Ephemeral, alas! are the calculations formed by people in England on behalf of Russia's future policy with reference to India. Just as the fabric of security which the statesmen of Downing Street are now building within their brains, can soon be shattered to the ground; so the arguments for a future entente cordiale are but slight indeed. Instead of a bootless refutation, we would rather point out former mistakes, would rather touch on the means by which the danger of a direct collision,—that most perilous of all games for English interests,—may yet be avoided.

4. Russian Gains and the Disadvantages Of English Policy.

In order thoroughly to understand the misconceptions of English politicians concerning their Russian rivals, it is necessary for us to consider all the advantages which the latter always enjoyed, and still enjoy, on the field of action. In Europe, we are wont to look with amazement on Russia's gigantic empire in Asia; and yet nobody thinks of the means which have rendered essential service towards the acquisition of it. The Russians are Asiatics, not so much in consequence of their descent as of their geographical position and their social relations; and it is only because with the Asiatic laisser-aller they combine the steadfastness and resolution of Europeans, that they have mostly been a match for the Asiatic races. In their contact with Chinese, Tartars, Persians, Circassians and Turks, they have always shown themselves as Chinese, Tartar, Persian, and so forth, according to circumstances. An English historian says, pretty correctly, if not without ill-will, that the Russians moved forward like a tiger. "At first, creeping cautiously and gliding stealthily through the dust, until the favourable moment admits of its taking the fatal spring. With smiles of peace and friendship, with soft smooth words on their emissaries' part, have they often averted every fear, every precaution, until the certain success of their schemes made all fears profitless, and baffled every precaution. Blind, therefore, and ill-advised must every government be, which can go to sleep over Russian advances towards its frontiers, be those never so slow, or the interval between the conqueror and the goal of his endeavours be never so great!" As Asiatics, they are wont to hold out less rudely against their neighbours in manners, customs, and modes of thought, than the English, for whom, on account of their higher culture, such a renunciation would be a great sacrifice, incompatible with their efforts after civilisation. They seldom offend against the national ways of thinking, and easily conform to them when their interests require it. In England the Government has hitherto disdained to place itself in direct correspondence with the Ameer of Bokhara, for what the chief city in Zarif-Khan obtained up to this date from the British cabinet was always enjoyed through the Governor-General of India. In Russia they think differently; and even the haughty Nicholas, that stern autocrat, who long shrank from calling the French emperor "mon frère," behaves, in presence of the Tartar princes of Central Asia, not as Emperor of all the Russias, but as a Khan on the Neva. As a result of such procedure, we find the nations all along the Russian frontier of Asia, whether nomad or settled, Boodhist or Mohamedan, in such a state of intimacy at this moment, if not of actual friendship, with the Russians, as happens nowhere else in the foreign possessions of a European power.

These advantages, however, of Asiatic modes of thought, which might properly be specified as excessive slyness and craftiness, are, even in political intercourse, far more profitable than the open and upright language employed on principle by Englishmen from of old. It is only Great Britain's foes in Europe, only the enviers of her power, who can find fault with the English in India; and yet whoever is sufficiently informed as to their political dealings with native princes and neighbours on the border, whoever is thoroughly conversant with Asiatic character, will, in the utter absence of this very defect, discover the one great fault of English statesmen.

From the largest province on the Amoor, to the smallest of the possessions latest won by Russia on Asiatic ground, may we always find one same procedure of intrigues and wiles,—a scattering of the seeds of discord, bribery and corruption, through the vilest means,—all serving as forerunners of invasion. Men come first through commercial relations in contact with foreign elements; then the slightest differences come to be readily employed as casus belli; failing these, the ground will be undermined by emissaries, the chiefs bribed by presents, or bemuddled with lavish draughts of vodki (Russian brandy), and drawn on into the dangerous magic circle. A well-founded cause of war and of invasion would nowhere be easy to discover; and certainly the gigantic empire of the House of Romanoff has been builded up more through the wiles of its Asiatic statesmen than by the might of its arms. Moreover, in consequence of the qualities lately named, Russia is more conversant with the relations of Asiatic peoples, far better informed of all that is passing in the border-states, than the English and other Europeans. To the great watchfulness of her emissaries, to the unwearied zeal of her diplomatists, is she indebted for the fact that her cabinet is often more quickly and fully informed of the most private doings of her neighbours, than the particular native government itself. Passing over the fact that, in Petersburg, a company of the cleverest men can make money out of their experiences through the different parts of Asia, there is here and there a Kirghis, a Buryat, a Circassian, or a Mongol, who, after being trained in Russian learning and modes of thought, becomes a most serviceable tool against the wholly or half-subjected land of his birth.

