Chapter XXXVI: Appendix: E (3)

"We possess fortunately a modern description of the diggings, which, I have said, were visited successively by Major Franklin and by Victor Jacquemont. M. Louis Rousselet ('L'Inde des Rajahs,' Paris, Hachette, 1857), in his splendid volume (pp. 440, 443), gives an illustration and an account of the world-famous mines of Pannah, the Pannasca of Ptolemy (?), a little kingdom of eastern Bandelkhand erected in 1809. The Rajah sent a _Jemadar_ (officer) to show him the diggings, which are about twenty minutes' walk from the town. The site is a small plateau covered with pebble-heaps; and, at the foot of a rise somewhat higher than usual, yawns the pit, about twelve or fifteen or twenty feet in diameter (about one hundred and eighty feet deep). It is pierced in alluvial grounds, divided into horizontal strata, _débris_ of gneiss and carbonates, averaging thirteen metres. At the bottom is the diamond-rock, a mixture of silex and quartz, in a gangue of red earth (clay?). The naked miners descend by an inclined plane, and work knee-deep in water, which the _noria_, or Persian wheel, turned by four bullocks, is insufficient to drain; they heap the muddy mixture into small baskets, which are drawn up by ropes, whilst a few are carried by coolies. The dirt is placed upon stone slabs, sheltered by a shed; the produce is carefully washed, and the silicious residuum is transferred to a marble table for examination. The workmen, each with his overseer, examine the stones one by one, throwing back the refuse into a basket; it is a work of skill on the part of both men, as it must be done with a certain rapidity, and the rough diamond is not easily distinguished from the silex, quartz, jasper, hornstone (corundum), etc.

"Tradition reports that the first diamonds of fabulous size were thus found, and the system of pits was perpetuated. When one is exhausted it is filled up and another is opened hard by--a deplorable system, as one hundred cubic metres must be displaced to examine one, and around each well a surface of twenty times the area is rendered useless. Moreover, much time is lost by the imperfect way of sinking the shaft, which sometimes does not strike the stone.

"This diamond stratum extends more than twenty kilometres to the north-east of Pannah. The most important diggings are those of the capital, of Myra, Etawa, Kamariya, Brijpur, and Baraghari. The mean annual produce ranges between £40,000 and £60,000--a trifling sum, as the stones are the most prized in the world, and sell for a high price in the country. They are pure and full of fire; the colour varies from the purest white to black, with the intermediate shades--milky, rose, yellow, green, and brown. Some have been found reaching twenty carats, and the Myra mine yielded one of eighty-three, which belongs to the crown jewels of the Mogul. Of course, the real produce must be taken at double the official estimate, despite all precautions; such is the case everywhere. The Rajah has established an approximate average amount, and when this descends too low, he seizes one of the supposed defaulters and beheads him or confiscates his goods. He sells his diamonds directly to Allahabad and Benares, and of late years he has established ateliers for cutting. These are the usual kind, horizontal wheels of steel worked by the foot.

"Evidently here we have a primitive style, which has not varied since diamond-working began. Good pumps are required to drain the wet pits. Instead of sinking a succession of shafts, tunnels should be run along the veins of diamond-bearing rocks. Magnifying-glasses and European superintendence would improve the washing. I need hardly say that the yield would double in the hands of Brazilians or South Africans.

"The precious stone is still brought for sale from the nearer valley of the Krishna to Hyderabad. It occurs, I was assured, in a white conglomerate of lime locally called _gar-ká-pathar_, which must be broken up and washed. As it is found in a region of crystalline rocks, common sense would suggest tracing up the material to the places where it may have been formed; but this is never done. During our week's visit I was consulted by two Parsee merchants concerning the rudimentary tests of scratching and specific gravity. In fact, at Golconda, where the finest gems used to be worked, no one, strange to say, can now recognize a rough diamond.

