Full of horror at the scenes of cruelty witnessed by me in Turkestan, of which I have endeavoured to give a faint sketch in the preceding pages, I long argued over the question with myself, whether these political views which men sought to instill into me were really in every respect well founded. It is clear, and, indeed, has long been so, to my mind, that Christian civilisation, incontestably the noblest and most glorious attribute that ever graced human society, would be a benefit to Central Asia. The part, however, of {440} the question that has a political bearing I could not so easily dispose of; for although I regard the subject in all its different points of view, and drive my conjectures ever so far, I can never entirely realise the idea that England can behold with indifference any approach of Russia to her Indian dominions. The epoch of political Utopias is past. We are far from being so inspired with a Russophobia as to regard the time as at hand when the Russian Cossack and the English Sepoy shall knock their noses together while acting as sentinels upon their respective frontiers. The drama of a collision of the two great colossi in Central Asia, which political dreamers imagined years ago, continues still far from actual performance. The question moves, it is true, slowly, but still always in a forward direction. Let me, following the natural course of events, without undue warmth endeavour to acquaint the reader with the motives that influence me when I disapprove of the indifference of the English to the Russian policy in Central Asia.