In England we meet everywhere with the sharpest contrasts.

Whoever is aware of the great ignorance of public opinion in England about events in India, about the relations between those great possessions and the neighbouring States; whoever in the course of a year has noted down those absurd and ridiculous news, those telegraphic despatches in the English papers, which reach Europe and England through Bombay and Calcutta; whoever is aware of the very small number of English statesmen who are so carefully informed on Asiatic relations, that they can pass a sound judgement on questions of Eastern policy;—such a one must surely be amazed at the way in which Great Britain founded her foreign possessions, to say nothing of her being able to hold them until now.

And just as even those among the English public who have lived any time in India have kept aloof from the natives, in accordance with their national character, and are but seldom conversant with their language and manners,—so, too, can the English Government entrust to naturalized Levantines, and not to Englishmen, the Dragomanate, that necessary organ of mutual intercourse, in such important embassies as that, for instance, of Constantinople. While Russia, France and Austria, have long had Oriental academies for diplomatic beginners; in England, with her rich dower of colleges, schools, and universities, no one has ever thought of such an institution. And so again in the legislative body as well as in the ministry, where the smallest questions often have a special advocate, there are but very few men competent to discuss the important relations in Asia; and even these, on account of the prevailing nepotism, are but seldom allowed to turn their experiences to account.

This indifference must surprise all foreigners. Still more amazed will they be to hear men of the liberal party say: "What does Asia concern us; what the swarm of barbarous races that cause us more trouble than profit; what the wealth of India, whose income has long ceased to cover her expenditure, to say nothing about the costs of the conquest?" I have often heard remarks of this kind from the most famous leaders of this party. The sincerity of their confession defies questioning; and yet they have always left me without an answer, when I have asked them how they would make up for the loss of that political influence which springs from a great colonial empire. People seem wholly to forget that a large number of young Englishmen, of all ranks, are pursuing military and political careers in India; they seem to be unaware how many sons of clergymen and officers, to whom no sphere of action offers itself within their island home, earn wealth in lucrative offices on the Ganges and the Indus, with the view of spending at home in a calm old age the outcome of their earlier years. They seem to leave entirely out of their reckoning the enormous number of merchants dwelling in their great Asiatic dominions amidst the most extensive commercial interests, through whose hands English capital multiplies by millions. Those liberals are very short-sighted, who deem the possession of such a colony as India an indifferent or superfluous matter. That they should wish to see the greatness of their fatherland founded on the flourishing condition of inland manufactures, and not on their dominion over foreign peoples, can no longer be regarded as a view generally valid in England, now that more than sixty millions pounds sterling are laid out in Indian railway undertakings alone; for that neither manufacturing industry nor the enterprising spirit of English merchants can succeed, to any great extent, without the supporting hand of English rule, is amply shown by the circumstances of British trade in Algiers, Central Asia, and other non-British territories.

It is faulty views like these which neutralise all the advantages of English individualism in the presence of Russian policy, which always acts with steadfast consistency. To these errors may be ascribed the fact that Russia, having grown up into a powerful rival in a space of time incredibly short, is treading so close on the Achilles-heel of Great Britain. With the position she holds on the Aral and the Caspian Seas, after conquering the whole of the Caucasus, after her enormous successes in Central Asia, it would now be useless to try and force back that giant power. What might with no great trouble have been attained twenty years ago, it is now far too late to attempt; but if England would avoid the usual lot of commercial states,—the doom of Carthage, Venice, Genoa, Holland, and Portugal,—there is but one way left to her: a policy of stern watchfulness, a swift grasp of the measures still at her command.