"The 'Highlands of the Brazil' (ii. 113) has given a detailed list of the various stones associated with the gem; and specimens of the _cascalho_, or diamond gravel, the _tauá_, the _canga_, etc., have been sent to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by Mr. Swinton. It is advisable to remark that this association has everywhere been recognized. In Borneo we are told that 'the diamond is known by the presence of sundry small flints.' The gem-yielding pebble-conglomerate of India, not usually a breccia, as was proved by Franklin, Newbold, and Aytoun (_loc. cit._, p. 386), contains quartz and various quartzose formations; garnet, corundum, epidote, and Lydian stone; chalcedony and carnelian; jasper of red, brown, bluish, and black hues; and hornstone, a kind of felspar, whilst 'green quartz indicates the presence of the best stones.' Fossil chert is yielded by the limestone, and the highly ferruginous and crystalline sandstone produces micaceous iron ores, small globular stones (pisoliths?), and almost invariably fragments of iron oxide. Finally, there are generally traces of gold, and sometimes of platinum. At Hyderabad I was assured that such was the case on the Krishna river; but none of my informants had any personal knowledge of washing. Finally, Dr. Carter's 'Geological Papers' convinced me that the sandstones of the diamond area will be found to resemble the _itacolumite_--quartzose mica slate or laminated granular quartz, of Brazilian 'Minas Geraes.'

"These considerations convince me that diamond-digging in India generally, and especially in Golconda (the territory of Hyderabad), has been prematurely abandoned. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the machinery for draining wet mines was not what it is now; and the imperfect appliances led to the general belief that all the deposits were purely superficial. Doubtless some were in the alluvial soil of the most recent rocks; but M. Rosselet's account shows that deep digging may still be practised to advantage. Voysey also saw the 'sandstone breccia' (diamond conglomerate?) of Southern India 'under fifty feet of sandstone, clay, slate, and slaty limestone.' The Brazilian miners ('Highlands,' ii. 121) have only lately learned to descend one hundred and eighty feet; and they find some of their best stones at the lowest horizon. The Vaal River and other South-African washings, opened in 1868, soon reached sixty feet.

"Immediately about the Golconda Fort the rocks, almost wholly syenitic and granitic, supply only quartz, chalcedony, carnelian, and amethyst; but we had heard of chance diamonds being picked up by the accolents of the Krishna river, and Sir Salar Jung, with his usual liberality, proposed laying a _dák_ for us to Raichor. He was ready, in fact, to meet a wanderer's wishes in every possible way. I presently, however, learned from good authority that only crystalline rocks, like those which we had seen in the Golconda tombs, are produced by this central section of the Krishna, and that _itacolumite_ must be sought elsewhere. Evidently the precious stones have been rolled down from some unknown distance; and to follow the 'spoor' demanded more time than I could command.

"It would be wasting paper to insist upon the benefits of reviving the ancient industry. But India is slow, deadly slow. In her present impoverished state she wants an energetic cultivation of every branch of industry. She does nothing; worse still, she rages against those who advise her to be up and doing. There is a fatal lethargy in her air. England administered like Anglo-India would be bankrupt in a week. And, locally speaking, diamond-working is a necessity. Hyderabad is not a rich country, and her trade is well-nigh _nil_. But she has coal that wants only a market; and if to the 'black diamond' she can add the white diamond, her future prospects are not to be despised. The first step is, of course, that of 'prospecting,' of systematically reconnoitring the ground, with the aid of a few experienced hands imported from the Brazil and South Africa. If the search be successful, a company or companies would soon be found to do the rest. For me it will be glory enough to have restored the time-honoured 'mines of Golconda.'

"We left at the week's end the country of 'our Faithful Ally,' greatly pleased with the courtesy and hospitality which seem to be its natural growth. And I have a conviction that, despite the inevitable retrograde party of all native states, the _codini_ of the East, the warlike Zemindars, the 'dissolute vagabonds,' the 'Pathan bravos,'and the 'cut-throats and assassins' of the Press, this realm has become, since 1859, the 'greatest Mohammedan power in India.'

"The return journey to Bombay gave time for other reflections. At present our 'enormous dependency, India, the most populous and important that ever belonged to a nation, and conferring a higher prestige on the ruling race than has ever been conferred by any other subject people'--as the judicial Trollope has it--is, has been, and, under present circumstances, ever will be, somewhat neglected by the general public of England. No home Britisher can interest himself even moderately in such a colony; it is too distant, and it can hardly be brought nearer by local parliaments and similar institutions. Although 'taxation without representation is tyranny,' we are not yet prepared to grant, what eventually must be granted, Representative Government. We are therefore driven to seek some other course.

