With the beginning of 1867, Yakoob Beg, secure on the south and on the west from aggression, found himself in a position to cope with the disjointed but allied Tungan states on his north and east. The hostility of the Tungani and Khojas of Aksu and Kucha had been already demonstrated, and it was to be surmised that they were only waiting to recover from the disastrous campaign of 1865 to renew their efforts to drive the Khokandian adventurers out of Kashgar. The facts that they acknowledged the same religious tenets, and that they had overcome, to some extent, a common enemy in the Chinese, and that they certainly had each to fear most from their return, seem to have weighed little with either the Tungani or the Athalik Ghazi. To do the latter simple justice, it must be remembered that the Tungani had been the aggressors, and that their attitude never ceased to be unfriendly towards himself. It is certain that he made some efforts to effect an amicable arrangement with the ruling party in Aksu, but his advances were received with coldness, and both the Khojas and the Tungani of that city held aloof from all intercourse with the new-comer. Both parties remained watching each other for some time, each waiting for the other to take the initiative. The Tungani had experienced the weight of the military power of Yakoob Beg, when they had taken the offensive in the earlier days of his appearance at Kashgar. It was, therefore, not very probable that they would repeat the experiment when he presented a far more formidable and united presence to their attack. Practically speaking, Yakoob Beg was safe from invasion from the east so long as he maintained order within his own frontier; and the Tungani in Ili on his north had manifested no special hostility against his state. Secure from any aggression on the part of the Tungani, Yakoob Beg might with some reason have declined to push to extremities his relations with them. It was certainly inconvenient that an antagonistic state should exist on his very borders, but, as he was in a very strong position for defence, the disadvantages of abandoning it to assume an offensive policy were all the more apparent. What necessity could be alleged to justify a scarcely excusable attack in a moral sense, and a quite unnecessary in a political? The proximity of Aksu was in a strategic sense more than neutralized by the possession of Maralbashi, and, with the lapse of time and the return of peace, the trade route from Kashgar to Aksu might be expected to revive once more. But such temporizing measures as these, involving the endurance of Tungan indifference, could not be brooked by the Athalik Ghazi. The orthodoxy of these Mahomedans was not above suspicion, and to so devout and energetic a Sunni as Yakoob Beg these differences were scarcely less offensive than if they had been believers in a rival religion. Dictatorial announcements were made to the Khoja-Tungan rulers of Aksu; and, on their persisting in defiance,