5. Advice to England for the Purpose Of Averting the Danger.

To think of moving out in open hostility to the growing power of Russia, were now, on England's part, just as great an error as the strange inaction she has displayed for the last twenty-five years amidst all the occurrences beyond the Hindu-Kush. Russia will establish herself on the right bank of the Oxus, will absorb the three Khanats, and perhaps Chinese Tartary, will make everything Œzbeg to acknowledge her supremacy. That can no longer be prevented; but thus far and no farther should Englishmen allow their rivals to advance.

All that lies between the Oxus and the Indus should remain neutral territory. Through her physical conformation, through the warlike character of her inhabitants, and specially through their great aptitude for diplomacy, Afghanistan would be altogether suited to form a military and political barrier against any possible collision between the two giants. That country would cost the conqueror, coming whether from North or South, a tenfold harder struggle than did the Caucasus. Besides, the possession would not for a long while make good the material advantage of an expensive war; and although the continual disorders that prevail in the mountain-home of the Afghans may be of no advantage to either neighbour, still the danger is not so great as to justify any schemes of conquest on one side or the other.

How, then, in case Russia continues her policy of aggression, may England secure the neutrality of Afghanistan? What must she do to set up with her influence there a solid barrier, without coming forward as a conqueror?

That is the work of a skilled diplomatic intercourse, the work of an uninterrupted alliance, carried on by agents, who, acquainted with the Afghan character, and eschewing English modes of thought, can conduct themselves as Asiatics.

The same fault which Lord Auckland committed in 1839, by his active interference in Afghan affairs, that fault and one far greater still did his successors prove guilty of, through their utter withdrawal from the scene, through their strange indifference in respect of the concerns of the neighbouring State. The English resemble a child which, after having once burnt itself at a fire, will not for a long time venture to draw near its warmth. The catastrophe of the Afghan campaign, the thirty millions sterling in costs, dwell even now, after a quarter of a century, with such fearful vividness in the eyes of every Briton, that he trembles at the very thought of political influence beyond the Hindu-Kush. Have we not here two sharply-opposed extremes? First, armed to the teeth in support of the interests of a prince so little loved as Shah Sujah; and then, after the annexation of the Punjab, scarce willing to give one more thought to Kabul! And why should the frontier above Peshawar be so dangerous a barrier for every Englishman and European? If several thousands of Kakeries, Lohanies, Gilzies, and Yusufzies, yearly pass over the northern frontier of Hindostan,—some for mercantile purposes, others to graze their flocks,—why should British travellers not be allowed to venture over the Hindu-Kush, let alone a few hours' journey beyond Peshawar? Afghan merchants drive a flourishing trade with Mooltan, Delhi, Lahore: why, from the English side, may not one mercantile firm or another betake itself for the same end to Kabul?

In truth, this state of things has always astonished me; the more so, when I heard that the officer whom Sir John Lawrence sent to Kabul to offer welcome to Shere Ali Khan had to be always escorted there by a strong detachment of troops, to guard himself from the rage of a fanatic population. This is surely a mode of proceeding at once wrong and ridiculous, for giving Asiatics a lesson in European magnanimity and European love of justice. England, who has long dealt with the Asiatics after this fashion, resembles a person trying with all his might to make a blind man comprehend the beauty of one of Raphael's cartoons. In this respect Russia is far more practical. She knows that such proofs of magnanimity and humanity are only ridiculed by the Orientals; that, so far from taking the example to themselves, they misuse those proofs for their own special ends; and, instead of wasting moral preachings on them, England would act shrewdly by helping herself to the same weapons, and treating Orientals in Oriental fashion.

At the time when the martyrs Conolly and Stoddart were pining in cruel imprisonment, out of which they were afterwards delivered only by the headsman's axe, there happened to be in British territory a number of Bokharians, Khokandies, and other Central Asiatics, by whose arrest the lot of the English officers might have been alleviated, and their deliverance from death assured. In such cases Russia is wont to clear herself from the dilemma by the law of retaliation. England acts differently. She would play the high-minded part; and what has she gained by it? When I was in Bokhara, I heard how this very act of British generosity had missed its mark. England, said the Bokharians, dares not awaken the wrath of the Ameer of Bokhara: her weakness commands this moderation.

