outlet for our manufactures and the redundant energies of our middle class. In Russia social and economic conditions differ widely from our own; and her conquests in Eastern Asia will absorb her surplus activity for many years to come. It is true that the path opened by nature for her expansion leads southwards. Peter the Great’s famous will is a forgery,[750] but no one can doubt that its promptings have sunk deeply into the hearts of the Russian people. In their eyes the Tsar is the heir of the Byzantine Empire which gave them laws and religion, and they are firmly convinced that a day will come when the Greek Cross will replace the Crescent which desecrates the summit of St. Sophia. Twice has the road to Constantinople been blocked by England. In 1854 she drew the sword in order to keep the Key of the World in Turkish hands; and a quarter of a century later she turned back the Tsar’s victorious legions when the splendid quarry was within their grasp. Baffled in an ambition which educated Russians deem legitimate, their eyes are turned to the Far East; and here, again, England has set limits to their expansion. It is this latent antagonism, ever ready to burst into uncontrollable fury, which constitutes the chief danger to the stability of our rule in India. The latter is our one vulnerable point, and, when national interests are become divergent, it is in Russia’s power to create a diversion by fomenting trouble in Afghanistān, in the highlands which separate the two empires, and within the limits of India itself. Every friend of humanity must deplore the existence of a gulf between two forces which, if united, would give civilisation to Asia and assure the peace of the world. When we pass from the tendency of Russian policy in the heart of Asia to the results achieved there, we are on firmer ground--in politics nothing happens but the unexpected, while ocular evidence can hardly be impeached. We left home full of prejudices, the result of a course of Central Asian literature. The Cassandra notes of Vambéry were ringing in our ears, and the latent chauvinism of Lord Curzon of Kedleston[751] had prejudiced the Russians in our eyes. But unfavourable prepossessions vanished when we had seen the results of their rule in Central Asia, and had gathered estimates of its character in every class of the population. We are convinced that the Tsar’s explicit instructions to his lieutenants to exercise a fatherly care over his Asiatic subjects are scrupulously obeyed.[752] The peoples of Asia, from the Caspian to China, from Siberia to the borders of Persia and Afghanistān, enjoy as large a measure of happiness and freedom as those of any part of our Indian dominions. The fiscal policy of the conquering race is one of extreme moderation. Imperial and local taxation are indeed too light; and, in Samarkand at least, a turn might be given to the screw with great advantage to an exchequer which