said to have received, ought to demolish the whole fabrication. If Yakoob Beg's life proves one thing more than another, it was that he was a most fanatical Mussulman, and as such hating the Russians, as the most formidable enemy of Islam, with the most intense hate his fiery nature was capable of. This man's whole life must have been the greatest hypocrisy if he was not genuine in his religious intolerance, and that intolerance rendered any connivance with Russian measures an impossibility. Owing to his early connection with the church, and his maternal grandfather's high position therein, Yakoob Beg was always distinguished for the strict orthodoxy of his views. Through all his life he seems to have made it his chief object to keep the church on his side. When he was reduced to the most desperate straits in his after life in Kashgar, when some of the most faithful of his followers fell off from him, and when even Buzurg Khan, the man whom he had placed upon a throne, declared him a rebel and a traitor, he never lost heart so long as the ministers of the church held by him; and, on the other hand, they, recognizing the fidelity of their champion, supported him through good and ill repute. Whilst residing at Bokhara "the holy" he had attached to his person several of the most distinguished preachers of Islam throughout Asia, and he had taken all the vows that give a peculiar sanctity to the relations that connect the layman with his priest. It was here that he publicly announced his intention of going on pilgrimage to Mecca; an intention which he repeated on several occasions during his rule of Kashgar, but was obliged, by the position and precarious existence of that state, always to perform by deputy. When he had established himself as ruler, his first measure was to re-enforce the Shariàt and to endow several shrines that had been erected to the memory of the chief Khoja saints. It was by such means that he at every crisis of his life had striven to make his interests identical with those of his religion, and when he became a responsible and successful prince his past life stood him in such good stead, that he easily came to be regarded throughout Asia as the most faithful and redoubtable supporter of Islam.