"Again, at Hyderabad, as in India generally, we are living upon a volcano which may or may not slumber for years. See how of late all soldiers have come round to the same opinion concerning the 'scientific frontier.' All, in fact, are tacitly agreed to treat our Empire in India like an army; with supports, reserves, with outposts, vedettes, and similar martial appliances. The remedies hitherto proposed for the natural disaffection of the great native powers, kept as they are in a state of _quasi_-tutelage, appear to be mere quackeries, likely to do harm rather than good. For instance, to make the energetic Indian prince more powerful within his own jurisdiction would be simply to arm him against ourselves.

"But why not at once admit a certain number of seats in the House of Lords? Of those who claim salutes of twenty-one guns, there are, besides four foreigners, three Indian princes, the Nizam, the Gaikwár, and the rulers of Mysore, who all happen at present to be minors. Amongst those honoured by nineteen guns we find Scindhia, Holkar, and Udepúr; whilst Jaipúr, with twelve others, has seventeen guns. Of course, it would be necessary to limit the number to six or seven, but the hope of eventually rising to the dignity should not be withheld from Chiefs of lower grade.

"Nothing would tend more directly to conciliate the princes of India, and to make them our firm friends, than to admit them to the highest dignity of the Empire--to a House where they would doubtless hasten to sit; where they would learn their true interests, and where they would find themselves raised to a real, instead of a false equality with the ruling-race.

"Mr. Sowerby addressed a letter (April 25th, Broach) to the _Times of India_, entering into a discussion with me on the Diamonds of Golconda, to which I replied as follows:--

"'THE UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES OF INDIA.

"'To the Editor of the _Times of India_.

"'Sir,--Amidst the hurry and worry of departure, I failed to find a spare moment for noticing the valuable communication dated Broach, April 25th, and bearing the name of your distinguished correspondent Mr. Sowerby. The calm and quiet of my present home, the "Minerva," allow me leisure _à discretion_, and perhaps some of your readers may not be unwilling to see how much may be said on the other side.

"'The Madras Government would have done better to send a few experienced diamond-diggers to the Cuddapah country, instead of "driving the unfortunate diamond-seekers away from the fields;" but we have already heard something concerning the modicum of wisdom with which the world, even in Madras, is governed. Of course, untrained prospecting and ignorant working end, as a rule, in "the most abject poverty, wretchedness, and starvation." Thus we explain the Spanish proverb, "A silver-mine means misery, a gold-mine ruin." The "Garimpeiro," or pick-and-pan adventurer in the Brazil, could hardly keep himself alive on manioc and tobacco, where the wealthy English companies, which took his place, filled their coffers. With the diamond the same is the case, and hence I have been able to draw up a "rose-tinted" account of the diggings in Minas Geraes. Capital and skilled labour succeed where the desultory attempts of untaught men breed nothing but failure. My "projects" are simply to place the true state of the case before the English capitalist, and to enlist the sympathies of individuals and of the public; it would be a profligate waste of labour to attack the _vis inertiæ_ of the Indian Government, and bepreach the caste whose _dharma_ it is to work the machine. It is hardly possible to believe that, whilst the diamond has been found in spots scattered over the enormous area, say, of five hundred direct geographical miles in depth, bounded north by the Mahanadi and south by the Krishna, the mineral resources of vast and almost unexplored tracts, like the highlands of Orissa, should continue to be neglected. And, although an attempt to revive the diamond-mines of Sambalpore resulted, I am told, in failure, my advice would be to begin with the oldest diggings, which, as Tavernier shows, were systematically abandoned after reaching the depth of a few feet, because the owners ignored the art of pumping. Even if the deserted spots be so worked out as not to yield a single gem, they will make an excellent practical study of the formations in which the stone may be expected to occur elsewhere. My principal difficulty will be the utter unfamiliarity with the subject which belongs to the class whose interests are most concerned. The first attempt brings me the following answer: "I will give my opinion of the undertaking when I have studied the details; but Golconda is an ungodly place to invite the British capitalist to." As regards preliminaries, a friend, whose touching modesty induces me to withhold his name, writes to me: "The success in finding minerals and gems to the east of the Gháts is simply a question of prospecting; and the more prospectors the merrier. Why, there must be now ferreting in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, little short of half a million of skilled hands. Geologists are valuable only so far as they indicate formations likely to prove fertile; the real work must be done by prospectors."

