Kokand, the third Khānate of Central Asia, was doomed to lose all semblance of freedom. Its ruler had accepted the inevitable on the defeat of his powerful neighbours, had abolished slavery, and had striven to maintain friendly relations with Russia. But his territories were so placed that the annexation was essential to the safety of the eastern borders. They intervened between Turkestān and China, and were inhabited by a fanatical population with a strong leaven of untamed Kirghiz and Kipchāk nomads. Had Kokand possessed a firm and politic ruler, its absorption might have been indefinitely postponed. The reverse was the case; for the Khān, Khudā Yār, was detested by his subjects, and rebellions frequently recurred which kept the whole of Central Asia in a ferment.[559] A climax was reached in 1875, when, after three years of almost incessant civil war, the Russians found themselves compelled to intervene. Kokand was invaded by a strong expeditionary force under General Kauffman, among whose lieutenants was Skobeleff, destined to win imperishable glory in subsequent campaigns. Short work was made of the Kokandis, who had dethroned their Khān and marched under his son’s banner. They were routed with prodigious slaughter at Makhram, and the holy city of Marghilān was occupied without resistance. Defeats were afterwards administered to the native levies at Andijān and Nāmangān, and on 20th February the capital was seized by a force under Skobeleff. On the 20th March 1876 the Tsar, Alexander II., formally authorised the annexation of Kokand as a province of Turkestān under its ancient name, Farghāna. Skobeleff, the ardent soldier who had so greatly contributed to the reduction of the Khānate, became its first governor. Farghāna has a temperate climate, and has bred a hardy and warlike population. Owing to its remoteness from the centres served by the Transcaspian Railway, the Russian officials were not till lately subjected to the vigorous surveillance which is exercised over their colleagues in other provinces, and the reins of administration were slackly held. In the spring of 1898 the discontent inspired by alien rule, which had been sedulously fanned by the priesthood, burst into a flame. The ringleader of the movement was a Mohammedan monk named Ishān Mohammad `Alī Khalīfa, who claimed the hereditary dignity of Imām, or descendant of the Prophet. He announced that on himself had devolved the task of fulfilling a prophecy widely received, that during the last decade of our century an Imām would proclaim a Holy War against the infidel. As had been the case on the eve of the Indian Mutiny, a general rising had been planned, and a simultaneous massacre of the Russian troops throughout the province. History repeated itself in the result of their deeply laid conspiracy. India was saved by the premature outbreak at Mirat; and Farghāna by the impatience of the Ishān, who on 29th May attacked a Russian camp