They had also seized several inhabitants of Khokand and the Naryn district; and the Russian government demanded the unconditional surrender of these individuals as her subjects. Captain Reinthal was instructed to make these two demands in a peremptory way, and to convince the new government that Russia would not permit any infraction of the spirit of the treaties concluded with the old government under the Chinese. Captain Reinthal was received in a sufficiently hospitable manner, but his movements were scrupulously restricted to the city. He did not, on this occasion, learn much of importance about the country, but he was impressed favourably by the appearance of such of the army as he saw. The Kirghiz robbers were captured by the order of Yakoob Beg, but he stoutly refused to surrender them. The Russian prisoners were also kept in honourable confinement as a guarantee for the safe return of Shadi Mirza. They were, however, permitted to return to Russian territory when it became known that Shadi Mirza was progressing favourably with his mission to Tashkent. Captain Reinthal accomplished little or nothing on this embassade, and had to report, on his return to his superior, the strange tidings that the new power was resolved to play an independent part in Asia, and to answer defiance with defiance, and threat with threat. This report must have seemed scarcely credible, but there is no doubt that Captain Reinthal advised, as the result of his experience, the adoption of a lenient and friendly policy towards the new-comer. This concession to a Central Asian despot was not agreeable at head-quarters, and the question was shelved for the time. Shadi Mirza, who had been detained at Vernoe, was at last permitted to continue his journey to Tashkent, where he found General Kaufmann absent in Europe. Instructions were then issued to send him on to St. Petersburg, where he arrived in the last days of 1868. He had several informal interviews with the governor of Turkestan, but he was not received by the Czar or any of the higher officials. In fact, he was only treated as an ordinary traveller, and not as the representative of a neighbouring state. Nothing up to this had been done by the Russian government, showing that they recognized Yakoob Beg as ruler of Kashgaria. The Chinese were still, in their eyes, the _de jure_ owners of that province, whoever might be the temporary owners _de facto_. On the return of Shadi Mirza to Kashgar, in January, 1869, the relations between Russia and Yakoob Beg may be said to have returned to the exact _status quo ante_. All the Russian demands for trade had been unsuccessful, and, except the brilliant journey of Mr. Kludof, no one had broken through the mystic charm that shut out the Garden of Asia from all foreign spectators. Their envoy, Captain Reinthal, had been treated in a precisely similar manner to that in which Shadi Mirza had been received at Vernoe and St.