Sir E. Denison Ross

“ It is the hard fate of a conqueror that he can never pause in his onward progress. The fierce passions let loose by war can be assuaged only by their repeated exercise; and Tīmūr’s hordes were ever clamouring to be led to fresh victories. Thus, when he had restored peace and prosperity to Central Asia, he set out on a triumphant march which threatened to include the whole inhabited world. ”

“ The Russian advance in Asia, which we have described as a movement automatic and uncontrollable, has been interpreted by an influential school of writers as a menace to our position in India. Twice of late years have we been landed on the very brink of war by a public opinion goaded to frenzy by such baseless fears. For it may be affirmed with perfect truth that the absorption of India is a dream too wild for the most aggressive adviser of the Tsar. Such is the geographical position of the peninsula, that it can be held by no European Power which is not Mistress of the Seas. ”

“ Vāli Mohammad’s rule was brief and inglorious. He wallowed in debauchery, and surrendered all power to an unscrupulous vezīr, whose fiendish cruelties aroused fierce resentment, and led to his master’s defeat and death at the hands of a kinsman, Imām Kulī Khān (1611) . The new ruler was of sterner and purer mould. He courted the society of the learned and pious, and laboured to secure his country’s prosperity. And so, under his wise and just régime, Bokhārā regained a share of her ancient glory. She grew rapidly in wealth, and again became a beacon-light in the darkness of Central Asia. ”

“ The close resemblance between Central Asian and Indian cantonments extends to the bazaars. The lines of small open shops, the dusty trees, the open drains, even the indescribable but never-to-be-forgotten odour, all are common to British and Russian possessions in the East. The trade of Merv is not confined to the permanent bazaar. A weekly market is held on a plain to the east of the town. The roads converging thither are thronged on Mondays with Turkomans riding double on their ill-fed ponies and two-wheeled Persian carts piled high with goods. ”

“ Her Siberian frontier extended from the north-eastern shore of the Caspian to the borders of China. It had been pushed forward to the edge of the plateau of Samarkand, then a province of Bokhārā, and lay within striking distance of the three Central Asian states which still maintained their independence. A sense of common danger united the forces which had hitherto been hostile: Kokandis, Bokhārans, and Khivans felt instinctively that the hour had come for a combined attempt to shake off the Russian incubus. ”

“ Skrine’s stay at Samarkand a large gang started for this remote destination. Most of them were native bandits, who regarded their expatriation with true Oriental phlegm. But among the group who squatted on the station platform in their sheep-skin cloaks, from which their heavy manacles protruded, were several who inspired more sympathy: a young European girl, who clung piteously to her only treasure—a China teapot; a middle-aged man, evidently belonging to a higher social stratum than the rest, was deeply moved by the prospect of exile. ”

“ We may boast with perfect truth that the thirty-five years during which Central Asia has enjoyed the blessings of a firm and civilised rule have been years of sustained progress, of daily-increasing strength in the bonds of attachment and goodwill which unite these subject peoples to the inhabitants of other Russian provinces. As compared with India, our territories in that part of the world are still poor and sparsely populated; but there has been a considerable increase in the country’s wealth since the conquest of Turkestān in 1863. ”

“ In some parts so firm is the surface that a horse’s hoof rings on it as on a macadamised road. In others, again, the loose sand forms ridges like petrified waves.561 After the spring rains the expanse of dull white is carpeted, as if by miracle, with gorgeous lilies, tulips, and other bulbous plants, long grass and tufts of reed. Water is, indeed, required to clothe the arid sand with perennial verdure, and render it a breeding-ground for countless flocks and herds. ”

“ The progress of civilisation has no more efficacious ally than commercial relations. These require, in all countries, order and stability as conditions essential to their growth; but in Asia their existence implies a revolution in the manners of the people. Asiatics must, before all things, be made to understand that it is more advantageous to favour and assure trade by caravans than to pillage them. These elementary principles can penetrate the public conscience only when there is a public; that is to say, a social organisation and a government which directs and represents it. ”

