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СНАР. ХХІІІ.

THE THREE KHANATS.

485

responding duties. But the bond that unites them with Constantinople goes thus far, and no farther. The sultans can not exercise any political influence upon the three khanats. The inhabitants of Central Asia, indeed, are in the habit of associating with the word Roum (as Turkey is here called) all the power and splendor of ancient Rome, with which, in the popular opinion, it is identified; but the princes seem to have seen through this illusion, nor would they be disposed to recognize the paramount grandeur of the sultan unless the Porte associated its "firman of investiture" or its "licenses to pray" with the transmission of some hundreds or thousands of piastres. In Khiva and Khokand these firmans from Constantinople continue to be read with some demonstration of reverence and respect. The former khanat was represented in Constantinople during a period of ten years by Shukrullah Bay; the latter, during the reign of Mollah Khan, had only four years ago an embassador, Mirza Djan, at the court of the sultan. These envoys were, in accordance with ancient usages, sometimes maintained for long periods of years at the cost of the state, a charge not altogether convenient as far as its budget for foreign affairs was concerned, but nevertheless altogether essential and necessary to the pretension to a spiritual superiority in Asia.

The Ottoman Empire could only have gained effectual political influence in these remote regions of the East when it was roused from its slumbering Oriental existence before the time of Peter the Great. In its character of Turkish dynasty, the house of Osman might, out of the different kindred elements with

which it is connected by the bond of common language, religion, and history, have founded an empire extending from the shore of the Adriatic far into China, an empire mightier than that which the great Romanoff was obliged to employ not only force, but cunning, to put together, out of the most discordant and heterogeneous materials. Anatolians, Azerbaydjanes, Turkomans, Özbegs, Kirghis, and Tartars are the respective members out of which a mighty Turkish Colossus might have arisen, certainly better capable of measuring itself with its greater northern competitor than Turkey such as we see it in the present day.

With Persia, its nearest neighbor, Khiva and Bokhara interchange embassadors but rarely. The fact that Persia avows the principles of the Shiite sect forms in itself just such a wall of separation between these two fanatical nations as Protestantism created between the two great classes of Christians in Europe three centuries ago. To this feeling of religious animosity let us add, also, the traditional enmity between the Iranian and Turanian races that has become matter of history, and we may then easily form an idea of the gulf that separates the sympathies of nations that nature has made inhabitants of adjoining countries. Persia, which, according to the natural course of events, should form the channel to convey to Turkestan the benefits of modern civilization, is far from producing there even the slightest effect. Powerless to defend even her own frontiers from the Turkomans, the disgraceful defeat she sustained, as before mentioned, at Merv, in an expedition directed, in fact, against Bokhara, has utterly destroyed her

CHAP. XXIII.

POLITICAL RELATIONS.

487

prestige. Her power is the object of very little ap-
prehension in the three khanats, for the Tartars af
firm that God gave the Persians head (understand-
ing) and
eyes, but no heart (courage).

With respect to China, its political relations with Central Asia are so rare and insignificant that they scarcely merit any mention. Once, perhaps, in a century a correspondence takes place. The emirs are in the habit of sending occasionally envoys to Kashgar, but the Chinese, on their side, never venture so far into Turkestan as Bokhara. With Khokand negotiations take place more frequently, but it sends only functionaries of inferior rank to the Mussulman barbarians.

With Russia political relations are upon a very different footing. Having been for centuries in possession of the countries that border upon the deserts of Turkestan on the north, an extensive commercial intercourse has rendered Russia more observant of what is going on in the three khanats than their other neighbors, and has caused a series of efforts of which the only possible termination seems to be their complete occupation. The very obstacles which nature has interposed have rendered, indeed, the prog ress of Russia slow, but perhaps her progress is only on that account the more certain. The three khanats are the only members now wanting to that immense Tartar kingdom that Ivan Vasilyevitch (1462-1505) imagined, and which he began actually to incorporate with his Russian dominions, and which, since the time of Peter the Great, has been the earnest though silent object of his successors.

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In the khanats themselves this Russian policy has not passed entirely unnoticed. Princes and people are well aware of the danger that threatens them, and it is only Oriental indifference and religious enthusiasm that lull them in the fond sleep of security. The majority of the Central Asiatics with whom I conversed upon this subject contented themselves by observing that Turkestan has two strong defenses: (1.) the great number of saints who repose in its territory, under the constant protection of the "noble Bokhara;" (2.) the immense deserts by which it is surrounded. Few men, and these only merchants, who have resided long in Russia, would regard a change in their government with indifference; for, although they have the same detestation for every thing that is not Mohammedan, yet, at the same time, they never cease to extol the love of justice and the spirit of order that distinguish the "Unbelievers."

CHAP. XXIV. RIVALRY OF RUSSIANS AND ENGLISH.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE RIVALRY OF THE RUSSIANS AND ENGLISH IN
CENTRAL ASIA.

489

ATTITUDE OF RUSSIA AND ENGLAND TOWARD CENTRAL ASIA. PROGRESS OF RUSSIA ON THE JAXARTES.

RIVALRY between England and Russia in Central Asia I heard in England, on my return, affirmed to be an absurdity. "Let us," it was said, "hear no more of a question so long ago worn out and out of fashion. The tribes of Turkestan are wild, rude, and barbarous; and it is a matter upon which we congratulate ourselves if Russia takes upon herself the onerous and meritorious task of civilization in those regions. England has not the slightest cause to watch such a policy with envy or jealousy."

Full of horror at the scenes of cruelty witnessed by me in Turkestan, of which I have endeavored 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 civilization, incontestably the noblest and most glorious attribute that ever graced human society, would be a benefit to Central Asia. The part, however, of the question that has a political bearing I could not so easily dispose of; for, although I re

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