besides sending a great quantity to Russia. In Semipalatinsk there are many wealthy Tartar merchants. One told Mr. Atkinson that he imported annually 50,000 head of horned cattle into Siberia, which were consumed chiefly at the gold mines. Mr. Atkinson has met Kirghis traders with herds of 3,000 to 4,000 oxen, 1,500 miles from their homes, and 500 from their destination. One Tartar merchant is mentioned who had been to trade a summer with the Kirghis, and returned with above 3,000 horses, about 7,000 horned cattle, and more than 20,000 sheep, which he was taking to the frontier of Siberia. The value of the whole was about £15,000, and the whole had been obtained solely by barter trade. And the author just quoted remarks: "It is not uncommon to see a herd of 8,000 to 10,000 horses, more than 1,000 camels, 20,000 horned cattle, and 50,000 sheep spread over the steppe." Again, trade between Russia and China is very much facilitated by the steamers on Lake Baikal. But these steamers were placed there at great expense. All the machinery, including the engines and boilers, was made in St. Petersburg, and transported by land more than 4,000 miles to the place where they were to be used. Although this is a sample of Russian enterprise, it illustrates the fact that there is life in Asia. Besides, Russia has a fine fleet upon the Caspian Sea. On the Aral Sea are also Russian steamers, which have ascended the Jaxartes. The first were put upon the Aral by General Perovsky in 1853. They were made in Sweden, and at great expense were transported by land to their place of destination.

We have already spoken of the rich carpets manufactured at Birjand. The finest silk in the world comes from China, and in regard to colors, the moderns in civilized countries, with all that science has done for them, are yet far behind the Orientals. We analyze, Orientals execute. We are critics, while the Orientals are the artists. We are last and least in what we can do, just as the rhetorician who writes rules for an epic poem is later and less than the Homer who first created the poem itself.

This strange continent has also great interest for the student of Christian history. In the second, third, and fourth centuries, a wave of Christianity swept eastward, through Persia, into the

great deserts beyond the Caspian Sea, over the mountains of Central Asia, down their slopes into Chinese Tartary, across the great desert of Gobi, into Mongolia, and southward into China and India. In A.D. 1250 twenty-four metropolitan sees were enumerated in Central and Eastern Asia. Besides India and China, including Northwest China, we find the names of Balkh, Samarcand, Kashgar, Herat, Sistan, and Merv, places celebrated in more recent history as hot-beds of fanaticism, mentioned as metropolitan seats at the period just indicated. Merv, in A.D. 334, was an Episcopal see, and was raised to metropolitan dignity in A.D. 420. Elias, Metropolitan of Damascus, in A.D. 893 mentions Merv and Herat as metropolitan sees, places which those interested in the great game that is being played between England and Russia, will do well to remember. And not only in King Solomon's time was there commercial intercourse between India and the cities of Phoenicia and Etruria, but in the first century of the Christian era such intercourse was constant between India and Egypt, and Christianity was thus early planted in that far-off country by Christian sailors, if not by regularly commissioned Christian missionaries. From the few facts thus thrown together, it will be seen that this old world has unusual interest for the antiquarian and the historian, for the student of language, religion, and art, for the ethnologist and geologist, for the Christian missionary, and for those who seek to develop the wealth of nations by legitimate trade and commerce. There is to be an interesting, perhaps a glorious, future for Asia. Her broad territory is to be crossed by telegraphic lines and by postal routes; railroads are there to be built; her rivers and lakes are to be covered with ships; her mountains and valleys are to yield their untold wealth; and Christian civilization is yet to shed its blessing upon her many peoples.

But it is no doubt true, that the amount of popular knowledge in regard to this interesting country, is as yet very limited. And we are embarrassed by the fact that we cannot present our readers with a convenient map of Central Asia, so that they might follow us when we shall speak, as we shall be obliged to, of countries and places that are but little known. For this reason, we shall give fewer geographical details, and dwell

more on general commercial affairs, and perhaps the political relations between England and Russia, as related to that country.

