dues. The merchants of Djety-Shahr shall enjoy 
 the same privilege in the towns of Turkestan. 
 
 IV. All merchandise transported from Eussia to Djety-Shahr, or from 
 that province into Eussia, shall be liable to a tax of 2^- per cent, ad 
 valorem. In every case this tax shall not exceed the rate of the tax taken 
 from Mussulmans being subject to Djety-Shahr. 
 
 V. Eussian merchants and their caravans shall be at liberty, with all 
 freedom and security, to traverse the territories of Djety-Shahr in proceeding 
 to countries conterminous with that province. Caravans from Djety-Shahr 
 shall enjoy the same advantages for passing through territories belonging 
 to Eussia. 
 
 These conditions were sent from Tashkend on the 9th of April, 1872. 
 
 General von Kaufmann I., Governor General of Turkestan, signed the 
 treaty and attached his seal to it. 
 
 In proof of his assent to these conditions, Mahommed Yakub, Chief 
 of Djety-Shahr, attached his seal to them at Yangy-Shar on the 8th of 
 June 1872. 
 
APPENDIX. 385 
 
 X. 
 
 TREATY OF COMMERCE WITH THE AMIR OP KASHGAR. 
 
 Treaty between the British Government and His Highness the Ameer 
 Mahommed Yakoob Khan, Ruler of the territory of Kashgar and 
 Yarkund, his heirs and successors, executed on the one part by 
 Thomas Douglas Forsyth, C.B., in virtue of full powers conferred on 
 him in that behalf by His Excellency the Right Honourable Thomas 
 George Baring, Baron Northbrook, of Stratton, and a Baronet, 
 Member of the Privy Council of Her Most Gracious Majesty the 
 Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Grand Master of the Most Ex- 
 alted Order of the Star of India, Viceroy and Governor General of 
 India in Council, and on the other part by Syud Mahomed Khan 
 Toorah, Member of the First Class of the Order of Medjidie, &c, in 
 virtue of full powers conferred on him by His Highness. 
 
 Whereas it is deemed desirable to confirm and strengthen the good 
 understanding which now subsists between the high contracting parties, 
 and to promote commercial intercourse between their respective subjects, 
 the following Articles have been agreed upon : — 
 
 Article I. — The high contracting parties engage that the subjects of 
 each shall be at liberty to enter, reside in, trade with, and pass with their 
 merchandise and property into and through all parts of the dominions of 
 the other, and shall enjoy in such dominions all the privileges and advan- 
 tages with respect to commerce, protection, or otherwise, which are or 
 may be accorded to the subjects of such dominions, or to the subjects or 
 citizens of the most favoured nation. 
 
 Article II.- — Merchants of whatever nationality shall be at liberty to 
 pass from the territories of the one contracting party to the territories of 
 the other with their merchandise and property, at all times and by any 
 route they please. No restriction shall be placed by either contracting 
 party upon such freedom of transit, unless for urgent political reasons to 
 he previously communicated to the other, and such restriction shall be 
 withdrawn as soon as the necessity for it is over. 
 
 Article III. — European British subjects entering the dominions of 
 His Highness the Ameer for purposes of trade or otherwise, must be pro- 
 vided with passports certifying to their nationality. Unless provided with 
 such passports they shall not be deemed entitled to the benefit of this 
 Treaty. 
 
 Article IV. — On goods imported into British India from territories of 
 His Highness the Ameer by any route over the Himalayan passes 
 which lie to the south of His Highness's dominions, the British Govern- 
 ment engages to levy no import duties. On goods imported from India 
 into the territories of His Highness the Ameer no import duty exceeding 
 
386 APPENDIX. 
 
 2£ per cent, ad valorem snail be levied. Goods imported as above into 
 the dominions of the contracting parties may, subject only to such excise 
 regulations and duties, and to such municipal or town regulations and 
 duties as may be applicable to such classes of goods generally, be freely 
 sold by wholesale or retail, and transported from one place to another 
 within British India, and within the dominions of His Highness the Ameer 
 respectively. 
 
