Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-06-01
A GREAT EVENT IN GENITAL ASIA


tainly can have been no "scare," because
the road is no surprise to Great Britain.
1t has been under construction since 1882;
English engineers have been employed upon
it since 1884; it was an important factorin
the dispute abeat the northern Afghan
boundary in 1886; troops were passed over
its first sections two years ago, AID in fhe
face of the sessions Of the Boundary Com
mission. English diplomats and officers
have ridden over It FOR two years and more,
and English supplies for the Boundary
Commissioners have repeatedly been sent
by that reate. How then is it possible for
its completion 10 occasion any sort of sur
prise? 1t is not a mine suddenly sprung,
strategic movement secretly accom-
plished, but 2 long and laborious work,
the aims and purposes of which have never
been concealed, and which look to the
civilizing Of fertile regions where fanatical
and barbarous tribes have ruled for CEN
turtles. England knew three years ago
that when the line should be completed
Russia could transport her troops to the
Afghan line in less than q fortnight, and
she entered no protest, indeed there is
reason to believe that her Government is
not even alarmed at the advance of the
Russian spirit of enterprise and conquest
She had not the power to prevent it, and
has had the grace to make the best of it.
The opening of the road is great COM
mercial and civilizing event, and in peace
is quite as important to England as to
Russia. 1t opens up to civilization re-
gion heretofore barred to progress and
locked against the humanizing influences
of commerce. We might well have wished
that some other power than Russia had
been the agency for the accomplishment
of these ends, but better Russia than none.
Samsrkand, now connected by rail with
the Caspian sea in the west, lies near to
the borders of the Chinese Empire, and
hence the new road is threat to do for
that barbaric region what is doing and
WILDE done for Turkestan. The line leaves
the Caspian east shore at Ossun-Ada,
almost directly opposite Bakau on the
opposite shore, and hugging the Persian
northern boundary reaches Merry. the
nearest point to Herat; then turns
abruptly northeast to Bokhara, and thence
due east to Samarkand, the whole distance
traversed being something more than a
thousand miles.
OF course this line, which puts St.
Petersburg but few days distant from
Herat, is direct thrust at Afghanistan,
and as strategic military movement is
one Of the most skillful ever made. As a
commercial venture this great highway
across Central Asia has not been paralleled
in the old world. By this new route
English travellers may cross the channel,
take rail from Bolougne to Odessa, cross
the Black sea, and passing by rail beneath
the southern shadows of the Caucasus on
the left to their terminal, and beyond to
the west shore of the Caspian, make a
quick transit of that sheet, take the new
line OF rail, and in less than ten days from
the hour Of starting land nearer to the
western borders of the Outer Mongolia
than the average tourist has heretofore
been able to get. Or, diverging near
Merry he can, with the addition of another
day or two, penetrate Afghanistan, take
English rail below Herat and reach
Upper India.
Russian conquest of Central Asia may
be said to be ended by the completion of
the railway. 1t began under Nicholas l..
to whom the Kirghiz submitted, and by
the fall of their Khan Khazimof in 1914.
1t was followed up by the war of 1858
with the Khanate of Khokand, and con-
tinued by force with but brief intervals of
peace until 1864, when Colonel Veretlzine
seized Turkestan, and subsequently, with
Colonel Tchernaief, took Tchemkent bv
assault, and the following year captured
Tashkent and put its 100000 people under
tribute to the Car. The Bokharians. who
had for years meddled with the tribal
wars of khokand, finally came into armed
collision with Russia in her southeastern
march, and were conquered partially in
1866, when Samarkand-no Joyous and
covered with bunting, that the conquerors'
locomotives have reached her-fell, and
finally in 1868, when the bitter and
bloody battle of Zera-Buleh was fought.
and the last arm of the fierce Central
Asians was broken. BY the treaty of
July s, 1865, the Emir of Bohkara coded
to Russia the Khanate of Samarkand.
The Russian government of Turkestan
had already been established by Alexander
H. hAlYa repulsed Russian troops in
1889, and captured and enslaved Russian
merchants, and gave material aid to the
kirghez in 1901 in resistance to Russia.
but in 1873, the Khan, crushed on three
sides 10y Russian columns, found himself
in the dust as a dependent of the Car, bv
whose Sublime mercy he was permitted
TO live, and who graciously accepted a
oession Of the Khan's States on the right
bank of the Oxus, and concession of the
exclusive navigation of that historic and
noble stream.
The Central AsiaIs have in the severest
sense of the word been forced to lick the
feet Of the "hatsd infdel''; every revolt
against the conquerers has been suppressed,
and the native chiefs have over ans. again
been compelled TO poise the lance against
their own people to COW aheir fiery dispo
sitions and compel their proud spirits TO
bend before the conquerer With the
Kirghiz subdued, the Turkomans coz
quered, Khokand under foot, Samarkand
annexed, KhiV2 and Bokhars made sud
missiye, Russia had only Yakosb Kahn of
Kashgar to resist, Him, despite his Eng
lish friends, the Car finally overeaale, and
there is now between the Caspian and the
swift current of the Oxus; between the
northern bounds of Afghanistan and the