population amounts to 2,500,000. In winter the cold is severe; and though in the latitude of Rome, the Oxus is frozen over. Having thus attempted to relate the mode by which Russia has extended her influence over those tribes whose furthest wanderings form the uncertain boundary which separates her subjects from the nomades of Khiva, and having described the nature of the country, and of the inhabitants through which a Russian army invading that state would be compelled to march, it is time to consider shortly what the object of such a campaign would be, and what its probable results. It is evident that, of all European nations we alone could be directly interested in such a movement on the part of Russia; but it is equally plain that, even should a Muscovite army succeed in occupying Khiva, its farther advance through Caubul and the Hindoo Khoosh is an utter impossibility. Bjornstjerna, the Swedish general, in his work on the East Indies, says it will require four campaigns before a Russian army could possibly arrive at the Indies by this route; and, indeed, the slightest acquaintance with the nature of the country to be traversed, will be sufficient to justify our discarding as absurd the notion of a Russian army invading India from Orenburgh and Khiva. But this consideration does not divest of their importance the designs of Russia upon Khiva, but should rather lead us to discover what those motives really are which induce her to entertain them at all; and a due appreciation of the present position of Russia in the East will quickly enable us to perceive why, while repelling her aggressions in the West, we should not neglect to watch her movements in that part of the world in which our own interests are more nearly affected. The tendency of those movements has not been altogether concealed. Mouraviev says, unreservedly—“Masters of Khiva, many other states would be under our rule. The possession of it would shake to the foundation the enormous commercial superiority of those who now rule the sea.” It is, therefore, not the invasion of India which is anticipated, but the acquirement of that influence over the neighbouring states which would have the effect of undermining the power of Great Britain in the East. The states here alluded to as bordering upon Khiva, are Boukhara, Caubul, and Persia. Supposing Russia to be at Khiva, so long at least as she was confined to that remote and inaccessible country, the possibility of her alliance with Boukhara and Caubul against England can scarcely be entertained. The barbarian rulers of these distant people are far too suspicious of so powerful a neighbour, and too ignorant of the relative power of European states, to join in a war between two great Christian empires, the objects of which they would not understand, and which they would conceive might probably lead to the extinction of Mahomedanism. While allowing that the conquest of Boukhara is possible, its acquisition would not facilitate the