 Article V. — Merchandise imported from India into the territories of 
 His Highness the Ameer will not be opened for examination till arrival at 
 the place of consignment. If any disputes should arise as to the value of 
 such goods, the Customs officer or other officer acting on the part of His 
 Highness the Ameer shall be entitled to demand part of the goods, at the 
 rate of one in 40, in lieu of the payment of duty. If the aforesaid officer 
 should object to levy the duty by taking a portion of the goods, or if the 
 goods should not admit of being so divided, then the point in dispute 
 shall be referred to two competent persons, one chosen by the aforesaid 
 officer, and the other by the importer, and a valuation of the goods Bhall 
 be made, and if the referees shall differ in opinion they shall appoint an 
 arbitrator, whose decision shall be final, and the duty shall be levied 
 according to the value thus established. 
 
 Article VI. — The British Government shall be at liberty to appoint a 
 representative at the Court of His Highness the Ameer, and to appoint 
 commercial agents subordinate to him in any towns or places considered 
 suitable within His Highness's territories. His Highness the Ameer shall 
 be at liberty to appoint a representative with the Viceroy and Governor 
 General of India, and to station commercial agents at any places in British 
 India considered suitable. Such representatives shall be entitled to the 
 rank and privileges accorded to ambassadors by the law of nations, and 
 the agents shall be entitled to the privileges of Consuls of the most 
 favoured nation. 
 
 Article VII. — British subjects shall be at liberty to purchase, sell, or 
 hire land or houses or dep6ts for merchandise in the dominions of His 
 Highness the Ameer, and the houses, depots, or other premises of British 
 subjects shall not be forcibly entered or searched without the consent of 
 the occupier, unless with the cognizance of the British representative or 
 agent, and in presence of a person deputed by him. 
 
 Article VIII. — The following arrangements are agreed to for the 
 decision of civil suits and criminal cases within the territories of His 
 Highness the Ameer in which British subjects are concerned : — 
 
 (a.) Civil suits in which both plaintiff and defendants are British sub- 
 jects, and criminal cases in which both prosecutor and accused 
 are British subjects, or in which the accused is a European 
 British subject mentioned in the Third Article of this Treaty, 
 shall be tried by the British representative, or one of his agents 
 in the presence of an agent appointed by His Highness the 
 Ameer. 
 
APPENDIX. 387 
 
 (6.) Civil suits, in which one party is a subject of His Highness the 
 Ameer and the other party a British subject, shall be tried by 
 the Courts of His Highness in the presence of the British repre- 
 sentative, or one of his agents, or of a person appointed in that 
 behalf by such representative or agent. 
 
 (c.) Criminal cases, in which either prosecutor or accused is a subject 
 of His Highness the Ameer, shall, except as above otherwise 
 provided, be tried by the Courts of His Highness in presence of 
 the British representative, or of one of his agents, or of a person 
 deputed by the British representative or by one of his agents. 
 
 (d.) Except as above otherwise provided, civil and criminal cases in 
 which one party is a British subject and the other the subject 
 of a Foreign Power, shall, if either of the parties is a Mahom- 
 medan, be tried in the Courts of His Highness. If neither 
 party is a Mahommedan, the case may, with consent of the 
 parties, be tried by the British representative, or one of his 
 agents. In the absence of such consent, by the Courts of His 
 Highness. 
 
 (e.) In any case disposed of by the Courts of His Highness the Ameer 
 to which a British subject is party, it shall be competent to the 
 British representative, if he considers that justice has not been 
 done, to represent the matter to His Highness the Ameer, who 
 may cause the case to be re-tried in some other Court, in the 
 presence of the British representative, or of one of his agents, 
 or of a person appointed in that behalf by such representative 
 or agent. 
 
 Article IX. — The rights and privileges enjoyed within the dominions 
 of His Highness the Ameer by British subjects under this Treaty shall 
 extend to the subjects of all Princes and States in India in alliance with 
 Her Majesty the Queen ; and if, with respect to any such Prince or State, 
 any other provisions relating to this Treaty, or to other matters, should 
 be considered desirable, they shall be negotiated through the British 
 Government. 
 