Do the gentlemen in Calcutta imagine that the Afghans think otherwise? No; and they likewise say: protected by the might and greatness of Islam, our indigo and spice merchants, our camel-hirers, can venture unharmed on British ground; whilst not one infidel soul dares show himself among us.

The same unpardonable weakness did the Viceroy of India show in 1857, when he was sent by Lord Canning to Peshawar to conclude, in conjunction with Edwardes, an offensive and defensive alliance against Persia with the then reigning Dost Mohamed Khan. At that time the Afghans were hard pressed; they wanted arms and money: the grey-haired Barukzie chief, attended by his sons, betrayed this fact in every word; and yet his demands were fulfilled in every point, without his yielding in the least to any of England's leading claims. Four thousand stand of arms, with bayonets, sabres, pouches, and twelve lakhs of rupees a year, were promised him, so long as England was at war with Persia. Of this large sum they received, even after the conclusion of peace at Paris, a considerable instalment; and yet the chief end of the negotiations at Kabul and Kandahar—the appointment of a permanent English representative—was not attained. Dost Mohamed Khan avowed, as Kaye tells us in his "History of the Sepoy War," that he would not take on himself the responsibility of such a step; that he could not protect English agents against Afghan fanaticism; that every step of theirs might compromise, &c., &c. I cannot comprehend how John Lawrence, one of the few men acquainted with Eastern character, could yield to the endearments of the grey Afghan wolf,—how he could believe those false apprehensions. If even Dost Mahomed could say that an English mission might tarry in peace at Kandahar, why could it not fare as well in Kabul? The British commissioners were greatly in the wrong if they doubted even for a moment the supreme power of the Afghan ruler. With a very little more persistency, the English, who then appeared as helpers in need, might have obtained not two but several posts of embassy. The Afghans would soon have grown used to their presence, and the diplomatic alliance, once made easy, would have been maintained unbroken.

In a semi-official article, which appeared in the Edinburgh Review for January, 1867, Sir John Lawrence now strives to show how hard and vain it is to enter into diplomatic intercourse with neighbours so wild and turbulent as those who surround India on all sides. Still, I cannot understand why the Viceroy should not take example from Russia, who, with the same elements on her frontier, sends envoy after envoy, knows how to obtain for them respect and safety, and so keeps moving forward to her wished-for goal. Why does not England pursue, in this case, the same policy which she once began in China, Japan, and other Asiatic countries? It seems to me that people are less convinced of the difficulty of carrying out such a purpose, than of the extreme remoteness of the consequent gain. Or are these gentlemen really unaware of the permanent support thus rearable, not only for English interests in Afghanistan, but even for the special welfare of the Afghans themselves?

Sir Henry Rawlinson's diplomatic bearing in Kandahar, which enabled him so long to maintain himself there with his suite in the most difficult position, at a period the most critical, is a splendid proof that even the rudest Asiatics are not unmanageable. And if the said officer could accomplish so much in the threatening attitude of a conqueror, what might not first have been attained through political tact and friendly persuasion?

The tangible results of uninterrupted diplomatic intercourse would, if we mistake not, be:—

1st. A greater impulse given to trade; for, as English goods have long enjoyed a good name in Central Asia, English products, imported direct from England, could certainly drive similar but less-prized Russian products out of the market. At present this is naturally not the case: at this moment, in the bazaars of Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and other places, there is much more sold of many Russian articles,—such as ironware and working tools, coarse cotton and handkerchiefs,—than of English ones; solely because the former, owing to the lower price at which they were first saleable, are not raised by the additional payments to so high a figure as the English goods, whose value, originally dear, is raised twofold in the transit. Moreover, in Bokhara, here and there in Khiva and in Karshi, Russian traders may be found who, secure in the energy of their government, can of course advance their own interests better than foreign mercantile agents. In vain should we seek for a better apostle, a better pioneer for civilisation, than trade; in vain, for a better teacher to turn men to our own ways of thinking, than the silent bales of goods which are carried over from Europe; and England, apart from her commercial interests, is bound, for the ends of humanity also, to help forward trade in Central Asia.