"'I am far from thinking, with Mr. Sowerby, that, in a hopeful matter like this, of development of wealth, "native rulers will always take their cue from the paramount power," however rigidly our official seal is affixed to the mineral treasures lying dormant in the land. One of the commonplaces of the theoretical English writer is the exceeding Conservatism of the East: practically I have found the reverse. True, the Bombay "Kumbi" rejected the ridiculous windmills by which the late Dr. Buist proposed to abolish the cheap and all-sufficient water-wheel; and thus he incurred the vehement displeasure of that _perfervidum ingenium_, who had, they said, a monetary interest in the matter. But show the Hindú and Hindí (Moslem) that the novelty will pay or will save money, and they will adopt it as readily as almost any nationality known to me. What nonsense has been written and read about the failure of Indian railways, because nothing could persuade the Brahmin to ride side by side with the pariah! The truth is, caste remains powerful as long as it pays; in the inverse condition it is a name, and nothing more.

"'But practically it is very little matter whether the Government of H.H. the Nizam take or take not the cue from the groovy and torpid rule which distinguishes British India in this section of the nineteenth century. That it will grant free and liberal concessions I am persuaded. Still, after all, the diamond-diggings in the Krishna Valley, though far-famed for their produce in days gone by, are a mere line of trenches compared with the depths of field which lies behind them.

"'Upon the subject of iron-making in India, Mr. Sowerby and I must agree to differ. Of course, stone may be too rich for smelting purposes; my travels have shown me mountains of iron, in the United States and in South America, which are, perforce, neglected for poorer ores. But the common charcoal-smelted metal of the Brazil is preferred by the English mining companies--for instance, at São João d'El Rei--to stampers of the best English steel; and I fail to see why the same should not be the case in India, when replanting of trees shall become the rule, and when the woods and forests shall be properly managed. In my former letter, however, I alluded especially to sword-blades and other costly articles, in which the least thing thought of is the value of the raw material. Mr. Sowerby asserts, "Not a single attempt has been made to manufacture arms in India on a European scale and on European principles, but it has ended in financial failure." Yet, further on, we are told that a "native smith of Salem makes the best of hog-spears and hunting-knives." European principles, I presume, mean the use of coal, whilst the native preferred charcoal. And why should the Brazil succeed so admirably with its thousands of little Catalan furnaces, and India fail? Evidently the quality of the fuel is, in both cases, the vital condition of success.

"'The specimens of Hyderabad coal shown to me at the Nizam's capital were of thicker formation and of superior quality to the "brown coal of Southern Austria," which is more lignite. And yet the latter pays, even for steamers, when mixed with a certain proportion of Cardiff. There _is_ a demand for coal almost throughout the ancient kingdom of Golconda, where the land has been ruthlessly disforested; and there should, methinks, be little difficulty in inducing the people to abolish in its favour the use of "gober" and other fuels to which their poverty drives them. Here the only want is evidently cheap and easy transport; and with this object I proposed Mr. Worsley's "wooden idea."

"'Your distinguished correspondent throws undue stress, it appears to me, upon the fact that these cheapest of tramways have been known in England for centuries, and have been supplanted by light iron rails. Because the latter are found cheapest in England, _argal_, as the grave-digger said, they should be adopted in India. But the mine-owners in the Brazil, where wood is hard and abundant as in India, still work with wooden rails; and in both countries the state of the thoroughfares, especially beyond the main lines of traffic, is like that of England two hundred years ago.

"'Upon this subject the modest friend before quoted writes to me as follows:--"I shall be much obliged if you will give me all the information you can about Worsley's wooden railways. I have five hundred acres of excellent timber at a point of the Tasmanian north-west coast, three hundred and fifty miles from Melbourne. I am within two miles of a shipping-place, and I shall have to make five miles of tramway with wooden rails, _as is always done in this neighbourhood_" (italics mine); "but the ordinary flanged wheels are used, and they drub the rails horribly. I understand your description of the rails, but I cannot gather from your letter to the _Times of India_ what sort of wheels Mr. Cayley Worsley proposes to use. Could you send me a plan, or tell me where to get one?"