 Article X. — Every affidavit and other legal document filed or depo- 
 sited in any Court established in the respective dominions of the high con- 
 tracting parties, or in the Court of the Joint Commissioners in Ladakh, 
 may be proved by an authenticated copy, purporting either to be sealed 
 with the seal of the Court to which the original document belongs, or in 
 the event of such Court having no seal, to be signed by the Judge or by 
 one of the Judges of the said Court. 
 
 Article XI. — When a British subject dies in the territory of His 
 Highness the Ameer, his movable and immovable property situate therein 
 shall be vested in his heir, executor, administrator, or other representative 
 in interest, or (in the absence of such representative) in the representative 
 of the British Government in the aforesaid territory. The person in whom 
 such charge shall be so vested shall satisfy the claims outstanding against 
 
388 APPENDIX. 
 
 the deceased, and shall hold the surplus (if any) for distribution among 
 those interested. The above provisions, mutatis mutandis, shall apply to 
 the subjects of His Highness the Ameer who may die in British India. 
 
 Article XII. — If a British subject residing in the territories of His 
 Highness the Ameer becomes unable to pay his debts, or fails to pay any 
 debt within a reasonable time after being ordered to do so by any Court 
 of Justice, the creditors of such insolvent shall be paid out of his goods 
 and effects ; but the British representative shall not refuse his good 
 offices, if needs be, to ascertain if the insolvent has not left in India dis- 
 posable property which might serve to satisfy the said creditors. The 
 friendly stipulations in the present Article shall be reciprocally observed 
 with regard to His Highness's subjects who trade in India under the pro- 
 tection of the laws. 
 
 This Treaty having this day been executed in duplicate, and confirmed 
 by His Highness the Ameer, one copy shall, for the present, be left in the 
 possession of His Highness, and the other, after confirmation by the 
 Viceroy and Governor General of India, shall be delivered to His High- 
 ness within twelve months in exchange for the copy now retained by His 
 Highness. 
 
 Signed and sealed at Kashgar, on the 2nd day of February, in 
 the year of our Lord 1874, corresponding with the 15th day of 
 Zilhijj 1290 Hijri. 
 
 (Signed) T. Douglas Foesyth, 
 
 Envoy and Plenipotentiary. 
 
 "Whereas a Treaty for strengthening the good understanding that now 
 exists between the British Government and the Ruler of the Territory of 
 Kashgar and Yarkund, and for promoting commercial intercourse between 
 the two countries, was agreed upon and concluded at Kashgar on the 2nd 
 day of February in the year of our Lord 1874, corresponding with the 
 15th day of Zilhijj 1290 Hijree, by the respective plenipotentiaries of the 
 Government of India and of His Highness the Ameer of Kashgar and 
 Yarkund duly accredited and empowered for that purpose. I, the Eight 
 Honourable Thomas George Baring, Baron Northbrook, of Stratton, &c, 
 &c, Viceroy and Governor General of India, do hereby ratify and confirm 
 the Treaty aforesaid. 
 
 Given under my hand and seal at Government House in Calcutta, 
 this 13th day of April, in the year of our Lord 1874. 
 
 (Signed) Northbrook. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABBOTT. 
 
 Abbott, James, exceeds his instructions 
 at Khiva, 153 
 
 Abu Eihan, an early Arab writer, 244 
 
 Afghan war, The, 56-59 ; frontier, 
 negotiations with Russia concerning, 
 304, 310 
 
 Afghanistan, revolutions and counter- 
 revolutions in, 187; present relations 
 of England with, 348 
 
 , or South-western section 
 
 of Central Asia, 254 
 
 Ak-Mesjed on the Jaxartes taken by as- 
 sault, 166 
 
 Alison, Mr., appointed to Teheran, 99 
 
 Amballa Conference, 296 
 
 Amir-Nizam, Prime Minister of Persia, 
 81 ; impartiality of his political con- 
 duct, 82 ; his downfall and death, 83 
 
