organization and a perfect acquaintance with the strategical conditions of their country. Most probably there would be no serious local opposition to the occupation by Russia of a line extending from Balkh eastwards through Khulm and Kunduz to Faizabad and Sarhadd, all of which places can be reached without great difficulty from the Oxus, and are connected by excellent lateral road communications. But the occupation of such a line could have but one possible object, which would be to conceal the actual line of further advance. Each of these places may be said to dominate a pass to India over the Hindoo Kush. Opposite Sarhadd is the Baroghil, leading either to Kashmir or to Mastuj and the Kunar valley. Faizabad commands the Nuksa Pass. Khulm looks southwards to Ghozi and the Parwan Pass into Kohistan, while from Balkh two main routes diverge, one to Bamian and Kabul, the other to Maimana and Herat. It would be a great mistake to suppose that this short list disposes of all the practicable passes over the Hindoo Kush. The range is a singularly well-defined one throughout its vast length; but it is not by any means a range of startling peaks and magnificent altitudes. It is rather a chain of very elevated flattish-topped hills, spreading down in long spurs to the north and south, abounding in warm sheltered valleys and smiling corners, affording more or less pasture even in its highest parts, and traversed by countless paths. Many of these paths are followed by Kuchis in their annual migrations southward, with their families and household goods piled up in picturesque heaps on their hardy camels, or with large herds of sheep and goats, in search of fresh pasturage. South of the Hindoo Kush we find most of the eastern routes to our northwest frontier to converge in one point, very near to Jelalabad. There are certain routes existing between the Russian frontier and India which pass altogether east of this point. There is one which can be followed from Tashkend to Kashgar, and over the Karakoram range, and another which runs by the Terek Pass to Sarhadd, and thence over the Baroghil into Kashmir; but these routes have justly, and by almost universal consent, been set aside as involving difficulties of such obvious magnitude that it would be unreasonable to suppose that any army under competent leadership could be committed to them. The same might surely be said of the route by the Nuksan Pass into the valley of Chitral and the Kunar, which joins the Khyber route not far from Jelalabad. Its length and intricacy alone, independently of the intractable nature of the tribes which border it on either side, and of the fact that the Nuksan Pass is only open for half the year, would surely place it beyond the consideration of any general who