In the same year Abul-Khair, the Khan of the Little Kirghiz Horde,
voluntarily submitted to Russia. Twenty years later a small strip of
the kingdom of Djungaria, on the Irtish, was absorbed, and toward
the commencement of the reign of Catharine II, Russian authority
was asserted and maintained over the broad tract from the Altai to
the Caspian. This occupation was limited to a line of outposts along
the Ural, the Irtish, and in the intervening district. During
Catharine's reign the frontier nomads became reduced in numbers, by
the departure from the steppe between the Ural and Volga of the
Calmucks, who fled into Djungaria, and were nearly destroyed on the
road, by the Kirghiz.

The connection between Russia and Central Asia at this time assumed
another character, that of complete tranquillity, in consequence of
the development of trade through Orenburg and to some extent through
Troitsk and Petropaulovsk. The lines along the Ural and Irtish
gradually acquired strength; the robber-raids into European Russia
and Western Siberia almost entirely ceasing. The allegiance of the
Kirghiz of the Little and Central Hordes was expressed in the fact
that their Khans were always selected under Russian influence and
from time to time appeared at St. Petersburg to render homage. With
the Central Asian khanates there was no connection except that of
trade, but as regarded the Turcomans, who, it is said, had
frequently asked for Russian protection, intercourse was
discouraged, as they could not be trusted "within the lines," being
simply bandits.

The Emperor Paul imagined that the steppes offered a good road to
Southern Asia, and desiring to expel the English from India, in the
year 1800 he despatched a large number of Don Cossacks, under