 Aralsk, fort erected at, 160 ; steamers 
 launched, 164 
 
 Arian civilization in Central Asia, 246 
 
 Army, Persian, training of, by English 
 officers, 37, 49, 100, 288 
 
 Ashoor Ada, Eussian naval arsenal at, 
 70, 137, note 
 
 Ataligh Ghazi, 332 ; see Yacfib Beg 
 
 Atrek frontier, the Eussians' claim to 
 the, 118, 342, note 
 
 Badakhshan, Afghan possession of, dis- 
 puted by Russia, 308 ; conceded, 311 
 
 Bahrein, island of, blockade, 109 
 
 Baker's, Col. Valentine, services to 
 geography, 220 
 
 Bellew, Dr., "From the Indus to the 
 Tigris," 363 
 
 Bokhara^ its standing army, 196 ; in- 
 tensely hostile to Russia, 345 ; Rus- 
 sian treaty with, 379 
 
 and Cabul, close connection 
 
 between, 277 
 
 Boutakoff, Adm., report of his ascent 
 of the Jaxartes, 168 
 
 British policy in Central Asia after the 
 Afghan war, review of, 178 
 
 Burckhardt, the most accomplished 
 European Arab, 220 
 
 DOST MAHOMED. 
 
 Burnes, Sir A., prejudice against Per- 
 sia, 45 
 
 Butenef, CoL, head of the Russian 
 mission to Bokhara^ 156, 209 
 
 Candahar gold field, 365 
 
 Cashmere and Thibet, south-east sec- 
 tion of Central Asia, 251 
 
 Caspian, steady advance of Russia 
 along, 341 
 
 Caucasus, rebellion in the, 68 
 
 with TurkestsJn, junction of 
 
 the, 275 
 
 Central Asia, its geography, 205 ; Ger- 
 man and Eussian travellers in, 207- 
 209 ; English and other travellers, 
 210-220 ; apocryphal travels, 221- 
 231 ; native explorers, 231-235 ; 
 general description of, 235 ; early 
 civilization, 242 ; ethnological sketch, 
 247 ; political condition, 251 ; and 
 considerations, 260 
 
 Central Asian commercial question, 
 197-200 
 
 Circassian nationality, extinction of, 
 264 
 
 Clarendon, Lord, correspondence with 
 St. Petersburg, 299 
 
 Coal, found in large quantities in the 
 Kara-tan and Ala-tan ranges, 193 
 
 Conolly, Arthur, sent to Bokhara^ 153 ; 
 his execution, 157 
 
 , Edward, shot in Cabul, 210 
 
 Danibeg, Raphael, journey from India 
 to Semipolatinsk, 216 
 
 Danilevski, Col., concludes a direct 
 treaty between Russia and Khiva, 
 159 
 
 D'Arcy Todd, killed at the battle of 
 Firoz-shahar, 210 
 
 Dost Mahomed friendly to the Indian 
 government, 45 ; concludes a treaty 
 with England at Peshawer, 88 ; ap- 
 propriates Farrah, 100 ; death, 101 
 
390 
 
 EAST INDIA 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 KOKAND 
 
 East India, systems of government, 
 quotation from Report on, 280 
 
 Ellis, Mr., sent on an embassy of con- 
 dolence to Persia, 52 
 
 Ephraimoffs adventures in Central 
 Asia, 215 
 
 Erzeroom, Conference at, 66 
 
 Farrah appropriated by Dost Mahomed 
 Khan, 100 ; re-annexed to Herat by 
 Sultan Ahmed Khan, 101 
 Ferrier, Gen., in Central Asia, 211 
 Ferrukh Khan sent to England on Mr. 
 
 Murray's retirement, 93 
 Forbes, Dr., murdered at Seistdn, 210 
 France, opening of relations with Per- 
 sia, 18 
 Futteh All Shah, his campaign of 1799, 
 7 ; his second expedition, 9 ; treaty 
 with the French, 16 ; death, 49 
 
 Gardanne, Gen., Minister at Teheran, 
 18 
 
 Gardiner, Col., "Travels in Central 
 Asia," 221 
 
 George Ludwig, von , " Travels 
 
 through Upper Asia, " 224-231 
 
 Gladstone, Mr. , speech of, on the Afghan 
 and Russian question, 312 
 
 Gokchah, occupation of, by Eussia, 39, 
 40 
 
 Goldsmid, Sir Fred., appointed to 
 mediate between the Persians and 
 Belooches, 111 ; his Seistan arbitra- 
 tion, 112-116 ; services to geography, 
 220 
 