2. The Afghans, who, under the name of Ingilis or Feringhi, have hitherto been acquainted with but one armed power, one conquest-seeking neighbour, will easily, in the peaceful garb of diplomatic intercourse, in well-meaning counsels, accept the teaching of a better one. In the year 1808, when the Afghans had little fear of an English invasion, the ambassador, Mountstuart Elphinstone, with a numerous following, whose escort amounted to only four hundred Anglo-Indian soldiers, was well received throughout Afghanistan, for fear and mistrust had as yet taken no root. Down to the beginning of this century the same state of things might be found in all parts of the Ottoman Empire. European and enemy were deemed identical things; but now, after our embassies and consulates have pushed themselves, spite of the Porte's reluctance, into many places, will Osmanlis and Arabs no longer cherish the same sort of views? They have clearer notions about the generic term, "Feringhi," and know for certain that Russia, for instance, feels just as friendly to the Porte as England feels inimical; that this government has one set of plans, the other another; and so on. Without consulates such a result could not have been attained. And so the Afghans, until they have been brought into nearer and peaceful intercourse with the English, will never understand what England or Russia may do for their weal or woes; whose friendship will render them the more or the less service.

3. The Afghans, most warlike of all Central Asiatics, might, with the powerful support of English counsels, easily be raised into a military power of some importance. What the Instructeurs Militaires of their day accomplished in the army of Sultan Mahmood and Mehemed Ali Pasha; what English officers accomplished with the troops of Abbas Mirza,—would be as nothing in comparison with the consequences of a similar undertaking among the Afghans; out of whom, so far as one may judge from the military bearing and manœuvring of a Kabul regiment drilled by Sepoy deserters, a regular army will very easily be formed. Such a result may also be attained with the fortresses of Herat and Kandahar, whose fortifications, in the event of their coming under the charge of a second Pottinger, would certainly prove a far harder prize for Russian besiegers than if they were given over to the warlike skill of Afghans alone.

4. The prime gain, however, which we look for from a permanent agency is, that England, being accurately informed of proceedings in Central Asia, of the military and political movements of Russia, will no longer be exposed to the danger of finding herself suddenly surprised on one point or another, and, through the continual uncertainty in which she wavers touching the true state of things, of being disabled from taking the right precautions. At this moment, the Viceroy maintains a few Moonshies without any official character in Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat; Moonshies, that is, scribes, and Mohamedans, who, being among other things well paid, are engaged to furnish occasional news. Besides these, there are also spies, or secret emissaries, despatched in this or that direction on special conjunctures, who roam in the disguise of a merchant or a pilgrim through Turkestan, and furnish tidings of political events. Letting alone the fact that I regard both the former and the latter class as alike unfit for such an office, because they never enter in their memorandum-books anything but bazaar-reports and the politics of the caravan, I may, as one who has lived whole years among Orientals, be allowed to place the very smallest faith in those people. Do persons in Calcutta consider what Mohamedan fanaticism is; are they aware that no amount of gold will succeed in turning one Mussulman to the account of the Feringhie against another Mussulman? To all appearance these emissaries and spies will display the greatest diligence, the most reckless loyalty, the most forward zeal; and yet in the interior of Central Asia they will fulfil the commands of their order by squatting on the self same carpet with those religious comrades, with whom they repair to one common mosque. On this point British statesmen will certainly not agree with me, though that is the very reason why they are so little acquainted with what goes on in Central Asia,—why the absurdest stories spread through India into Europe,—and why they can regard the affairs of the Khanats in the light which Russian diplomacy has kindled for them.

Far as I am from wanting to set up as a political advice-giver, I find that these unpretending counsels point out the only means whereby Afghanistan's neutrality can be secured, and herself erected into a powerful barrier against Russia's further progress in Central Asia. In view of so weighty a question as the possession of the East Indies is for the greatness and continuance of English power, it were too dangerous to seek a false protection in palliative measures. Political errors, however trifling, form in time so many links in one unbroken chain of disasters,—a chain which, presently, the greatest struggles, the most clear-eyed statesmanship, may trouble themselves to break in vain.

