brought the narrative to the battle of the territory from the Aral to the ThianIrjár and the capture of Khojand.

shan and the Zungarian frontier. GenThe battle of Irjár, fought May 20th eral Kaufmann was selected for the new 1866, at a spot near the left bank of the government. The Amir in this interval Jaxartes between Tashkand and Khojand, made some half-hearted and futile atwas won by the Russians at very small tempts at negotiation, followed by recost; their friendly historian von Hell-newed hostilities. In May, 1868, the wald says, "Some dozens of wounded Russian advanced posts were at Tashwere the loss spoken of; "* but it was an Kopruk, or "the Stone Bridge," on one important day in the history of Central of the branches of the Zarafshán, or RivAsia. er of Samarkand. On the 13th the force The Amír of Bokhara there first came (about 8000 men and 16 guns) went forinto personal contact with Russian disci- ward. A vain attempt was made to stop pline, courage, and artillery; he had to them by a pretence of negotiations; but flee for his life, leaving his whole camp General Kaufmann paid no attention, equipage, guns, and material. It was dif- and the Zarafshán was crossed in the ficult to maintain illusions when Russian face of the Uzbeg batteries. The Amír's round-shot were bowling by him, and troops, amounting to some 40,000 men, Cossack spears pressing upon his crup- and posted most favourably, left their per; and, for the first time, the hard guns and ran as soon as the Russians shell of arrogance and ignorance was drew near. The gates of Samarkand pierced by some perception of his own were closed against the fugitives, but ineffable weakness before the power that opened to the enemy. he had provoked. Vámbéry calls Irjár the Cannæ of Turkestan, but perhaps Plassey would be a happier parallel, not only in the results of the victory, but in the disparity of the victor's force and the insignificance of his losses. Khojand was stormed a fortnight later (6th June). The half of Khokand, with two out of its three most important cities, had now passed into the Russian empire, and the Khan held what was left him at the pleasure of the Czar; the Russians, therefore, had nothing to dread in rear of their advance to Bokhara. The Amír looked far and near for help in vain.

The Amír's last attempt at resistance against the invaders was made (June 14) at Sirpúl, about sixty miles on the Bokhara side of Samarkand, ending, as usual, in the complete rout and dispersion of the Amír's forces and capture of their guns, and was followed by the peace which transferred to Russia all the Bokhara territory from Katte-Kurghán eastward, accompanied by a war indemnity and the fullest concession of commercial privileges.*

Simultaneously an episode occurred at Samarkand which reads like a repetition of events in India. Major von Stempel had been left behind in the old citadel with detachments amounting to 658 men including sick. A force brought by Jura and Baba Beg, the chiefs of Kitáb and Shahr Sabz, to the aid of Bokhara, and consisting of many thousands, after an attempt to decoy the garrison to a distance from the .walls, with the treacherous connivance of the native officials, entered the city, and for eight days continued their assaults, by day and night, upon the very imperfect defences of the citadel. These were maintained in the most heroic and

* We nowhere find a trustworthy statement of the

terms.

indefatigable manner, with heavy loss in- | in the jaws of Dis. Bokhara, already deed (221 killed and wounded), but with- more than half devoured, out parting with an inch of ground; and on the 20th June the return of General Kaufmann brought relief to this illustrious garrison.

We may mistrust the objects of the conquering Russian, or feel that his interest and ours are hard to reconcile; but it is impossible to feel much compassion for the conquered Uzbeg. The memory of Conolly and Stoddart is enough to bar that. Nor surely can any Englishman read the details of Russian feats like this defence of Samarkand without a glow of sympathy, and the remembrance of many a parallel story on

Indian soil.

Not long afterwards the Amír had to seal his humiliation by calling in Russian aid to put down a rebellion which his heir, Abdul Malik Mirza, had raised, with the assistance of the chiefs of Shahr Sabz on the south of the Aksai mountains, which bound the valley of the Zarafshán. Karshi (November 1868), and, on a renewed occasion two years later, Shahr Sabz itself, the cradle of Timour,* were occupied by General Abramoff, but faithfully made over to the Amír of Bokhara.