 Gortchakoff's, Prince, Circular, 173 ; 
 see Manifesto 
 
 Grigorief's, M., -letters published in the 
 " Moscow Gazette," 270 
 
 Gulistan, Treaty of, 33 
 
 Hajee Mirza Aghassee, Prime Minister 
 of Persia, 71 ; escapes the popular 
 fury by taking sanctuary, 73 
 
 Haji Khalil Khan, his unfortunate 
 death, 13, note 
 
 Herat, Persian expedition against, 47 ; 
 siege raised, 57 ; our convention with 
 Persia with regard to, 84, 85, 366 ; 
 surrendered to Persia, 89 ; evacuated 
 by the Persians, 92 ; natural advan- 
 tages of, 362 ; to be protected against 
 Eussia at all risks, 365 
 
 Immigration, Soythian, 248 ; Turkish, 
 249 
 
 Iranians, the Eastern, founders of Cen- 
 tral Asian civilization, 244, 247 
 
 Iskender Khan, 278 
 
 Issi-kul, or the "Warm Lake," 169 ; 
 Armenian monasteiy on the north 
 side, said to contain the body of St. 
 Matthew, 169 
 
 James, Major, valuable report on the 
 Kokand embassy, 234 
 
 Jaxartes, The, progress of the Russians 
 up, 163 ; remarkable physical fea- 
 tures, 168 ; affords great facilities for 
 successful colonization, 193 
 
 Johnson's, Mr., report on Khoten, ex- 
 tract from, 214 
 
 Jones, Sir Harford, Envoy Extraordi- 
 nary to Persia, 20 ; brief sketch of 
 his remarkable career, 23 ; his 
 "coup" and preliminary treaty, 24 ; 
 Resident Minister at Teheran, 26 
 
 Kara Kalpa'ks, or "black bonnets," 
 162 
 
 Karrack, island of, occupation of, by 
 British troops, 58 ; removal of, 65 
 
 Kashgar, the aim and limit of Russian 
 commercial policy in Central Asia, 
 177 ; recognized by Russia as an in- 
 dependent state, 333 ; policy of Eng- 
 land towards, 336 ; future Russian 
 relations with, 347 
 
 Kaufinann's, Gen., occupation of Samar- 
 cand, 268 ; report on Afghan frontier, 
 309 ; conduct towards the Yomuts, 
 325 
 
 Kaye, "History of the Afghan "War," 
 quotation from, 201 
 
 Keane's, Lord, expedition to Cabul, 
 147, 359 
 
 Khanikoff, M., visit to Bokhara, 156 ; 
 to Herat, 184, 185 ; travels in Cen- 
 tral Asia, 208 
 
 Khiva, expedition to, in 1839, trans- 
 lated, by Mr. Michell, reviewed, 136 ; 
 failure of, 151 ; Russian expedition 
 against, in 1873 ; considered politi- 
 cally, 313, 321 ; treaty with, 319, 
 376 ; notes on, 382 
 
 Khojend, taken by the Russians, 259 
 
 Khorassan campaign, Abbas Mirza's in 
 1832, 46 ; rebellion in, crushed, 
 1851, 82 
 
 Kirghiz tribe, The, 249 
 
 Klaproth, suspected author of the Russo- 
 German manuscript, 231 
 
 Kokand territory, invasion of the, by 
 the Russians, 171 ; capture of Tur- 
 
LA.VEENCE 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 QUETTA 
 
 391 
 
 kestan and Chemkend, 172 ; present 
 Chief of, 177, note ; present condi- 
 tion of, 346 
 
 Lawrence, Sir John, tribute to him, 
 190 ; his later Afghan policy, 293 
 
 Lomakin, Gen., strenuous efforts to 
 withdraw the Yomuts and Goklans 
 from their Persian allegiance, 341 
 
 Lumley's, Mr., report on Central Asian 
 trade, 199 
 
 Lumsden's, Major, mission to Canda- 
 har, 92, 212, 285 
 
 Macdonald, Sir J., modification of the 
 Teheran treaty by, 42 
 
 Macleod, Sir D., on the Maharaja of 
 Cashmere, 279 
 
 Mahomed Shah, accession of, 49 ; forms 
 an alliance with Russia, 53 ; death, 
 72 
 