6. The General Interests of the Question.

It still remains to answer the one further question, why we cannot look with indifference on the danger for English interests from Russian ascendancy, and for what special reason it is that the decline of England's power seems to us so detrimental, that we see in Russia's undue influence a bar to the advance of the spirit of our age.

The answer is very simple: Russia was, is, and long will be Asiatic. The cheering prospect that the overgrown body of Russian power will, according to the laws of nature, necessarily break up hereafter into two or more sections, and the danger that threatens us be thereby lessened, is one which we cannot for a moment entertain. We need only fix our eyes on the character of political life in Russia, its social circumstances, the relation of the people towards the upper castes of the governing circle, the general state of popular culture, and the modes of popular thought, to see how everything there is Asiatic, aye, wildly Asiatic in tendency; and how little, in spite of the long struggle after European civilisation, has yet been taken in, to speak comparatively, from what we call European or Western life. Without repeating the well-worn adage, "Scrape a Russian and you will lay bare a Tartar," it is none the less impossible, whether from personal experience, or the reports of later, and to Russia most friendly travellers, to help acknowledging how much may yet be found, on the Neva and in other large Russian towns, of that surface civilisation which many Asiatic governments bring successfully to bear on short-sighted Europe. No doubt this pretence of civilisation succeeds better in Petersburg, wielded by a government containing a strong admixture of Christian and European elements, than in Cairo, Constantinople, and Teheran. The Russian noble, in appearance a finished European, thoroughly versed in our language, manners and modes of thought, will certainly cut a better figure than the semi-European Effendi on the Bosphorus, or the Persian Mirza. A government which draws towards itself, at a cost so heavy, so many scientific and artistic forces, which has lately advanced with so much zeal in founding schools, universities, scientific associations, which hires persons in Europe to blazon forth the progress of Russian civilisation,—can assuredly reap for itself greater credit than the Porte or the Persian ministry, which, engaged in upholding their weakly existence, cannot bestow so much attention on the needful pageantry.

No wonder, then, if to a superficial glance Russia seems more European, more imbued with the spirit of our civilisation, and can easily win the sympathy of those who would love her with all their might. But if once we try impartially to lift up the outer covering and peep into the inside of the great Russian community, what shall we behold?

Great, indeed, is the disenchantment that awaits us at every step, when we seek to discover in the majority of the Russian people those traces of progress, which ought to exist according to the statements of Russian hirelings in the European press. The Englishman who, in 1865, in a pamphlet called "Russia, Central Asia, and British India," sought to indoctrinate the English public with the same idea, and, inferring the commencement of many reforms from the bearing of such innovations as slave emancipation, placed such a conversion in the foreground, though even Russian writers like Herzen and Dolgorukoff are doubtful of it, would in all likelihood have thought very differently, if he had drawn the parallel, not between persons of intelligence, but between the Russian people and the Asiatics.

On that immense frontier where Russia touches Asia, we shall everywhere find the Russians standing on a markedly lower level of development, and in freedom of manners far behind those Asiatic peoples to whom we would impart the advantages of our younger European as compared with their old Asiatic civilisation. Alexander Michie, a traveller from Pekin to Petersburg, and so great a friend of Russia that he calls Siberia a second Paradise, and deems the exiled Poles enviably fortunate, cannot, however, help proclaiming aloud the superiority of the Chinese to the Russians, wherever he finds the two holding intercourse with each other. And this is the case not only in Maimadshin and Kiachta, but even among the Mussulmans. The Russian, as a northerner, will display more energy than the Asiatic de pur sang; but his remarkably dirty exterior, his drunkenness, his religion bordering on fetishism, his servility, his crass ignorance, his coarse, unpolished manners,—are characteristics which make him show very poorly against the supple, courtly, keen-sighted Eastern. Just as I have heard a cultivated Moslem Tadjik in Bokhara speak with contempt of the uncivilised Russians, whom he set above the Kirghis only, so in all likelihood will every Chinaman, every Persian in Transcaucasia, and every well-educated Tartar in Kazan, say the same. What can these nations, then, learn from Russia?

