congratulate themselves that the Lord has delivered the enemy into their
hand....'

Whilst, however, his conclusions as to the military weakness of Russia
in that part of the world are clear and decisive enough, he at the same
time does full justice to the good work which she is carrying out in
that vast area. He says: 'Hitherto Russia's advance in Central Asia has
been the triumph of civilisation. Wherever she has planted her flag
slavery has ceased to exist. This was keenly brought home to us in the
course of our travels. For hundreds of miles before we reached Herat we
found the country desolated and depopulated by Turcoman raids, while
even in the Herat valley we continually came across the fathers and
brothers of men who had been carried off from their peaceful fields by
man-stealing Turcomans, and sold into slavery many hundred miles away.
All this has ceased since the Russian occupation of Merv; the cruel
slave trade has been stamped out....'

Lord Salisbury, speaking in 1887, at the conclusion of the frontier
delimitation, happily described the situation as follows: 'I value the
settlement for this reason--not that I attach much importance to the
square miles of desert land with which we have been dealing, and which
probably after ten generations of mankind will not yield the slightest
value to any human being: but the settlement indicates on both sides
that spirit which in the two Governments is consistent with continued
peace. There is abundant room for both Governments, if they would only
think so....' What a pity that some statesman could not have persuaded
England to that effect fifty years before!

During the next few years no events of special importance occurred to
affect our general frontier policy in India, so far as Russia and