It is hardly possible to say much of Central Asia without including, to some extent, Persia, Southern Siberia, Western China, and Northern India, because it has political relations in all these directions. The following general outline may be of service to the reader. Northern India pushes up into the mountains like a great bay. On the left, to one facing the north are the Suleiman Mountains, the natural boundary of India in this direction, beyond which is Afghanistan, stretching away in hills and table-lands to the Hindoo Koosh Mountains, which bound Afghanistan on the north. On the person's right are the Himalaya Mountains, beyond which lie other mountain ranges, and the table-lands of Western Thibet, till the Karakorum, or Kuen-lun ranges, are reached, which slope down into the desert of Gobi. Let us go now to Western China. The desert of Gobi pushes westward into the mountains, like a broad, vast bay. On the left of the person facing the west are the Kuen-lun Mountains just mentioned, and on his right is the great Thian Shan range, running through Mongolia in a northeasterly direction, far beyond which is the Altai range— the "Gold Mountains "-running through Southern Siberia. Directly to the west of the person thus standing is the Pameer table-land. This whole region, embracing the extreme northern part of India, Western Thibet, the northwestern part of Afghanistan, and the region stretching northward between Kashgar and Khokand to the Altai range, is one tangled mass of mountains. The highest and bleakest mountains in the world are here thrown together in the wildest confusion. The Suleiman push out southwest, separating India from Afghanistan. The Hindoo Koosh push westward, bounding Afghanistan on the north. The Himalaya go southeast, in all their wild, broken, icy grandeur. Parallel with the Himalaya is the Karakorum range, rising from the table-land of Thibet, and in the valley, between these two ranges, are the head waters of the Indus. The Karakorum, extending still eastward, becomes the Kuen-lun range, and northeast are the Thian Shan Mountains; these two ranges dividing, as we have explained, to

admit the broad head of the desert of Gobi. Such, in brief, is the outline of that vast net-work of mountains which culminate and confound each other in this "roof of the world." In such a region, the water sheds are without number. Rivers go east, south, and west, besides those which flow into inland mountain lakes.

It is difficult to define the political divisions of Central Asia. Too many names would only confuse the reader. There are the three Khanates of Khiva, Bokhara, and Khokand. Then other more or less important political and commercial centres may be mentioned as follows: Herat, Candahar, Kabul, Balkh, Kunduz, Badakhshan, Chitral, Gilgit, Leh (Ladak), and still others, in the higher and more central table-lands. In addition to all these, we have yet to mention Eastern Turkestan, which must be done with more of detail, because at present it is the chief centre of interest in Central Asia. We have spoken of the western end of the Gobi Desert pushing up between two great mountain ranges, like the head of a bay. On the shores of this bay, so to speak, and including the mountain slopes, there is a broad belt of country, 4,000 or 5,000 feet in elevation, and drained by the tributaries of the Tarim River. This belt of land supports several important cities. Irrigation has made its valleys and plains unusually fertile, and corn fields and orchards cover the country with beauty. At the present time, both the English and the Russians are trying to get a controlling influence in the markets of Eastern Turkestan, because the field is an inviting one for commercial enterprise.

Silk is produced here in abundance, and the hills are rich in gold mines. Fruit is also abundant, and grapes are here produced which are celebrated throughout Central Asia. The population of this particular region is said to number about 1,500,000. This region became part of the Chinese Empire in 1758; but since 1847 her power has been very much weakened there, and about 1857 she lost control of it entirely. Bloody and exterminating civil wars prevailed from that time on, till 1864, when a certain Yakub Beg appeared upon the stage, conquered city after city, till he had the whole province subdued, which he has since ruled with firmness and justice, although with some severity. In 1868 he received the title of Atalik

Ghazee, i. e., “Protector and Champion of the Faith," from the Ameer of Bokhara. This title, we understand, is now dropped in speaking of him, and he is also no longer Yakub Beg, but "Ameer Yakub Khan." This title he received from the Sultan, and his new made Ameer-ship intends issuing silver coins with his own name on one side and that of the Sultan on the other. This Yakub seems to be in many respects a remarkable man. In 1853 he was an officer in the Khokandian service, and defended Ak Mesjid with considerable bravery against the Russians. It is said that he carries five bullet wounds, which he received while in the service just mentioned. This man calls himself "a mere trooper;" and if this signifies that he is modest enough to estimate himself justly, it is a great advance on the historical type of an Oriental prince. He is a good disciplinarian, is rapidly improving his army, enforces a strict observance of religion, has introduced many reforms, takes care that the taxes are not oppressive, is severe in his punishments, and is never known to cheat the gallows of its due.

But it is hardly late enough in the nineteenth century to look for perfection in an Asiatic prince; and our Yakub has some ways that are dark, it is said, especially when the question is in regard to foreign traders. The Russians appear to be bent solely on extending their commercial relations, but Yakub has an impression, emphasized by some rough experience, to say nothing of five bullet wounds, that these neighbors of his mean conquest, as well as commerce. If he admits Russian traders, he at the same time practically admits his conquerors. He has at no time said this, that we are aware of, and yet his actions imply as much. His small country, 1,100 miles in length (through which passes what the Chinese call "the South Road," i. e., the road along the southern slopes of the Thian Shan Mountains, one of the main routes of commerce between Pekin and Orenburg, points 5,000 or 6,000 miles apart), also his six principal cities, Yarkand, Kashgar, Khoten, Aksu, Toorfan, Koochar, besides others of less note, have for a long time been flooded with Russian goods. Still Yakub has all along been unfriendly to Russian traders. In 1868 he admitted one, but warned him not to come again. Russia gave him to understand that he must conform to the rules of civilized nations in regard to trade, or expect war. A temporary agreement was made,