From the account we have already given of the policy of Russia with respect to these hordes, it is plain that, while she professes to encourage and protect their advances towards civilisation, her real object is their total subjugation; and the only possible way of accounting for her efforts to make an acquisition intrinsically so undesirable, is by the fact that it is necessary to her ulterior designs upon Khiva; and therefore it is that our inquiries are more especially directed to that part of the Kirghiz steppe through which a Russian army advancing upon Khiva would be compelled to march. So few travellers have recently visited these remote countries, and the information which we can obtain from Russian sources is so very meagre, and liable to so much suspicion, that it would be impossible here to enter into a detailed or minute analysis of the state of feeling towards Russia which prevails among the tribes of the little horde, or describe the facilities for moving large bodies of troops which Russia may recently have established upon the line of march. We know that ostensibly her influence extends over all the Kirghiz inhabiting the country between the Sea of Aral and the Caspian, and that the boundary line between the Kirghiz and the Turcomans, in this direction, is merely imaginary, following as nearly as possible the 44th parallel of latitude. On the east of the Sea of Aral the Syr is the limit of Russian influence; and to the south of that, the Oozbegs and Karakalpaks extend to Khiva, forming a portion of the subjects of that government.