Years have passed since the delimitation of the Russo-Afghan frontier and the definition of the Anglo-Russian spheres of influence in the Pamirs were made. In the interval, beginning with the acceptance of the findings of the Pamir Boundary Commission of 1896, Russia ostensibly has been engaged in evolving an especial position for herself in North China and providing railway communication between Port Arthur, Vladivostock and St. Petersburg. In this direction, too, war has intervened, coming as the culminating stroke to the policy of bold aggression and niggardly compromise which distinguished the diplomatic activities of Russia in Manchuria. Yet throughout these ten years the energies of Russia in Mid-Asia have not been dormant. Inaction ill becomes the Colossus of the North and schemes, which were _en l’air_ in 1896, have been pushed to completion, others of equal enterprise taking their place. Roads now thread the high valleys of the Pamirs; forts crown the ranges and the military occupation of the region is established. Similarly, means of access between the interior of the Bokharan dominions and the Oxus have been formed; caravan routes have been converted into trunk roads and the services of the camel, as a mode of transport, have been supplemented by the waggons of the railway and military authorities. The great importance attaching to the Orenburg-Tashkent railway and its especial significance at this moment will be appreciated more thoroughly when it is understood that hitherto the work of maintaining touch between European Russia and the military establishment of Russian Turkestan devolved upon a flotilla of fourteen steamers in the Caspian sea--an uncertain, treacherous water at best--and the long, circuitous railway route _viâ_ Moscow and the Caucasus. This necessitated a break of twenty hours for the sea-passage between Baku and Krasnovodsk before connection with the Trans-Caspian railway could be secured. The military forces in Askhabad, Merv, Osh and Tashkent--including, one might add, the whole region lying between the south-eastern slopes of the Pamirs, Chinese Turkestan, the Russo-Afghan and the Russo-Persian frontiers--embracing the several Turkestan Army Corps, were dependent upon a single and interrupted line. Now, however, under the provision of this supplementary and more direct Orenburg-Tashkent route the entire military situation in Central Asia has been dislocated in favour of whatever future disposition Russia may see fit to adopt. All the great depôts of Southern and Central Russia--Odessa, Simpheropol, Kieff, Kharkoff and Moscow, in addition to the Caucasian bases as a possible reserve of reinforcements--are placed henceforth in immediate contact with Merv and Tashkent, this latter place at once becoming the principal military centre in these regions. Similarly, equal improvement will be manifested in the position along the Persian and Afghan borders, to which easy approach is now obtained over the metals