imperial fiat should go forth for the extinction of the rule of Yakoob Beg. Colonel Reinthal was sent in 1874, to endeavour to place matters on a more hopeful footing, but with little success. In addition to the question of trade privileges, the Russians, in negotiating with native states, or securing treaties at the point of the sword, always demanded the right of having consular agents in the chief cities of the state. The ostensible duty of these official representatives was to look after the interests of their government, and to protect the lives and property of Russian subjects as best they might be able. So far as these very necessary functions were concerned, Russia had a perfect right in demanding these safeguards, when such were deemed to be required. But unfortunately for the reputation of that country, the experience of Asiatics had amply demonstrated that these declared duties were the least important part of their office. Their secret instructions were to lose no opportunity of discovering the drift of public sentiment in the state where they were stationed; to learn all the ramifications of the dynastic intrigues that unfortunately form the chief incidents in the history of these states, and to promote, by every means at their disposal, the interests of the great empire into whose service they had been admitted. When such latitude was allowed in their instructions, and so many private and public inducements were offered to raise their zeal, it cannot be matter of surprise if we find the government informed promptly of the shiftings of public opinion in the independent and semi-independent Khanates of Central Asia. Yakoob Beg was keenly alive to the dangers that would arise to him personally from the introduction of such a system into Kashgar, where the discordant elements out of which he had welded a military organization were far from being completely healed. If the presence of a mirza in Khokand and Bokhara had entailed a decade of troubles and of gradual subjection, what was he to expect, a mere military adventurer and a foreigner in the land, from their presence in Eastern Turkestan? But Baron Kaulbars had demanded this concession, perhaps more than any other, and Yakoob Beg had to yield something in form, if he did not surrender much in substance, to the importunities of his visitor. As a great favour he consented to the appointment of _caravanbashis_, or superintendents of the personal comforts of the merchants when they should arrive; but a _caravan-bashi_ was an uneducated, unimportant personage, from whom nothing need be feared. This did not at all please the Russian administrators, and all their subsequent efforts were mainly devoted to the attempt to obtain an alteration of this unimportant personage into the prying and inquisitive _mirza_. To defeat their design Yakoob Beg was no less firmly resolved, and the history of the embassies, from that of Baron Kaulbars to that of Captain Kuropatkine,