“ The eye ranges over a leafy sea, from which vast raised arches and domes emerge, and rests on snow-clad mountains which close the horizon on the north and east. The madrasa of Tilā Kārī, on the north side, is so styled from a plating of gold-foil under translucent enamel which covers the holy place of a mosque on the left of its courtyard.729 That founded by Tīmūr’s astronomer grandson, Ulugh Beg, is opposite Shīr Dār, and is the smallest but most beautiful of the group. ”

“ There is an institute, styled a Casino, containing a restaurant, where meals can be had at an absurdly low tariff, and a ballroom large enough to accommodate the 700 workmen and their wives. Some distraction is a sheer necessity, for the surroundings of Kizil Arvat are calculated to drive a European to despair. The town stands in a dreary plain two miles from the mountains, which supply an abundance of water. Nothing would be easier than to produce vegetation of surpassing beauty, for the desert soil needs but irrigation to furnish everything that could delight the eye. ”

“ We have a right to seek compensation for sacrifices and labours endured for more than a century. We have a right to attain a secure frontier by pushing our colonies up to the summit of the Himalayan range, the natural barrier between the Russian and English possessions. When this point has been reached, then only can we look calmly on the development of Great Britain’s empire.” The reduction of Khiva was a corollary of that of Bokhārā. The Khānate stretched northwards as a wedge into the newly acquired territory and dominated the lower reaches of the Amū Daryā. ”

“ Our prestige, indeed, is vitally concerned in upholding an empire which is the wonder and the envy of the world, and we reap solid advantage from owning so considerable an outlet for our manufactures and the redundant energies of our middle class. In Russia social and economic conditions differ widely from our own; and her conquests in Eastern Asia will absorb her surplus activity for many years to come. It is true that the path opened by nature for her expansion leads southwards. ”

“ We English are essentially a manufacturing people, dependent on our foreign commerce for the wherewithal to feed a redundant population and support the burden of world-wide empire. Having found by centuries of experience that perfect freedom of trade and travel are as essential to a people’s healthy development as the air we breathe, we so govern that empire that the human race profits by its existence. ”

“ The European dominions of the Tsar are an unbroken plain. They contain no mountain fastnesses serving as a refuge for inferior races, and were thus fit arenas for a struggle for existence in which the most vigorous stem of the human family was sure to survive and to expand. And then, Russia lay on the highway of commerce between the East and West. The silks, spices, and sugar of China traversed her plains on their passage to mediæval cities, and the growth of local trade was fostered by the 35,000 miles of navigable river which the empire possesses. ”

“ One thing is certain, that a compliance with the demand of the Indian Congress, that our district officers should be relegated to the station of mere rakers-in of revenue, would involve a fatal weakening of the principle of authority. But imitation is the sincerest flattery, and that so much of the Russian edifice is built on Anglo-Indian models is the strongest proof of their intrinsic excellence. We were pioneers, and had difficulties to encounter with which our neighbours were never perplexed; and they have profited by our experience and mistakes. ”

“ Such was the Russian township in its earlier stages of growth. It was the nidus of a self-governing republic, impelled to expand and conquer by the growth of population which follows increased material prosperity, but powerless to defend itself against foreign aggression. The consciousness of this defect led the citizens to invite soldiers of fortune to lead their militia and give organised means of repelling attack. ”

“ Our own institutions, founded as they are on a sincere regard for the good of subject races, have conspired to bring about a state of things which is full of political danger. The dissemination of the English language and of the half-truths with which our political literature teems has produced aspirations which can be gratified only by the abdication of our supremacy. Thus the prestige of the conquerors, which must be upheld if 200,000 white men are to govern three hundred millions of their fellow-creatures, has been declining for many years past. ”

“ But for the bayonets on which our throne is supported it would fall, even as those of our predecessors in the purple have fallen. Central Asia, on the other hand, is thinly peopled, and the standard of comfort is comparatively high. The conquerors and conquered are connected by the ties of blood, and there is a latent and unconscious sympathy between them which renders the task of government easy and assures its stability. In one point the difference between British and Russian methods of administration is very marked—the relations between the judicial and executive functions. ”

