But they were reckoning without their host. Yakoob Beg quickly perceived that the bold exterior of the Russian demands concealed a vacillating purpose, and that a power which would go out of its way so far to bring about an arrangement, would yield much more when the discussion became directly carried on. He had evidently impressed the few Russians who had visited him with a belief in his strength, and rumour had magnified his resources, and converted his small and heterogeneous following into a regular and trained army. He was not the man to destroy, when the game was almost in his hands too, all the favourable impressions, that stood him in such good stead during his career, which his policy for four years had succeeded in creating about his personality. After a suitable delay his formal reply to the official letter of Khudayar arrived, and its contents must have been eminently displeasing to the Russians. In general terms he refused to enter into negotiations with the Russians, because they had refused to acknowledge his own government, and had ever supported the cause of his enemies the Chinese. But, not content with this blunt refusal to the offer made from Tashkent, he went on to minor matters and dealt with the question of Russian policy in specific language. The common enemy of him and all his co-religionists was not worthy of any consideration from him or his allies, the rulers of Khokand and Bokhara. "The Russians that have come here, into my state of Kashgar, look at these localities and become acquainted with the state of the country, and therefore it is better to forbid their coming, for they are a treacherous and crooked-minded people." In such plain terms did Yakoob Beg speak of a power which could without any serious risk have crushed him at any moment. Yet in one sense his boldness was the height of prudence, and succeeded when perhaps a less decided attitude would have completely failed. The Russians were fairly deluded in their estimate of their new antagonist, and all means having been exhausted for inducing Yakoob Beg to abandon his indifferent attitude towards themselves, it began to be seriously discussed at Tashkent whether, if simply for the purpose of obtaining accurate information of his country, it would not be prudent to acknowledge the existence of a ruler who had for nearly six years been established as responsible sovereign of a very large portion of Asia. The path was smoothed, too, for the Russian diplomatists by Yakoob Beg sending a letter to the governor of Turkestan, stating that it was useless for the Czar to attempt the establishment of diplomatic relations through the good offices of Khudayar Khan; but that if the Russians really desired to enter into alliance with him they could send an embassy to him, when formal steps could be commenced for securing the trade and other agreements that were desirable. The letter was a very dignified piece of writing, such as