 Mahomed Yussouf succeeds Said Ma- 
 homed at Herat, 88; hoists the 
 English flag, 89 ; deposed and sent 
 as prisoner to the Persian camp, 89 
 
 Malcolm, Sir John, his mission and 
 treaty, 8, 9 ; prejudicial effect of his 
 prodigality, 11 ; his fears of the 
 French establishing themselves on 
 the shores of the Persian Gulf, 12 ; 
 nominated envoy to Persia by Lord 
 Minto, 20 ; his discomfiture, 20 ; re- 
 sumes his functions, 26 
 
 Manifesto, Prince Gortchakoff 's Russian, 
 explaining her Central-Asian policy, 
 161, 173, 265 
 
 Mayo's, Lord, Afghan policy, 294 ; con- 
 ference at Amballa with Shir AH 
 Khan, 296; views on the "Neutral 
 Zone," 301 
 
 McNeill, Sir J., "The Progress of 
 Russia in the East," 4 ', sent to Eng- 
 land, 52 ; returns to Persia with 
 further supplies of arms, &c, 53 ; 
 compelled by ill-health to leave, 65 
 
 Mehdi Ali Khan opens a correspon- 
 dence with Teheran, 6 
 
 Menzikoff, Prince, his mission to Tehe- 
 ran, 39 
 
 Merv, great natural advantages of, 120, 
 note ; position of, 307 
 
 Michel, Mr., "Expedition to Khiva," 
 145, 150 ; " Russians in Central Asia," 
 164 ; both reviewed in Chap. III. 
 
 Minto, Lord, appoints Malcolm envoy 
 to Persia, 20 ; repudiates in antici- 
 pation Sir H. Jones's treaty, 26 
 Mir Izzet Ollah, itinerary of, 188, 232 
 
 Mirza Husswn Khan appointed Grand 
 /if er > 121 > Ms enlightened policy, 
 1^2 ; accompanies the Shah to 
 Europe, 124 ; his fall, and appoint- 
 ment as foreign minister, 132 
 
 Mirza Reza, ambassador to Napoleon, 16 
 
 Mrrza Robat, skirmish at, between 
 Russians and Uzbegs, 258 
 
 Mirza Shadi despatched to St. Peters- 
 burg, 330 ; sent to Calcutta, 331 
 
 Montgomerie's, Capt., maps of Cash- 
 mere and Ladakh, 213 
 
 Murray, Mr., suspends relations with 
 the Persian Court, 89 
 
 Nassar-ed-din, Mirza, Shah of Persia, 
 accession of, 73 ; visits the European 
 capitals, 124 ; disaffection and in- 
 trigues on his return, 131 
 
 Naval strength of Russia in the East, 
 141 
 
 "Neutral Zone," The, Lord Mayo's 
 views on, 301 
 
 Orenburg and Siberian Lines, The, 138, 
 note 
 
 Ouseley, Sir Gore, ambassador extra- 
 ordinary to Teheran in 1811, 33 
 
 Oxus, The line of the, a national and 
 political boundary, 305 ; negociations 
 concerning, 305-313 
 
 Paris, Treaty of, with Russia, 90, 370 
 
 Pattinson, Lieut., murdered at Canda- 
 har, 210 
 
 Perofski's expedition against Khiva, 
 149 ; failure of, 151 
 
 Persia, opening of relations with, 1 ; 
 gradually sinking before the power of 
 Russia, 14 ; origin of French con- 
 nexion, 15 ; want of system in the 
 army, 31 ; failure in the improve- 
 ment of her military resources, 37 ; 
 summary of our relations with, 38, 
 41 ; state of, under Hajee Mirza 
 Aghassee, 71 ; England declares war 
 with, 89 ; her present condition, 132 
 