Can her forms of government awaken any envy in Asiatic races? The corruptibility of the placemen, their tyrannical and arbitrary conduct under Nicholas, the mass of more than fifty million peasants who occupied the lowest of all positions beside the caste of placemen and nobles,—all this really is not particularly alluring for those among whom the wildest autocratic institutions are yet combined with patriarchal mildness.

Yes, it is hard, not only at present, but even in the distant future, to discover in Russia's craving for conquests the prospect of a profitable change in the social life of the Asiatic peoples, a change in the direction of European ideas. If we ask ourselves what has become of the Tartars, who for more than two hundred years have dwelt under Russian protection; what of the great number of Siberian tribes,—such as Bashkirs, Voguls, Tzeremisses, Votjaks,—which have been or are on the point of being absorbed into the Russian nation, must we not everywhere regard the Russianising as the chief result?

Russianising is naturally a step from Asia towards Europe, as the government of an Alexander II., so far as it has gone, may even be called a turning-point: and yet who will blame us, if to this wearisome process, whose results seem always doubtful, we prefer the English scheme of civilisation, which has at this moment such splendid and surprising results to show in India, and wherever else it deals with Asiatics?

That the peoples of broad India, of the land which has been the cradle and the fountain-head of that Asiatic civilisation which we show up and fight against as unfit to live, hold very persistently to their old usages, to their own ways of thinking, no one will dispute; and yet how great a change has come over India, even since the beginning of the last century! Methinks, even the worst enemies of Great Britain will be unable to deny that the caste-system of the Hindoos and their many inhuman customs have suffered a mighty blow from English influence. No one can deny that these wild Asiatics, in spite of all their stiff-necked bearing, are advancing with wonderful strides on the path of our civilisation. We find at this moment in India a great number of people thoroughly convinced of the blessed influence of their conqueror: numerous schools and institutions spread the light of the new world abroad through all classes of the population. Not only are there many well versed in the English tongue; they also take an active part in our scientific discussions, are enrolled as members of learned European societies, and sometimes even take up the pen to emulate the writers of the West. Rajah Radakant Deb Bahádur, Maharajah Kali Krishna Bahadur, Baboo Rayendra Lala Mitra, a good many pundits (priests), and other learned gentlemen, may be found on the list of French, German, and Anglo-Asiatic societies, and are known in distinguished circles by their works. Strong in their own sense of nationality, the Hindoos are now better acquainted with their language, history and philosophy, than ever they were in the days of their inland princes. Societies are formed, as in England, for the extirpation of certain prejudices, for doing away with so many shameful habits and customs, for the advancement of social intercourse; and if we consider how much the reading world increases day by day, how large a circle has been procured from among the natives for such Hindustani papers as the Hirkara Bengála ("Bengal Messenger"), the Suheili Panjábi ("Punjaub Star"), the Audh Akbar ("Oudh News"), Khairkah Panjábi ("Punjaub Wellwisher"), and how greatly the press is rising day by day into a powerful factor of Europeanism, we shall be obliged to own that England's subject races stand, in respect of culture, not only above their yoke-fellows in Russia, but even above many of the Russians themselves.

If to the above-named unfitness of Russia for civilising India we superadd the important circumstance that Russia, in thus absorbing half the world, and blending many millions of Asiatics into her own body, presents herself in an attitude of powerful menace, not to Great Britain only, but to all Europe as well, we shall find this immense predominance more hurtful to our own existence than advantageous to the leading Tartar races of Asia. Russophobia, we are told, is a foolish crotchet; and I am willing to think so myself. Still, if we contemplate the mighty influence of the Russian two-headed eagle in all parts of Asia; if we reflect, that through its position on the Hindu Kush the court of St. Petersburg will solve, in its own favour, the Eastern question on the Bosphorus, it is hard to feel perfect peace of mind with regard to the future destiny of our own hemisphere. The diplomacy of to-day, which pays more homage to fashion than to good sense, makes merry enough with Napoleon's prophecy regarding Cossack rule in Europe. But people forget how much may be accomplished with our present means of communication by a power which will extend from Kamshatka to the Danube, or perhaps to the shore of the Adriatic,—from the icy zones of the North Sea to the burning banks of the Irawaddy. Visionary as it may seem to many, it is in nowise impossible that some hundred thousands of Asia's wildest horsemen may readily follow the summons of such a power into the midmost heart of Europe. In the beginning of this century the possibility of such an inroad, à la Djinghis Khan and Taimur, was shown by the Don Cossacks on the banks of the Seine. And why might this not be repeated now-a-days, with railroads and steamers at their disposal? Our European war-science may overcome this savage power: no member of the House of Romanoff could long play among us the part of a Djinghis or a Taimur. Yet a struggle of that sort, however momentary, would evolve mournful issues; and it is now a matter of pressing need to keep off the approach of such an event, while measures of precaution are still within our reach.

