claim as a victory; but in 1865 they appeared before the walls in greater force. Alim Kuli, with a gathering vastly superior in numbers to the Russians, attacked them a few miles to the north of Tashkent, and the fortunes of the day hung in the balance, until the fall of Alim Kuli, who, whilst boldly leading a charge of Kirghiz cavalry, was pierced in the chest by a musket ball. He was carried from the field by a faithful officer, and expired that night in Tashkent. Alim Kuli appears to have been actuated to some extent by a disinterested patriotism, as much as by more personal motives. With his fall, and the departure of Yakoob Beg for another sphere of operations, all hope of a continued state of independence for Khokand was dissipated. After this severe defeat the Russians laid close siege to Tashkent. The Khokandians in their distress applied to Bokhara for aid, and the Russians hastened to occupy Chinaz to intercept it. The Bokhariot army was routed by the Russian army under General Romanoffski at the battle of Irjar, in May, 1866, eleven months after Tashkent had been occupied by Tchernaief. It was during this period of anarchy, with a hostile Russian and an allied Bokhariot force on his soil, that Khudayar Khan once more supplanted the nominee of Alim Kuli, Sultan Seyyid, and at the close of the campaign Khudayar was left in possession of the southern portion of Khokand. This Khan appears to have been of an unambitious nature, for, during his various exiles, he devoted himself to private business with an energy he had never shown in the management of the public affairs, and when he at last sank into private life and became a pensioner of the Russian Court, on the complete annexation of his state, he is said to have acquired not only a happiness, but many virtues unknown to him in his more elevated lot. The unfortunate Sultan Seyyid, after wandering for some years out of Khokand, was, when he ventured to return in 1871, executed. Many of the partisans of Seyyid on the defeat by the Russians, and on the overthrow of his rivals by Khudayar, sought refuge in the mountains of the Kizilyart, whence they proceeded to join Yakoob Beg in Kashgar, where they arrived at a most opportune moment as will be seen.