Russia's bases of military operations towards India are two: one on the Caspian Sea at Krasnovodsk, and Chikishliar, with outposts at Chat and Kizil Arvat; and the other on the line of Khiva, Bokhara, Samarcand, and Margillan, which may roughly be said to represent the frontier held (together with a large extent of boundary south of Kuldja) by the Army of Tashkend, under General Kaufmann. But between this latter line and the Oxus, Russia is undoubtedly already the dominant Power. The mere fact of Russia having already thoroughly explored all these regions, gives her the key to their future disposal. There is no doubt that in all matters relating to the acquirement of geographical knowledge, where it bears on possible military operations, Russian perceptions are of the keenest. Her surveying energies appear to be always concentrated on that which yet lies beyond her reach, rather than in the completion of good maps to aid in the right government of that which has already been acquired. With what lies north of the Oxus we can have very little to say or to do; therefore it matters the less that in reality we know very little about it. The Oxus is not a fordable river. At Khoja Saleh, which is the furthest point supposed to have been reached by the Aral flotilla, it is about half a mile wide, with a slow current. At Charjui it is about the same width, only rapid and deep. At Karki it is said to be one thousand yards wide, and at Kilif perhaps a quarter of a mile. But at all these places there are ferries, and there would be ample means of crossing an army corps, if we take into account both the Aral flotilla and the native material, in the shape of large flat-bottomed boats, capable of containing one hundred men each, used for ferrying purposes, of which there are said to be three hundred between Kilif and Hazarasp. These boats are drawn across the river by horses swimming with ropes attached to their manes. But under any circumstances it seems about as unlikely that any British force would oppose the passage of a Russian army across the Oxus as that it would interfere with the Russian occupation of the trans-Oxus districts; but once south of the Oxus, many new conditions of opposition would come into play, arising principally from the very different national characteristics of the southern races to those farther north. It would no longer be a matter of pushing an advance through sandy and waterless deserts, or over wild and rugged mountains, difficulties which in themselves have never yet retarded the advance of a determined general, but there would be the reception that any Christian foe would almost certainly meet at the hands of a warlike and powerful people, who can unite with all the cohesion of religious fanaticism, backed up by something like military