 Persian diplomacy, suggested reforms 
 in our, 135, 289 
 
 Persian Gulf, British force in the, 61 
 
 Peshawer, Treaty of, 88, 368 
 
 Policy, our future, towards Russia, 356- 
 365 
 
 Pottinger, Lieut., at Herat, 59 ; dies of 
 fever at Hong Kong, 211 
 
 Press agitation on the Eastern question, 
 52 
 
 Quetta, proposed establishment of a 
 fortified post at, 291 
 
392 
 
 RACE 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 1EAKS-ILI 
 
 Eace, antagonism of, in Persia, 60 
 
 Baverty's, Capt., papers in the Calcutta 
 Asiatic Journals, 233 
 
 Eeuter Concession, The, 373 ; opposition 
 of Russia, 125 ; annulled, 127 ; an- 
 nulment not accepted by England, 
 340 
 
 Bomanofski, Gen., takes Khojend, 266 ; 
 brochure on the Central Asian ques- 
 tion, 273 ; his views on the junction 
 of the Caucasus with TurkestSin, 274, 
 314 ' 
 
 Bomieu, Col., Envoy from Napoleon to 
 Teheran, 15 
 
 Eussia, successes in Persia, 14 ; gradual 
 encroachments, 29 ; contemptuous 
 bearing, 38 ; demands the payment 
 of ten crores, 41 ; becomes the ally 
 of Persia, 53 ; tries to effect a recon- 
 ciliation between Engand and Persia, 
 64 ; reasons for her inactivity, 67 ; 
 her interference more guarded, but 
 not less progressive, 70 ; naval 
 strength in the East, 141 ; extension 
 of her territory, 141 ; her policy in 
 Central Asia from the period of the 
 AfgMn War, 144 ; maintains her 
 right to the Khanat of Khiva, i45 ; 
 position of, in regard to the Uzbeg 
 States in 1865, 191-197 ; probable 
 position of, in Central Asia if un- 
 checked by England, 275 ; present 
 position of, in Central Asia, 338-348 
 
 Eussians, The, expedition to Khiva, 
 118 j found a military post at Chi- 
 keslar, 118 ; in Central Asia, article 
 on, 136-204 
 
 Eussophobia in 1838-39, 136 ; change 
 to apathy in 1865, 142 ; causes of, 
 142, 143 
 
 Said Mahomed proffers his allegiance to 
 the Shah, 84 ; deposed, 88 
 
 Sanders, Col.,- killed at battle of Ma- 
 harajpoor, 211 
 
 Sartiges, Comte de, at Teheran, 72 
 
 Schlagentweit, the Brothers, 218 
 
 Scythian immigration, 248 
 
 Seistan.province of, conflicting claims to, 
 by Persian and Afghsin crowns, 102 ; 
 England refuses to mediate, 103 ; 
 General Goldsmid employed as arbi- 
 trator, 112 ; scheme of partition, 
 114 ; its political bearings, 115 
 
 Semenoff's report from the 1 top of 
 Zdiiku Pass, extract from, 214 
 
 Shamil, Sheik, 69 
 
 Shakespeare, Eichmond, his mission to 
 
 Khiva, 154 ; releases the Eussian 
 prisoners, 154 
 
 Shaw, Mr., visits Yarkend in 1869, 
 330 ; again with Mr. Forsyth in 
 1870, 331 ; Envoy to Kashgar in 
 1874, 348 
 
 Shir All Khan succeeds to the crown of 
 Cabul, 103 ; expelled from power, 
 254 ; recovers his position, 294 ; re- 
 ception at Amballa, 296 ; defensive 
 policy, 313 ; relations with England 
 strained, 351 
 
 Steppe, The, operations of the Eussians 
 in, 160 
 
 Stoddart, Col., sent to Bokhara^ 152 ; 
 his execution, 157 ; his travels in 
 Central Asia, 210 
 
 Sultan Ahmed Khan assumes the go- 
 vernment of Herat, 94, 184; recovers 
 Earrah from Dost Mohamed, 101 ; 
 death, 101 
 
 Sutherland's, Col., opinion of the Mal- 
 colm treaty, 10 
 
 Tabriz, Eussian plan of a railway from 
 the frontier to, 340 
 
 Tashkend, capture of, 176 
 
 Teheran, Treaty of, concluded by Messrs. 
 Morier and Ellis, 34 ; modification 
 of, by Sir J. Macdonald, 42 ; mission 
 transferred to India Office, 96 ; re- 
 stored to the Foreign Office, 98 ; Re- 
 port of the Committee of the House 
 of Commons on the subject, 98 ; 
 further remarks, 289 
 