Apart, however, from these far-reaching calculations, can any one doubt that England's power and greatness are of more advantage than Russian supremacy to the general interests of Europe? England has many foes, or perhaps we should rather call them, enviers. Certain voices in the continental press will always, under the sway of passion, discover in her conduct selfishness, greed, and pride. Enthusiasts will see the blindest materialism in every move; and yet people must be blind and carried away by prejudice, not to see the triumphs won by English greatness, English capital, and English endurance, for our civilisation and our scientific researches. Is it not England alone, whose powerful flag has opened Eastern Asia to our trade? Who else but English travellers have been driven by a daring spirit of inquiry into the farthest regions, in order to enrich our geographical and ethnographical knowledge; and what happens on the Thames, what in every other town of that ever-stirring and busy island-realm? Do those haughty spirits who are continually finding fault with English materialism, ever consider that these brokers, in spite of their lively interest in trade and money-making, still render the greatest service in the advancement of science, in the enlightenment of the world? What country is there, in which Government gives its millions so readily for an institution like the British Museum; where a hundred thousand pounds is laid out with so free a hand on the mere catalogue of a library, as lately happened in London; where Government fits out ships and expeditions in quest of an imperilled traveller, as they have lately done in behalf of Livingstone?

Yes; in spite of all her faults, from which no country is free, we must allow that England, whether in consequence of the materialism thus strongly censured, or of the thirst for power so often laid to her charge, anyhow stands at the top of European civilisation. For if France and Germany furnish indispensable aid in diffusing the light of our higher civilisation, still, the chief agent is England alone. With her flag emerges the day-dawn of a fairer era in every zone, in every part of the world. What the enviers of Great Britain tell us of her tyrannical behaviour, is mainly an untruth. It is not at the writing-table and in easy arm-chairs, but in the countries of the Asiatic world, that these sentimental fault-finders should inform themselves about England's influence; and if they saw how the march of our western civilisation drives out the vices of the old Asiatic, how it seeks to upraise the downtrodden rights of man, and freeing millions from the absolute sway of a single tyrant, leads them on towards a better future, then assuredly they could not remain indifferent to England's influence in foreign lands.

And would it not be grievous, if Muscovite ascendancy should do harm to such a State? The strong will of a free people governs on the Thames; on the Neva the ambition of an Asiatic dynasty, a system of government so framed that its capacity for reform in the future remains doubtful, while its great perniciousness in the present is all the more assured.

Yes; only in Russia's approach towards India, that Achilles-heel of British interests, may we discover the infallible sign of serious danger for England. A greater struggle than that which the British Lion had to encounter in the south with France, for the establishment of its power on the Ganges, it has still to look for in the north. The first-named foe, weaker in numbers and endurance, had but a small fleet, and a sea at that time unnavigable behind her back, and could easily be overcome. The last-named, on the contrary, will be supported by an unbroken chain of fortresses, garrisons, guarded roads; her weapons are a boundless ambition, the blind devotion of millions of subjects, and the sympathy of rude neighbour-states. Victory over such a power will be far less easy, and the consequences of defeat far greater.

Be on thy guard, therefore, Britannia! For if the star of thine ancient fortune should now begin to wane, then will that verse—

—have to remain unread in the different zones.

Lewis & Son, Printers, Swan Buildings, Moorgate Street, London.