Yakoob Beg had up to this point given little promise of future distinction. He had, indeed, earned the reputation of being a gallant soldier, if a not very prudent one; and in the intrigues that had marked the history of his state for twenty years, he had borne his fair share. But no one would have dreamt of prognosticating that he possessed the ability necessary to win campaigns against superior forces, and then to erect a powerful state on the ruins that fell into his possession. The most favourable opinion would have been, that he would have died manfully as a soldier, and as a true Mussulman. When he embarked in the enterprise of conquering Kashgar, he was no longer in the first flush of youth, but was a man who covered his fiery spirit and great ambition with a cloak of religious zeal and diplomatic apathy. Twenty years' experience in the most intriguing court in Central Asia had placed every muscle at his complete command, and even in the most disastrous moments in his career, he is always represented as being calm and collected--calm in his belief in Kismut, and collected in a persuasion of his own resources. One fact that will account for the slowness with which he advanced into notoriety is that he was entirely dependent on his own capacity for promotion. He had no wealth, no large following, and in the two leaders, Kipchak and Kirghiz, Mussulman and Alim Kuli, he had competitors of almost equal merit with himself, while they each possessed personal power and family connections that placed them far beyond the reach of the hardy soldier and court chamberlain. Some of his detractors had availed themselves of his impecuniosity to circulate stories of his having had dealings with the Russians; but these, although invested with circumstances originating in non-Russian quarters, are probably without any truth. The chief charge, to be taken for what it is worth, is, that the weakness of his defence of the Ak Musjid district, after the fall of the fort, was owing to his having received a large bribe from the Russians. Another is, that in 1863, after his return from Bokhara, he neglected to retard the Russian movements for a pecuniary consideration. In both cases the sum mentioned is very large; and besides the apparent falseness of these rumours, we have only to consider that he was not worth a bribe, and that his opposition to the Russians was marked by all the want of foresight of religious zeal. All these considerations make such rumours appear in their true light; and although we are aware that a follower of Yakoob Beg confirmed, if he did not originate, these charges, it seems to us that the Russians, if there had been truth in the report, would long ago have placed the fact before the peoples of Asia, and required Yakoob Beg when Ameer of Kashgar to have acted in a more friendly way towards his former employers. But the simple reason that Yakoob Beg could not have rendered any service to the Russians worth the thousands of pounds he is