that of Central Asia, even at the highest computation, is only reckoned
at four or five millions, of whom nearly half are nomadic--that is, they
wander about, not from choice, but in search of food and pasturage. The
extreme scantiness of the population is of itself a rough measure of the
general desolation.

The military position of Russia in Central Asia, therefore, is that of
a great but distant Power, which during the last fifty years has overrun
and taken possession of extended territories belonging to fanatical
Mahomedan tribes. The people themselves are, many of them, warlike and
hostile; but they are badly armed, have no discipline, training, or
leaders, and are not therefore in a position to withstand the advance of
regular troops. Consequently Russia is enabled to hold the country with
a comparatively small force of scattered detachments, which are,
however, supplied with arms, munitions and stores under great
difficulties from far distant centres, and her troops are practically
incapable of concentration. Indeed the farther they go the weaker they
become; the very magnitude of the area being an additional cause of
weakness. This is a condition somewhat precarious in itself, and would
certainly not appear to be an alarming one as a basis of attack against
our Empire, even were India close at hand.

While Russia, however, was completing the subjugation of the
Principalities, and advancing her frontiers until they became
conterminous with the northern provinces of Afghanistan and Persia, the
Government of India, by the great wars of 1843 and 1849, having annexed
Scinde and the Punjaub, advanced our frontiers in a similar manner, so
that the people both of Beloochistan and Afghanistan, hitherto far
remote from our dominions, now became our neighbours.