have taken deep root in the bosoms of the wild and passionate Afghans.

The Afghan, like the Turkoman, is a freebooter by trade, differing only in kind; he, too, deems it more praiseworthy to get hold of the property of others by murder and pillage than by industry and labour; and the triumph and ecstasy of this pleasant company may be easily imagined in case it should enter the mind of the white Padishah on the Neva to undertake an expedition to India and to invite them to take part in it. I therefore repeat that Russia, considering the Asiatic militia at her disposal, can, with a comparatively small army, boldly risk the venture; and General Skobeleff was perfectly right in saying at one time in his famous plan of an Indian invasion: It will be in the end our duty to organise masses of Asiatic cavalry, and to hurl them into India under the banner of blood and pillage, as a vanguard as it were, thus reviving the times of a Tamerlane.' Yes, the man has spoken no empty words; it would not have been the first time that Russia would have acted more Asiatico in Asia, and, without wishing to discuss here the merits of the Russian soldier on the battle-field, we may risk the assertion that Russia, as far as the military question is concerned, is fully prepared for an invasion of India.

We must advert, in the fourth place, to the advantage Russia has gained, within the last two years, through the greatly increased rapidity of communication between the mother country and the Asiatic frontier regions lying furthest off. Distance, this most dangerous enemy of Russian policy according to an expression of Nicholas the First, is entirely vanquished to-day, and has ceased to be an obstacle in the way of the ambition of the Court of St. Petersburg and its designs on India. In spite of the building of the railway line of Samara-Orenburg the conviction has gained ground in Russian circles that the main artery of communication between the interior of Russia and the interior of Central Asia should not run in a line from the north to the south, but in a south-eastern direction from the shores of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, if the object aimed at is to be safely and successfully attained. The Caucasus, the status of whose army amounts in time of peace to 150,000 men, has been acknowledged long ago to be the principal military dépôt for operations in the interior of Asia. The centre of future military movements in that direction has been in consequence removed principally to the south of Russia on the Lower Volga, and the railway termini at Vladikavkas and Odessa will form the future rallying-points of army movements. Nothing definite has as yet been concluded in regard to the short line between Vladikavkas and Tiflis which now runs across the Dariel pass, a pass impracticable in winter, whether it is to be established by means of a tunnel which would be smaller than that of Mount Cenis, or, by flanking the mountain range, it is to pass over Petrovsk.

One thing is certain, that future operations against Afghanistan and India must have the Caucasus for their base. Batum can be very easily reached from Odessa in two days, it takes twenty-four hours to go by rail from Batum to Baku, as many hours again to cross over to Michailovsk by the Caspian Sea, from which last-named point it takes twelve hours by the primitive railway, so that after the entire completion of the line of Michailovsk-Herat, the length of which is about 520 miles, the entire distance between the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea and Herat, the so-called key to India, can be made in forty-eight hours at the most. In summing up the entire distance it results in this, that taking the westernmost starting-point, namely Odessa, an army can be thrown in six days from the south of Russia into the interior of Asia without any great exertion and without any interruption.

The navigation on the Caspian Sea would be of considerable importance in case of such an expedition, a navigation which has assumed proportions in these latter days which no one could have anticipated, although as yet it is busying itself less with the transport of soldiers than with the shipment of petroleum from Baku. We shall not dwell here on the almost fabulous and incredible increase in the industry of petroleum at that ancient seat of fireworship, but nevertheless are bound to merely indicate the tremendous exertions which have been and are still being made by Nobel Brothers in the matter of the transport of petroleum. We glean from Marvin's painstaking work that these oil-kings have ordered in Sweden, within the last two years, twelve large steamers, eight of which, namely the Mahomet,' Tatarin,' 'Brahma,' 'Spinoza,' 'Darwin,' 'Talmud,' and 'Koran,' are already finished, and will, in all probability, be soon followed by the remaining four. Considering that these vessels can be easily turned into army transports, and each of them can be made to carry 500 men, 6,000 men in all, in twentyfour hours from Baku to Michailovsk, we may form an idea of the extraordinary means of transport Russia is able to dispose of; and if we add the Caspian flotilla belonging to the Russian navy, which includes a couple of good men-of-war, and is manned by seventy-one officers and 700 men, it will be seen that it will be anything but magic to land if necessary, at any moment, an army contingent on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, and to send it on thence to Herat by railway. Apart from the difficulties connected with the landing on the shallow coast of the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, the Russians need not apprehend the slightest danger during the whole expedition either from the elements or from political casualties. Depots for provisions can be established in abundance along the entire Turkoman line, excepting one short break in it. Water can be found everywhere in the whole of the northern edge of Iran, from the Akhal territory to Sarakhs and Herat, and the only possible

bulwark which might be erected by a hostilely disposed Persia need not be considered for the reason that Iran has long since forfeited her free will, and is at the present day nothing but a vassal state of Russia in spite of all the bombastic titles of her ruler.