 Tchernaieff, Gen., sends four Eussian 
 officers to Bokhara^ 257 
 
 Telegraph, the Electric, in Persia, his- 
 tory of, 105 
 
 the Indo-European line, 107 
 
 Telegraphic convention, The, 106 
 
 Temple's, Sir R., Report on Systems of 
 Government in East India, extract 
 from, 281 
 
 Thomson, Dr. Thomas, the first English- 
 man who determined the geographical 
 position of the Kara-Koram range, 
 218 
 
 — ; Mr. R., despatch on the ar- 
 rival of the first Russian detachment 
 at Krasnovodsk, 322 
 
 Tilsit, Conference at, discussion of the 
 Eastern question, 18 
 
 Toorks and Persians, antipathy be- 
 tween, 61 
 
 Trans - Caspian military government 
 under General Lomakin, 327 
 
 Traus-Ili region, Eussian occupation of 
 the, 169 
 
TBEATY 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ZEMAN 
 
 393 
 
 Treaty of commerce, English, with the 
 
 Amir of Kashgar, 385 
 Treaty, Russian, with Bokhara^ 379 ; 
 
 with Yaciib Beg, 384 
 Turcoman tents, number of, 323 
 Turcomans, expeditions of the Russians 
 
 against, 119, 321-329 
 Turkestan, creation of the government 
 
 of, 175 ; our unofficial relations with, 
 
 188 
 Eastern, or North-east sec- 
 tion of Central Asia, 252 ; brief 
 
 notice of, 329-338 
 Russian, or North-western 
 
 section of Central Asia, 256 
 Turkish immigration, 249 
 
 Uzbegs, The, of Khiva, Russian grie- 
 vances against, 149 ; of Kokand, 
 appeal to Sir John Lawxence for 
 assistance, 189 
 
 Vambery, M., Travels in Central Asia, 
 
 219, 316 
 Vernoe, a Russian military agricultural 
 
 colony for veteran soldiers, 169 
 Vitkevitch, the Russian emissary, 148 
 
 "Weller's map of Persia, Afghanistan, 
 
 and Beloochistan, 300, 304 
 Wellesley's, Marquis of, administration 
 
 in India, 5, 8 
 "Wood, Lieut., journey from Cabul to 
 
 the sources of the Oxus, 219 
 
 Yacub Beg, of Kashgar, 330 ; his in- 
 dependence acknowledged by Russia, 
 332 ; granted by the Sultan the title 
 of " Commander of the Faithful," 
 333 ; his variable policy, 337 ; friends 
 ship with Russia, 347 
 
 Yar Mohamed Khan, his death, 84 
 
 Zeman, Shah, hostility of, 6 
 
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RECENT TRAVELS. 
 
 THE LAST JOURNALS OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE 
 
 in CENTRAL AFRICA from 1865 to within a pew Days of his 
 
 Death. Continued by a Narrative of Ms Last Moments and 
 
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 of that hitherto mysterious region." — Sir Samuel Baker. 
 
 TROY AND ITS REMAINS.— A NARRATIVE OF 
 
 DISCOVERIES AND RESEARCHES MADE ON THE SITE 
 OF ILIUM and in the TROJAN PLAIN. By Dr. HENRY 
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 TRAVELS OF A PIONEER OF COMMERCE on an 
 
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 A JOURNEY to the SOURCE of the RIVER OXUS, 
 
 by the INDUS, KABUL, and BADAKHSHAN. By CAPTAIN 
 
 JOHN WOOD (Indian Navy). A new Edition with an Essay on the 
 
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 Bam-i-dunya, or Eoof of the World. Captain Wood's narrative presents the 
 
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RECENT TRAVELS. 
 
 THE BOOK OF SER MARCO POLO, the Venetian. 
 
 Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels op the East. A new 
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 NEW JAPAN; THE LAND of the RISING- SUN; 
 
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 BARON MAX VON THIELMANN. Translated by CHARLES 
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