measure, which it had been expected would lessen the difficulty, only added fuel to the flame. The situation of affairs was becoming desperate; the people were encouraged by the disasters of the Chinese in the neighbouring states to increase the number of their demands; and the Chinese officials appear to have lost their heads in the storm that was gathering from all sides around them. They were but the effete representatives of a system which in its vigorous days had claims to general admiration, and they are only saved from incurring our contempt by the possession of courage, the sole virtue left them. When the Chinese first conquered Eastern Turkestan they brought from Kashgar a large number of settlers, and placed them in the country round Ili. They became known as Tarantchis, and, in the course of two or three generations, had increased into a very numerous community. These were always at heart disaffected to the Chinese, but, as they occupied a very subordinate position, would probably never have thought of revolt had not a large division of the conquerors set them the example of insubordination. So soon as the discontent among the working classes had assumed formidable proportions by the pecuniary embarrassment of the Chinese, and the Tungan successes in the east of Jungaria had raised a fanatical feeling to swell the hatred against a declining and Buddhist rule, the Tarantchis were not backward for their part in reviving their almost forgotten grievances, and in joining in a defensive and offensive alliance with the Tungani. Each party collected such forces as they could, out in the encounter that ensued the disciplined soldiers of the Viceroy overcame the far more numerous mob by which they were opposed. The fortress of Bazandai, however, within the next few days, fell into the power of the insurgents, and that achievement more than compensated for the disaster in the open field. Ili itself surrendered in January, 1866, and a Tungani-Tarantchi government was formed. The Chinese viceroy had in the meanwhile destroyed himself and many of his followers and assailants by setting fire to a mine of gunpowder under his palace. The Tungan element gradually superseded the Tarantchi in the administration of the state, and the five years of independence, which continued until the Russians came in 1871, were chiefly marked by petty disagreements which had no influence on the progress of events in this part of Asia. The trade with Ili fell off, and many other valid reasons for Russian intervention were accumulated during those few years of national existence.