As a fifth and last, but not the least, advantage of the Russians in their design on India, we may add the respect and prestige which Russia is enjoying in the eyes of the Asiatics, a prestige which has continued unimpaired for centuries and has always spread fear and terror. This prestige preceded the army of Ivan the Terrible at the conquest of Khazan, and in the course of succeeding centuries it was almost always this fame and terror of the rude and mighty Russ which made the blood freeze in the veins of even the boldest Tartar, Kirghis, Kalmuk, and Bashkir long before the Russ himself had made his appearance. The diversion which the Uzbeg hero, Sheibani, made against Astrakhan towards the end of the fifteenth century was looked upon as a feat of special gallantry on his part. The princes of Central Asia trembled before the neighbour in the North even before he had crossed the barrier of the belt of the steppe, and Makhdumkuli, the Turkoman bard, predicted to his countrymen in the last century that the world would in the end succumb to the overwhelming power of Russia. This legend of the immense power of Russia has continued to be current to this day, not only amongst the nations of Central Asia, but amongst those of China, India, Persia, and Turkey; and well may the Asiatics have faith in it, for Russia has known how to make herself respected, and never allowed herself to be guided by sentimental regards of humanity, but in all her dealings has started from the principle which is quite correct as to Asia: He who fears me will respect me, and he who respects me must love me.' In our days this prestige has gone on increasing, owing to the overthrow of the Turkoman power and the subjection of the Khanates of Bokhara; it has entered the bazaars of the remotest towns of India, and is everywhere emblazoned as the symbol of invincible might and grandeur. Such a fame is in itself worth several armies, and will work wonders in the future as it has done in the past.

A. VAMBÉRY.

(To be concluded.)

FOUNDED on the 1st of January, 1785, The Times has reached the hundredth year of its existence. To survive to so great an age is as rare amongst newspapers as it is amongst human beings; still rarer is it, in both cases, for the hundredth anniversary to be attained without any trace or token of decrepitude and decay. There is but one London morning journal which, having lived for upwards of a century, continues brimful of life and vigour, which is even more lusty and energetic now than in earlier days, and bids fair to see succeeding centuries pass over its head. This is the Morning Post, which was founded in 1772 with the title of the Morning Post and General Advertiser. Other London morning journals, enjoying a boundless circulation and an unprecedented popularity, are comparatively young. The oldest amongst them is the Morning Advertiser, which is aged ninety; the youngest is the Standard, which is only twenty-eight. The Daily News has lived and exercised world-wide influence for thirty-nine years; the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Chronicle for thirty.

Newspapers, like human beings, 'have their day and cease to be,' and in the cases of both, their disappearance seems often untimely and incomprehensible. Not many years ago the Morning Herald and the Morning Chronicle were, to all appearance, as popular and powerful as several of the contemporaries which have survived them; their conductors were enterprising and untiring in collecting news; the ablest pens of the day contributed to their columns; both journals appeared to be indispensable to a large section of the reading public, and both enjoyed the favour of many advertisers when they rapidly decayed and passed away. For many years the Morning Star twinkled brightly in the journalistic firmament, yet its light was suddenly quenched. Others, such as the Representative and the Mirror, the Constitutional, the Day, and the Hour, expired after a very short struggle for existence.

Though the first number of The Times was published on the 1st of January, 1785, yet the journal was not called by its present name till the appearance of its nine hundred and fortieth number, on the 1st of January, 1788. It was then no unusual thing for an established

newspaper to assume a new face. For instance, the Public Advertiser, to which Junius' contributed, was first known as the London Daily Post and General Advertiser, next as the General Advertiser, and lastly by the title which is now familiar. The Morning Post has dropped half of its original designation. For the first three years of its existence, The Times was styled the Daily Universal Register. On the 24th of December, 1787, the following intimation was made to its readers: Various reasons having occurred since the first publication of the Universal Register which render it essentially necessary to change the present title, we respectfully inform our readers that on the 1st of January next it will appear with an entire new set of features under the title of the Times.' Thus, for the first title, which was 'The Daily Universal Register, printed logographically, by his Majesty's patent,' there was substituted the following:- The Times, or Daily Universal Register, printed logographically.' The last numbers of the journal under its old title do not materially differ from the earlier ones under its new one, nor at the outset was there a marked superiority of the new journal over its contemporaries.

A journal in those days contained a little news, more or less authentic, several paragraphs of gossip, many bad verses, and a few advertisements. Leading articles were unknown. Letters to the editor filled their place. When those letters were written by such a person as 'Junius' they were quite as serviceable and noteworthy as the leading articles which now contribute to form public opinion. But 'Junius' owed much of his celebrity to the fact that he was an exception. Very few contemporary writers were endowed with his literary gifts. Now and then a really brilliant letter appeared; but the majority resembled the twaddle which may now be met with in country newspapers of very limited circulation. The theme of most letters was the downfall of the nation; sometimes leading articles as well as letters are now written to prove that the nation is hastening rapidly to destruction, but the letter-writers of former days seemed to think of nothing else. They may have suited the taste of their contemporaries, for others besides Mrs. Dangle in The Critic must have thought it very entertaining to read 'letters every day with Roman signatures, demonstrating the certainty of an invasion, and proving that the nation is utterly undone.'

The letter-writers in the Universal Register were not brilliant; one of them, signing 'Marcus Marcellus,' was ready with 'infallible remedies for the cure of all our grievances;' but even he did not meet with special notice or appreciation. Another, signing 'Rusticus,' intimates that he sends his letter because it had been rejected by the Morning Chronicle, which would now be considered a reason for not inserting it. However, the editor not only inserted it, but he expressed his readiness to have the thoughts of the writer again; adding, but as long essays are seldom read, we recommend his thoughts to be conveyed in para