the steppes as far as Orenburg. The Khán, who was only twenty-three years old, and a dashing chieftain of these wild hordes, broke through the Russian frontier with 8,000 of these marauders of the steppes.

Soon after the receipt of this intelligence, it was determined on at St. Petersburg to adopt a more energetic course of action. In the beginning of the year 1873, after the return of General von Kaufmann, who had meanwhile paid a visit to St. Petersburg, it was resolved to make a commencement of the military operations in earnest, under the direction of that very experienced commander.' The attack on Khiva will be made from the east, and at

1 For the sake of comparison, we give here in extenso the statement of the Daily Telegraph of January 13, 1873, on this subject, as follows:The Russian Government has a double motive or pretext for its new invasion of Khiva-the political grievance which formed the ostensible justification of the first attack, and the desire, or rather the necessity, of wiping out the reproach of a military failure. Refusing to accept the messages of propitiation sent by the Khan of Khiva, and determined to draw the utmost advantage from the wrongs which she could charge upon his government, Russia sent a column of troops, by way of reconnaissance, into the territory between the Caspian on one side, the Aral Sea and Amoo Daria river on the other. This force, under the command of Colonel Markosoff, had instructions to get as near as it possibly could to the city of Khiva, and even, it is believed, if fortune favoured the enterprise, to enter and occupy the place itself. The importance of such an acquisition could hardly be exaggerated, for the Khivan capital commanded the lower course of the Amoo Daria towards the Sea of Aral, and forms a most potential point for the conduct of military operations towards either the Afghan or the Persian frontier. While Colonel Markosoff's column was making its way across the steppes which lie between the Russian frontier and the city of Khiva, its progress was impeded and harassed, though with slight effect, by the troops of the Khan, in the desultory warfare to which they are best accustomed, but finally the attack on the invaders took the shape of a surprise, which resulted in the capture of the Russian camels and baggage. The reconnoitring column, thus deprived of its essential means for carrying on the campaign, had no alternative but to retrace its steps; and, although the

the same time with such a manifestation of power as will leave no doubt as to its success. Before April or

Russian Government would fain have it believed that the troops returned after accomplishing their object, the painful fact is that they suffered a repulse, That such was the case, at least in the .belief of the enemy, was clearly proved by the subsequent action of the Khivans. Elated by their success-carried away, as most of those Central Asiatic peoples are apt to be, by a belief in their own invincibility and their perpetual tenure of independent power---they made a descent in great force upon the country of the Khirgiz, which is within the Russian confines, though not entirely reconciled to the Russian rule. In the steppes of the Khirgiz the "raiders" committed extensive and cruel depredations, plundering and destroying wherever they came, except in the cases-not by any means rare-where they found friends and sympathisers among the original nomadic possessors of this wild and thinly-peopled region. Indeed, it is not concealed from their own consciousness by those who guide the operations of Russia in Central Asia, that the Muscovite rule is not so much relished or so willingly borne as the world has been wanted to believe, that the Asiatic mind does not appreciate the European form of government. All the more desirable, therefore, was it that the shock to Russian prestige sustained in Colonel Markosoff's repulse should be promptly countervailed, and that the swiftly flying rumour, which so peculiarly affects the Asiatic imagination—as we know by sad experience in our own Eastern affairs— should be disarmed by the tidings of an effectual vengeance. A Council of Ministers was summoned by the Emperor Alexander, over which he presided in person, and at which, despite the strongly-urged opposition of Prince Gortschakoff, it was decided by a large majority that a new expedition to Khiva should be undertaken, with a force sufficiently powerful not only to retaliate upon the Khan and his subjects the affront to the Russian arms involved in the defeat of Colonel Markosoff and the raid on the Khirgiz territory, but also to take possession of the city of Khiva itself, and practically bring the whole Khanate under Russian rule. The invading force is to operate in three columns, each of them being commanded by a general thoroughly acquainted with the nature of the country and the peculiar character of the warfare which its inhabitants may be expected to wage. yet, the precise direction from which the various columns will approach their objective point is known only to a chosen few, if it has even been fully decided upon; one division, however, will, beyond any doubt, move westward from Tashkend. Altogether the troops will number 12.000 men, with about fifty pieces of artillery-a small and inadequate force, it might seem, if it were not remembered how powerfully the com

As

May 1873, it will be scarcely possible to learn the actual results of the Khivan expedition.

pact formation, the strict discipline, and the intelligence of European troops can tell against the loose order and the imperfect armament of the Asiatic peoples. The direction of the concerted movements and commandin-chief of the three divisions will be entrusted to General Kaufmann, who has gained, with some distinction, in the valleys of the Sir Daria and the Zerefshan, the experience he is now required to turn to advantage in the lower valley of the Amoo Daria, or ancient Oxus. It is anticipated that the operations of the several columns will begin about the end of the present month.'

CHAPTER XII.

EVENTS IN AFGHÁNISTÁN.

FOR a series of years has Kábul, not less than Herát, notwithstanding its situation beyond the confines of Turkestán and on the southern slopes of the mountain ranges of Central Asia, exercised an important political influence over the Khanates of the Central-Asian steppes. Here, simultaneously, arose the first struggle between England and Russia for supremacy in the East, which was interwoven and carried on with every kind of intrigue; it was here that both powers, though only in diplomatic schemes, stood for the first time face to face on Asiatic soil.

Not so much from what has already happened in those countries, as from the events that might. soon possibly arise there, do we consider ourselves bound to lay before our readers a short historical retrospect of the most recent occurrences in Northern Afghánistán a country whose very name some thirty years ago hung upon every one's lips in England, and could not be uttered without horror, and which has of late begun again to attract anxious glances from India as well as from the West.

The Afgháns, who inhabit the greatest part of that mountainous region which expands with ever varying features from the valley of the Indus to the elevated plains of Persia, are a people of Aryan descent. They consequently form a link in the great Indo-Germanic

family, and speak Pushto (Paxto, Persian),' a language that in the first place traces back its origin to the Eranian family. If any people in Asia deserve the appellation of a nation,' it is surely the Afgháns. By virtue of their warlike vigour and endurance, in which they far surpass all their neighbours, they might be summoned to uphold order and discipline in a larger sphere, if they only possessed the faculty of maintaining these qualities amongst themselves. Their separatist tendencies and their inordinate love of independence are the chief causes of their weakness as a nation. Instead of contending against foreign enemies, their exuberant national strength breaks out into internal feuds and chronic anarchy. It is true that the separation into independent tribes is conformable with the nature of the country, which embraces within its limits every variety of climate-snow-girt mountains and sultry tropical plains, blooming valleys of high elevation, and low burning sandy plains. Consequently they require a manner of living of very great variety. The valleys of Afghánistán open out on every side like sally-ports; but just in the heart of the country the Afghán tribes are separated from one another by almost impassable defiles and mountain ridges. Nevertheless they have been able to assert their power even beyond their own frontiers, whenever a chieftain succeeded in uniting the numerously divided tribes, so as to make them

The eminent Vienna professor and linguist, Dr. Frederick Müller, positively places the Paxto amongst the languages of the Eranian family, particularly on account of those phonetic peculiarities which decidedly characterise it as an Eranian language. (Vide his Essay on the Language of the Afghans (Paxto), in the June number of 1862 in the Transactions of the Philosophical Historical Class of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna, vol. xl. p. 3.)

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