Evidently, however, it rests with Russia to advance her boundary to the Oxus when she thinks it for her advantage. And in the recent correspondence between Lord Granville and Prince Gortchakoff the probability of that advance seems almost frankly implied.

Che 'I capo ha dentro e fuor le gambe mena;

Khokand, mutilated and still, but his head yet spared,

Vedi come si storce, e non fa motto. Khiva, "che par sì membruto," the most bloated sinner of the three, even as he feels the "maciulla," the heckle of the mighty grinders closing upon him, calls up a show of the old insolence.

There is one particular name which haunts the geographical utterances of some of our daily teachers, as the case of King Charles I. haunted the memorials of one of Mr. Dickens's eccentrics - it is the Bolor Dágh. At one time conviction dawns of the fact that this Bolor Dágh belongs, like phlogiston or the primum mobile, to an obsolete system. But it is only for a moment; a few days pass, and we find our old friend the Bolor Dágh revived, like the "De'il that was dead" in the old Scotch rhyme, and playing as important a part as ever.

The reality represented in some measure by this name of Bolor Dágh, condemned to geographical oblivion by the error and fiction with which it has got inextricably connected, is the mountain mass on which lies the great plateau of M. Severtzoff and some other Pamir. geographers give this mass the name of Tsung-ling, applied to it by the Chinese from time immemorial, and which has That correspondence and the discus- perhaps as fair a claim to adoption as sions on it have brought up many names those of Kuen-lun and Thian-shan, which destined perhaps to be better known, but have long acquired all the rights of citheretofore little familiar. Nor has this izenship. But we shall adhere to the sudden revival of the Central Asian ques-name of Pamir as less outlandish. This tion in a new phase found some of our seems to be the "Mountain Parnassus" most potent authorities of the press well of Aristotle," the greatest of all that exup in their geography. To quote exam-ist towards the winter sunrise," from ples would be invidious, though it would be the best justification of our desire to devote the remainder of this paper to an attempt, aided by free use of the works before us, to sketch some of the main facts of the geography of the countries between the two empires, and especially of the tracts named in the recent correspondence.

We must limit our field, and do not intend to touch on the three great northern | Khanates. Their fate seems fixed as .that of the three sinners whom Dante beheld

This is the Sherri Yebst taken possession of by the Russians according to B. p. 51. One fancies at first that they had secured a butt of some famous dry vintage.

which flowed down Indus, Bactrus, Choaspes, Araxes, and other rivers of the largest size. To this the old Parsi traditions seem to point as the origin and nucleus of the Aryan migrations. And to this day it is a centre round which cluster in a very remarkable manner fragments of old Aryan nations. On this central boss of Asia the oldest Mabommedan invaders would seem, by their identification with Gihon and Phison of the great rivers which descend from its sides, to have believed that the terresrial paradise was to be sought. This is the northern Imaus of Ptolemy, over which caravans passed to Serica for silk. And our most modern geographers con

cur with Ptolemy in regarding this great | neutral name which our Indian travellers physical and political watershed as but a had already given it of Kizil Yart. prolongation of the great Himalya. To Taking this sierra as the northern limthis day, thirty-five years after Captain it, the Pamir Steppe may be reckoned to Wood's winter journey to one of the chief have a length of about 180 miles from sources of the Oxus on the Pamir pla- north to south, with a breadth of about teau, no second European has stood half. It rises at the highest part to 15,upon that upper story of the world; 600 feet above the sea, and seems to conand though native explorers have round-sist in the main of stretches of tolerably ed his data and extended route-measure-level ground, broken and divided by low ments across the whole breadth of the rounded hills, and in many places whitengreat watershed, it is still to that officer ed with salts, but interspersed with that we are indebted for the core and patches of willow and thorny shrubs, and spine of our geography of the Upper in summer with tracts of luxuriant grass, Oxus. We regret that Captain Alexan- the fattening properties of which have der Wood, in republishing his father's been extolled by various travellers from narrative, did not give us a regular biog- Marco Polo downwards. Many lakes, raphy of the author.* The slight sketch that he does present of his history, the charm of character which shines from the narrative itself, and the high importance and interest of his exploration mark him as one entitled to a permanent place among English worthies.