“ I wish to be particularly explicit on this point, because my nomination as governor of Transcaspia was regarded by many journals, both in England and India, as a presage of what is called a “forward policy.” It is the custom of the present Tsar, as it was of his lamented father, to furnish detailed instructions on questions of internal organisations as well as those which concern foreign affairs. The principles which govern the policy of Russia are very simple. They are the maintenance of peace, of order, and of prosperity in all classes of the population. ”

“ A caravan approaching the capital finds itself, after weary months spent in the sands, suddenly surrounded by waving crops, and trees laden with luscious fruit, while its ears are greeted by the ripple of water. The mechanism by which this wondrous change is effected would excite the derision of a European engineer. ”

“ Bokhārā, a Protected Native State The 141 miles which separate Merv from the Bokhāran frontier were the costliest and the most depressing section of the Transcaspian Railway. It includes that terror of Russian engineers known as the Sandy Tract,684 and no trace of cultivation is met with until the weary eye finds solace in the restful green which marks the course of the mighty Oxus. The border stronghold, Charjūy, crowns a hill to the south of the railway line, and bears in its rugged outlines a faint resemblance to Edinburgh Castle. ”

“ Mosques, market-places, and palaces stand as they did centuries back, but the narrow streets show no signs of human life. But the desert yields again to cultivation, and the train speeds through fields of cotton and millet, overshadowed by splendid trees. The fair domains irrigated from the river Zarafshān have been reached, and its centre, Bokhārā the Noble, comes into view. A canon of Russian policy ordains that the European quarters shall be placed at a considerable distance from the great cities. ”

“ The emancipation of women has not begun in Bokhārā. Marriage is a sale conducted with as little delicacy as the cattle-dealer imports into his transactions. The child-wife never gains her husband’s love or confidence, and is deserted while her charms are at their zenith. Custom, in fact, moulds the Bokhāran’s inmost being, and the degraded position assigned to women by its teaching places him beyond the pale of civilisation. Home-life in the Central Asian Khānates exists no more than it did in ancient Rome. ”

“ We accomplish the second when we undertake the duty of proving to neighbouring states, by a policy of firmness as regards the repression of their misdeeds, but of moderation and justice in the employment of armed strength and of respect for their independence, that Russia is not their foe, that she cherishes no designs of conquest, and that peaceful and commercial relations with her are more profitable than disorder, pillage, reprisals, and chronic warfare. ”

“ The nomad instinct thus became with them a second nature, and as they were tireless horsemen and inured to hardships, it led them to carry bloodshed and rapine over neighbouring territories. In their case the tendency to spread over the face of the earth was keener far than in that of communities engaged in settled avocations. But much of their strength was expended in inter-tribal war, until a man of genius arose who knew how to reconcile discordant interests and to forge a weapon of aggression which no living force could withstand. ”

“ He claimed a descent from Tīmūr, and doubtless dreamed of repeating the conquests of his great predecessor on the throne of Samarkand. His ambition was fanned by the fierce breath of fanaticism, for the Amīr was notoriously subject to priestly influence, and the mullās of Central Asia were among the bitterest foes of Russian designs. At his prompting the bazaars of the three Khānates swarmed with emissaries, who preached a Holy War, and exhorted true believers to drive back the invaders into the Siberian steppes. ”

“ The glamour of their fallen majesty is heightened rather than destroyed by the railway; for it brings before us, as if by magic, a panorama often seen in spirit, and its prosaic surroundings serve as a foil to the halo of romance which still lingers over the seat of a vanquished empire. ”

“ Thus, in its own despite, the Imperial Government finds itself reduced to the dilemma already stated: it must allow an anarchy to become chronic which paralyses all security and all progress, and involve distant and expensive expeditions at frequent intervals; or, on the other hand, it must enter on a career of conquest and annexation such as gave England her Indian Empire, in view of dominating in succession the petty independent states whose turbulent habits and perpetual revolts leave their neighbour neither truce nor repose. ”