North of the Tian Shan the supreme command was vested in the hands of Tso Tsung Tang, generalissimo of the army operating against Kashgar, and Viceroy of the province of Kansuh. South of it the commanders were Generals Kin Shun and Chang Yao, the former the hero of the siege of Manas, the latter of the diversion against Turfan from Hamil. The base of the former was Manas, of the latter Turfan. Their sources of supply were Hamil, Barkul, and Chuguchak, within the Chinese frontier, and Kuldja, Semiretchinsk, and Semipalatinsk, without. Their weapons and ammunition were transported across the desert from Lanchefoo, and their ranks were swollen by recruits from the Calmuck and other tribes. It does not appear that the Chinese were very eager to enlarge their army in size; they rather aimed at increasing its efficiency by the distribution of Berdan rifles and Krupp's cannon; and during the heat of the summer months they remained at rest in their recently acquired possessions. Nor is it probable that those epidemics broke out in their ranks which it was asserted had appeared amongst them. A sensational paragraph was published in the _Tashkent Gazette_, which was copied by some of the London newspapers, asserting that a species of cholera, known in Kashgar by the name of _vuoba_, had decimated the Chinese army, and that in consequence of that calamity its advance was permanently checked. Certainly, this was a piece of gross exaggeration, even if there were a substratum of fact for the assertion. Then, again, we were apprised, on high authority, that the Russian government had put a stop to the despatch of provisions to the country occupied by the Chinese army, at the request of its new-found friend, Beg Bacha. Yet there is no question that the caravans of Mr. Kamensky continued to pass between Kuldja and Manas, and that the chief caterers for the Chinese army were the Russian merchants of Central Asia. In the course of their intercourse the best feelings do not appear to have prevailed between the Russians and Chinese. The latter, flushed with their triumph, had become arrogant, and were too fond of referring to the question of Kuldja to be agreeable to the actual possessors of that province. On one or two occasions these verbal disputes assumed a more dangerous aspect, and from words the disputants proceeded to blows. Whether this collision was magnified or not, the Russian government took no diplomatic steps to secure reparation for injury to their subjects, and continued to wink at, if they did not actually approve of, their merchants supplying the Chinese. The clearest proof of this is that the moment Aksu fell a large caravan was despatched there by Mr. Kamensky. Still there was no little bad blood between the two people, and for a long time it was doubtful whether Russia would preserve her attitude of neutrality until Kashgar had been finally subdued. Beneath all this doubt, and the uncertainty of