If we look to the Pamir plateau, properly so called, the whole drainage of its surface flows by various branches either to the Oxus, or to that great central drain of Eastern Turkestan which our maps call Tarim Gol, terminating in Lake Lob, a basin without outlet, of which we know but the name. The old tradition of the Chinese, based perhaps upon the apparent disproportion of this recipient to the vast amount of drainage directed towards it, has always regarded the Tarim as the veritable origin of the Hoang-ho, which was supposed to dive underground like a colossal Arethusa, and to reappear near the Chinese frontier. Neither Indus nor Jaxartes draws any supplies from the proper surface of the plateau, though the former is fed from its southern spurs, and the latter also may be regarded as receiving contributions from its northern counterforts in the upper valleys of Khokand. Strictly speaking, however, Pamir is divided from the Khokand mountains by another and lower plateau, called the Steppe of Alai. A vast sierra runs like a barrier wall from east to west between these two Steppes, rising in some glorious peaks to 25,000 feet above the sea. To this the eminent traveller Fedchenko, who first descried it from the north, has given from the Russian standpoint the name of Trans-Alai. To us, looking from India, it would be Cis-Alai or TransPamir, and it seems better to retain the

And surely a portrait of him in the good old fashion would have formed an apter and more valuable frontispiece than the horrid crocodiles that usurp that place.

apparently shallow and varying in extent with the season, are scattered over the surface. Deer (or some animal so called by native travellers) are numerous near the waters, and the great sheep to which Mr. Blyth gave the name of Ovis Poli, after the traveller who first mentioned it, seems to be found all over the plateau. According to one native traveller the wild yak, a characteristic animal of the higher Himalya, is also found on Pamir.

To the eastward some of the offshoots

of Pamir rise high into the regions of eternal snow before dropping into the plains of Kashgar or the valleys of the Yarkand river and its tributaries. On these upper waters a small secluded State, spoken of already as ancient in the seventh century, had maintained itself in essential independence from time immemorial. Latterly it bore the name of Sarikol, or of Tashkurghán ("Stone Fort") from the wall of massive stone that girds its old capital. Much interest attaches to it as having been till the other day the one surviving community of Aryan race to the eastward of Imaus. In 1869 it was annexed by the present ruler of Kashgar; the representative of its ancient Tajik lords was driven out,* and the whole of his people were swept away to be replaced by Kirghiz herdsmen.

It

Below this is Eastern Turkestan, a country which till very recently had been for centuries rigidly inaccessible. forms a great elevated basin, encircled, except on the east, where the Great Gobi shuts it in, by mountains among the highest in the world. The southern and western parts of the basin, where the cities of Khotan, Yarkand, and Kashgar, have existed from unknown dates, stand

*He appears, from an allusion in the Russian papers, to have found his way to Tashkand.

