These far-reaching designs may not, perhaps, be the work of the next years, nor even of the Government of the peaceful and well-disposed Alexander; yet who can assure us that after him no Nicholas, or no yet sterner nature than his, may succeed to the throne, who will thwart the desire of a Taimur or a Nadir to come forth as a thoroughly Asiatic conqueror of the world? What a Russian autocrat can do in the present condition of Russia, in the present social position of his subjects, who, moreover, will long continue such, every one knows, and the statesmen of England best of all. It is, therefore, the more remarkable, that these gentlemen should think to put the said eventualities so easily aside, and to contest the question of a Russian invasion of India with arguments so very shallow. They usually bring forward the unpassable glaciers of Hindu-Kush and the Himalayas, and the swarms of hostile nomads which would hem in a force advancing from the north on its way southward. They console themselves with the great distance, which would bring an invading army to the Indian frontier tired and exhausted, while the English troops lying by, ready to strike at their ease, and strong in military zeal and training, awaited the shock of war with greediness. But do these gentlemen believe that Russia, in the event of her really cherishing these sort of views, would dispatch her invading armies thitherwards direct from Petersburg, Moscow, or Archangel? What end is served by the South-Siberian forts? What by Tashkend, Khodshend, and still more afterwards, by Bokhara and Samarkand? What, too, by the Persian-Afghan alliance? What did the Cossacks and the Russian troops of the line do in Gunib, and in the rugged hills of Circassia? Were they exhausted when they reached their journey's end? And the latter station is not so much farther from the capital on the Neva, than Peshawar is from the cities just named! And why are we to assume that Russia would choose only the difficult road through Balkh to Kabul, and thence through the Khyber Pass, and none other? Without mentioning that this could have been so fatal to the English army of 1839, which fled in affright and disorder, for the march thither cost no especial sacrifices; the road through Herat and Kandahar, the proper caravan-course to India through the Bolan Pass, is far more convenient. The latter, fifty-four or five English miles in length, did indeed cost the Bengal corps of the army of the Indus many days' toil; and yet we read in a trustworthy English author that the passage of 24-pounder howitzers and 18-pounder guns caused no particular trouble. Or why should the Russians not force the Gomul or the Gulari Pass, called also the middle road from Hindostan to Khorassan, which, according to Burnes, serves the Lohani Afghans as their main road of communication, and offers no especial difficulties?