Nasrullah’s relations with Khiva were bitterly hostile throughout his reign; and he played into the hands of the common enemy, Russia, by harrying the Khān’s territory at a time when all his force was needed to oppose an expedition under General Perovski. The petty states of Balkh, Andakhūy, and Maymana on the southern frontier were the objects of his constant aggression, and the mutual jealousy of Persia and Afghanistān allowed him to assume suzerainty over them. Thus the weakness of his neighbours turned to his advantage. He was hailed by his obsequious courtiers as king of kings, and firmly believed himself destined to repeat the conquests of his model, Tīmūr. This was the man at whose gates knocked the two greatest of European Powers. England had watched the constant advance of Russia towards her Indian frontier with ill-concealed alarm, and in 1832 Alexander Burnes was despatched on an unofficial mission to Bokhārā. He accomplished nothing, and was fortunate indeed to escape from the bloodthirsty tyrant’s clutches.[506] The next attempt made by England to establish friendly relations with the leading Central Asian Powers was less fortunate. Her agent was Colonel Stoddart of the Indian Army, a man utterly unfitted by training and temperament for a diplomatic mission.[507] His rude and overbearing manners gave the deepest offence to a despot accustomed to see all around him tremble at his slightest movement.[508] He was thrown into a loathsome dungeon, and languished there, with brief intervals of comparative liberty, till death put an end to his sufferings. In 1840 he received a companion in affliction in the person of Captain Arthur Conolly, whose gentle disposition and high culture rendered him equally unfit to cope with a truculent monster such as Nasrullah. He had been charged with the duty of uniting the Central Asian Khānates in an informal alliance against Russia--a task which their common jealousies rendered absolutely impossible. Thus his overtures were politely rejected by Khiva and Kokand in succession. Enticed by Nasrullah into his camp, he was seized, robbed of all his possessions, and sent to join poor Stoddart in captivity. In the meantime the Russians had begun to compete for Nasrullah’s favour.[509] Major Batanieff was despatched to Bokhārā in 1840 by the Tsar Nicholas, with orders to conclude a treaty of commerce and amity with the Amīr. He was received with ostentatious courtesy, and his presents found especial favour in Nasrullah’s eyes. But every attempt to arrive at a _modus vivendi_ was baffled by those excuses and procrastinations in which Oriental monarchs are past masters. He left in 1841, after vainly interceding for his rivals, who languished in daily expectation of death. Their fate was sealed by his departure and by the news of our disasters in Kābul.[510]