at a level of upwards of 4000 feet above | Khokand is practically a tributary. It is the sea, and its lowest part, where Lake indeed, alleged that the chief pass beLob lies, is supposed to stand about 1200. tween Khokand and Kashgar has been The populated country consists of a chain already made practicable for artillery. of oases forming an open necklace of rich But it is not probable that the Russian cultivation, girdling a central desert- Government will at any early date be dethe Takla Makán-which is, in fact, a sirous so far to extend its cares; nor, if great inlet of the Gobi. A constant tra- it did, would the occupation be so serious dition in the country, confirmed by no- to us as the establishment of Russian tices in Chinese works, alleges the great power on the Oxus. encroachments of this desert, and speaks During the period of the Chinese rule, of ci ies buried in its sands, of which the up to the murder of Adolphus Schlagintsites are known. That treasure is reputed weit at Kashgar in 1857, it is scarcely an to be found in these is a matter of course, exaggeration to say that as little rumour but that tea is found, in one of them at of what passed in Eastern Turkestan least, is a more uncommon circumstance, reached India across the high Tibetan and appears to be a matter of fact. The tracts as there reached Europe in the climate is very dry; there is little rain; middle ages of what was passing among cultivation depends on irrigation from the Aztecs. Many Englishmen now livthe rivers, which are utilized by an infin- ing must have spent thirty years in the ity of canals and watercourses. Mr. upper provinces of India without ever Shaw, the first Englishman to penetrate having heard a word of events in Kashgar this region, and fortunately for us, as in- of Khotan. About the years 1834-35 telligent as he is enterprising, was strong- some obstacles in the route usually fol ly impressed by the cultivated and settled lowed by pilgrims from Chinese Turkeaspect of the country, and by the pros- stan, bound for the holy places of Arabia, perous, brisk, and intelligent aspect of led them to adopt the practice of travelthe people. He believes that though they ling to Bombay for shipment to Jedda. have long been Turks in language, there Mr. Wathen, then Secretary to the Bonis in the race a deep basis of Aryan bay Government, having taken advantage blood. The long faces, well-formed of this circumstance to collect from them noses, and full beards of the peasantry testify to this.

From the second century before Christ this region has again and again come under Chinese dominion. It did so on the last occasion in 1759, and they held it, not without frequent and serious revolts, till 1863. The spirit of insurrection which had for eight or nine years been rife among the Mahommedan subjects of China then spread to these regions; the eagles gathered from all sides to the prey, and the mastery of the country was eventually attained, through alternate valour and treachery, by Mahommed Yakub Kushbegi. This man is said to be by descent a Tajik of Shaghnán, but born at Pishpek, on the Chú river (now in the Russian territory of Fort Vérnoë), and, according to some accounts, commanded the Khokand garrison of Akmasjid, on the Jaxartes, when they repelled the first tentative attack of the Russians in 1852. For the last six years he has reigned over the whole basin of Eastern Turkestan with the title of Atalik Gházi; and his power now reaches from Pamir eastward to Komul, a distance of some 1100 miles. Should Russia covet this territory, she would probably not find the first conquest difficult, now that

a number of particulars regarding the modern history and geography of their country, the publication of these was regarded as a contribution to knowledge of extreme novelty and value.* And justly so, seeing how completely closed to modern exploration the country was. This entire absence of communication was due, no doubt, in some considerable degree, to the old Chinese custom of hermetically sealing a frontier. But, in a great degree also, it was owing to the nature of the routes between the two countries. A few figures will best show what that is.

Amritsar, the commercial centre of the Panjáb, lies about 60 miles from the foot of the mountains, and its distance in a straight line to Yarkand is, roundly speaking, 460 miles. But the actual distance as travelled by the principal routes is

1. By Kashmír, Ladák, Karakorum Passes, and Shadulla, to Yarkand, 70 marches, or 945 miles;

2. By the more easterly routes, via Kúlú, Ladák, Changchenmo, and Shadulla, to Yarkand, 77 marches, or 1069 miles.

*See "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. iv. p. 653.

†The unchanged conservative custom of the ancient Seres: "Mites quidem sed et ipsis eris persimiles, cetum reliquorum mortalium fugiunt." - Pliny, vi. 20.

On the first of these two lines, and influence has secured the imposition of crushing the section between Ladúk and Shadulla, differential duties to the detriment of English the frontier station of the Kashgar govtrade. We thus see what we have to expect ernment, an interval which occupies 20 in the vastly more important market of Eastern marches, four passes have to be crossed Turkestan, now that she has once put her foot that are higher than 17,500 feet above the blame the native ruler if he grants to Russia there. And surely we shall not be able to sea, and for 10 successive marches the exclusively those commercial advantages which halting-ground is never below 15,000 feet, we do not take the trouble to ask for a share say the height of Mont Blanc.

† We have a report of this pass by one Ibraham This figure has naturally given rise to question, but Khan. It runs for about six miles over snow, and a the amount is not essential to the object urged. glacier has to be crossed.