The continued progress of the Russian designs in Central Asia is then beyond all doubt. As I before said, the interests of civilisation make us wish the most entire success to the Russian arms; but still the remote consequences of an acquisition once made suggest a highly important and complicated enquiry. The question whether Russia will content herself even with Bokhara, or will allow the Oxus to become the final boundary of her influence and of her designs, is difficult to answer. Without plunging into any deep considerations of policy, I may remark that it seems very probable that the court of St. Petersburg, in return for her persevering policy of sacrifices pursued across deserts for years and years, at great expense and labour, will seek some richer compensation than is to be found in the oases of Turkestan. I should like, indeed, to see the politician who would venture to affirm that Russia, once in possession of Turkestan, would be able to withstand the temptation of advancing, either personally or by her representatives, into Afghanistan and Northern India, where political intrigues are said to find always a fruitful soil. At the time when the Russian columns, under the orders of Peroffsky, threw their ominous shadow from the west shore of the Aral Sea as far as Kabul--at the {443} time when the spectre of Vitkovitsh [Footnote 161] appeared in that city and in Kandahar, the possibility of such complications as those alluded to was foreseen. And cannot that which has once occurred, when the necessity arises, occur a second time? [Footnote 162] [Footnote 161: This was the name of the Russian agent sent by the court of St. Petersburg to Afghanistan in 1838, with large sums of money to be employed in intrigues against England.] [Footnote 162: Whilst I write the above, a St. Petersburg correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_ (10th October 1864) sends the intelligence that the Russians have already taken Tashkend. The authenticity of the statement may perhaps be doubted, but that the Russians are in movement in that quarter is certain.] Without, therefore, lending to the question the foul colouring of envy or jealousy, I consider myself justified in disapproving of England's indifference to the plans of Russia in Central Asia. Such is my humble opinion; but whether the British Lion is to come in direct hostile collision with the Russian Bear in those regions, or in brotherly fashion they are to share and share alike, is a question which, in accordance with the precept, 'Ne sutor ultra crepidam,' I in my character of a Dervish, devoted to philological studies, will not venture nearer to approach. LONDON PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO NEW-STREET SQUARE -------------- Albemarle Street, London, November, 1863. MR. MURRAY'S GENERAL LIST OF WORKS.