From this stand-point it is therefore most probable that the greatest attention will henceforth be paid to the line of operations from Tashkend, Khodjend, and Samarkand. The conquest of the whole Khanat of Khokand may also follow in time, for that offers no special difficulties; but the chief interest lies in the maintenance and security of the roads of communication, on which the advancing army, in concert with the strong garrisons in the now well-fortified Tashkend and the northern forts, as also with the governments of Orenburg and Semipalatinsk, will move along a road furnished with an unbroken line of wells. The Ameer may have recourse to all possible means of gaining the friendship of the Russians, in which he has hitherto failed; he may send to Constantinople as many Job's messengers as he will; he may despatch ever so many friendly invitations to the Durbar of the Indian Viceroy: but all that will do him no good. The town of Bokhara shall, with or without his leave, be governed by an Ispravnik; for the Russians dare not and cannot rest, until ancient Samarkand and Nakhsheb (Karshi), or the whole right bank of the Oxus has been absorbed into the gigantic possessions of the House of Romanoff. That this catastrophe, this last hour of Transoxanian independence, will not be brought about so easily as the heretofore successes in Central Asia, is manifest enough. Already in my mind's eye do I behold a frantic troop of Mollahs and Ishans, with thousands of students, roaming the Khanats with holy rage, in order to preach the Djihad (religious war) among the Afghans, Turkomans, Karakalpaks; and going through scenes of the deepest, the devoutest anguish, in order to draw down the curse of God on the foreign intruder. The death-struggle will be fierce but profitless. So far as I know the Khivans and the Afghans, I deem the notion of a general alliance with Bokhara to be quite impracticable; for, if such was their inclination, they should have formed one long ago. No egotism, no political combinations, but the greatest want of principle alone, an utter recklessness of the future, will keep them quiet until Hannibal stands before their gates. In vain shall we look for any effort after a general league, either in Central Asia, or even among any of the other Eastern nations. As the very warlike Afghans could play their part with a force of disciplined auxiliaries, so also might the Khan of Khiva join the Ameer's army with twenty to thirty thousand horse. Yet this is what neither the one nor the other will do. To unite them under one command might be possible for a Timur or a Djinghiz; and even then the smallest booty might stir up rancour and dissensions in their ranks. So, too, the hundred thousand well-mounted Turkomans, who inhabit the broad steppes from this side the Oxus to the Persian frontier, are utterly useless for the rescuing of the Holy City. Their Ishans, indeed, if summoned by their fellow-priests in noble Bokhara and by the Ameer,