as their imposition causes delay on all the principal caravan routes and adds enormously to the transport charges. With the advantages which Russia now possesses, unless a determined effort is made to save the situation for the benefit of Indian trade, we may presently expect her to renew her efforts to open up direct relations with Kabul in order to obtain greater facilities for commerce. It may be, too, that it will be in this manner rather than by active aggression that she will seek to lessen British influence in Afghanistan, and even to raise complications with the Amir. The principal Russian commodities are: _Article._ Broad-cloth. Fine linens and calicoes. Silk goods. Velvet. Chintzes. Sewing thread and silk. Gold and silver lace. Gold and silver thread. Needles. Steel and copper wire. Russia leather. Paper. China-ware. Glass-ware. Cutlery. Loaf sugar. Pig iron. Steel ingots. Tin in plates. Copper in plates. Brass. Quicksilver. Cochineal. Tea. Honey. Wax, white and yellow. In silk, linen and cotton goods the Russian fabrics are quite equal to those articles of Anglo-Indian manufacture which find their way into the country. Russian chintzes are more durable and of coarser texture than the Anglo-Indian article; although less elegant in appearance and of colours that are not so fast, they meet with a ready sale among the poorer classes. The silk goods imported from Bokhara are of Russian manufacture, but they might well be superseded by better and cheaper importations from India. Silk handkerchiefs of various colours, and even black ones, are in great demand. Foreign silks do not sell so readily as certain lines in cotton and linen fabrics, since Kandahar, Herat and Kabul possess their own silk looms, each loom paying an annual tax of 23 rupees to the State. The articles manufactured by the native looms are plain silks, called _kanavaz_; red, yellow and purple _durahee_ of slighter texture, less width and of the same colours; _suga khanmee_ of large and small widths, with perpendicular white lines on a red ground; _dushmals_ or handkerchiefs, black and red, with white spots, bound by females around their heads; and _broonghees hummam_, for the bath. To meet the demands of the Kabul market, raw and spun silks are imported from Bokhara, Kandahar and Herat, but the great bulk of either variety required by the Kabul looms comes from districts in the Kabul province. Velvets and satins are imported from both sides of the frontier; but wherever Indian or British goods meet the products of the Russian market in Afghanistan, the bounty-fed trade of Russia in Central Asia enjoys a conspicuous advantage.