A brief summary of the salient points which have marked the persistent advance of Russia in Central Asia seems to be all that is required at present. For the first ten years following on the Crimean war her generals, having crossed the Kirghiz steppes from Orenburg, were gradually feeling their way along the valley of the Jaxartes. Creeping up the river, and taking fort after fort and city after city, they everywhere defeated the rabble soldiery of the Uzbegs, and finally, in 1867, planted the Russian flag on the famous citadel of Samarcand, adjoining the mausoleum of Timúr. Here, according to prearranged design, the progress of the Russian arms was arrested, pending the approach of co-operating columns from the Caspian; but, in the meantime, the neighboring Khanate of Bokhara, hitherto the most important of the Central Asian States, was brought completely under control, and the influence of Russia was fully and firmly established on the Oxus. To the westward a still more important series of operations was now commenced. In 1869 the first Russian detachments crossed the Caspian, and boldly invaded the country of the Turcomans. Had such an expedition been carried out in Europe, it would have been stigmatised as piracy, for there was absolutely no provocation on the part of the tribesmen, nor even was the formality observed of declaring war. Coercive measures, without further warning and with varying success, were directed against the tribes of the neighborhood. Gradually the sphere of action was extended. Khiva was reduced in 1873, and then the Tekkehs, the principal tribe of the Turcoman confederacy, who inhabited the steppe from Kizil-Arvat to Merv, were seriously attacked. The western division of this tribe, called the Akhals, made a stout resistance, on one occasion in 1879 beating off the regular troops led by Lomakin, and seriously imperilling the whole Russian position. Ultimately, however, in 1880, the renowned Scoboleff, greatly assisted by the Persian chiefs of Kuchán and Bujnoord, who furnished carriage and supplies from the adjacent frontier of Khorassan, penetrated to the heart of the Akhal country and took their stronghold, Geok Tepeh, by storm. All active opposition then collapsed, and in due course conciliation, combined with intimidation, being skilfully employed against the Eastern Tekkehs, who were demoralised by the subjugation of their brethren in Akhal, and who applied for support in vain both to Persia and to Cabul, Merv—“the Queen of the East,” as she has been called—surrendered to Russia in February, 1884, and the first act of the great Central Asia drama, after twenty-five years of sustained and energetic action, was brought to a successful close. It is needless to say that during this long and desperate struggle to reach and occupy Merv there were many phases which tended to distract public attention from the main object in view. To many persons who followed the Russian proceedings with an observant and even friendly