But every probability is against their succeeding. Li Hung Chang's position is not so secure that he can dare to put himself in face of those who champion a national cause, as is the re-absorption of Chinese Turkestan. The return of Tso Tsung Tang with his veterans would be the least danger that the adoption of an unpatriotic policy would entail. If this home danger, then, does not arise, the Kuldja question will be settled between Tso and the Russian authorities in Khokand and Kuldja. The result of that discussion cannot be doubtful. The advocates on either side are soldiers, each equally confident in their own abilities and power, and each flushed by a long tide of success. They will come to the discussion of the question with heated blood and excited nerves; reason will not be the presiding goddess at the council board. There will be accusations and recriminations bandied from one side to the other. If such be the case, the Kuldja question will not be long in discussion, and before the close of the present year perhaps, but more probably early next spring, there will be war between Russia and China along the Tian Shan range. Even if Tso is content to permit his arguments to be clothed in diplomatic language, there will be no solution of the difficulty, so long as Russia remains where she is; and consequently the difference will be as great between Russia and China as if there were open hostilities between the countries. And this, after all, is the main point, for the destruction of all friendly sentiment between Russia and China means the addition of another element to "the great game in Central Asia," and that element, as an adverse one to Russia, is a beneficial circumstance for this country. The difference over the Kuldja question magnifies the previously existing discordant points between the countries, and irretrievably wrecks whatever prospect there once was of Russia and China pursuing an identical policy towards Baroghil and Cashmere. We have now to consider the past relations between England and China, in order that we may be in a position to appreciate the full significance of China's reappearance in Central Asia, and also what is to be the probable outcome of the gradual approximation of the three Great Powers, and the slow extinction of the once innumerable petty states of Asia.