"'Mr. Worsley supplied me with a sketch-design of his invention or modification, but as it contains novelties perhaps unknown to Mr. Sowerby, whilst allowing me to put the public in possession of the outline of his scheme, he naturally enough insisted upon the details and the plan being kept secret. I have therefore referred my valued correspondent to the inventor himself, whose private residence is No. 62, Belgrave Road, London.

"'Finally, when Mr. Sowerby roundly asserts "it is rather too late in the day to teach us anything new in making cheap tramways," I presume that he has seen or has read about the "Pioneer," lately invented by my friend Mr. John Hadden, C.E., and exhibited during last December at Mr. Lee Smith's office, No. 6, Westminster Chambers, and the "Economical," belonging to Mr. Russell Shaw. If not, he would do well to master the subject, and then he will probably conclude with me that what has been done in tramways (as in other matters) is a very small part of what remains to be done.

"'Yours, etc.,

"'R. F. BURTON.

"'Aden, at Sea, May 18th, 1876.'

"A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA.

[Sidenote: _India_.]

"I would fain enter a vehement protest against the spirit and the manner in which the relative positions of Great Britain and Russia are treated by Englishmen, and I hope to show the immense detriment to which this treatment has subjected, and still subjects, our prestige and our good name.

"We were lately asked by an educated native of Bombay if the Russians are not ready to throw fifty lakhs of men--five hundred thousand bayonets!--upon British India; and not a few of the lower classes, Mussulmans all, had told me that the 'Moskoff' is about to attack the Punjáb.

"Men now just middle age, whose youth saw the virulent attack of Russophobia which in 1838-39 led to the Afghan War, the severest shake, next to the Sepoy Mutiny, which our Indian Empire has ever endured, find it difficult, with the proverbial difficulty of mastering new ideas after the tenth lustre, to appreciate the complete change in the positions of the two great rival Powers. As early as 1791, Russia prepared to invade India from Orenburg, _viâ_ Ashur, Ata, and Asterabad, 'the line of least resistance,' Meshhed, Herat, and Kandahar.

"Let us suppose that in 1835 she had taken heart of grace and resolved to follow in the footsteps of Nadir Shah. The road to Delhi lay completely open to her. She had only to point to India, the 'traditional plunder-ground of Central Asia,' and all the rugged robber-hordes, from the Sutlej to the mouths of the Euphrates, would have rushed to the 'loot' like wolves and vultures to the quarry, and Persia was only waiting to see the offensive action taken. Afghanistan was ever ready to renew the pleasant scenes of Paniput. The whole line of the Indus, Mooltan, Bahawulpore, and Sind, under the Talpúr Amirs, would have hurried to the flank attack. The direct line lay through the dominions of our good friend and bitterest enemy, Runjeet Singh, whose gallant heart was broken by the easy successes of the British in Afghanistan, where he flattered himself they had fallen into his trap. With the Punjáb would have sided Cashmere, Nepaul, and even Bhootan; in fact, the whole region south, and possibly north, of the Himalayan range.

"But Russia did not take the opportunity, which means she had other things to do; and that cautious, far-seeing Power saw no advantage in a raid like the 'Chapáo' of Nadir Shah. Now the conditions of our frontier are completely changed. From the modest line of the Sutlej and the great North-western Desert, we have occupied a thousand miles of the Indus frontier, extending from Peshawar to the sea; the Punjáb is ours; Cashmere, Nepaul, and Bhootan exist on sufferance; they may be ours at any moment we please.

"Persia might still join Russia, but we have operated more than once with fatal effect upon her vulnerable heel, the Gulf. Her strength has been wasted by famine; her exchequer is empty; and the chivalry of the Desert, her Iliyát or Bedawi, have been crushed by the contact of a so-called Regular Army. The Afghans would still flock to enrol under the banners of the North, but they would be met by their hereditary foe, the Sikh. How secure we are upon this point may be judged by the way in which the military authorities have dismantled the whole Indian fortress. Our native army has been converted into an irregular machine, which could not meet even the Abyssinians without sending for reinforcements of officers to Madras and Calcutta.

"The hare-hearted Sepoy--undoubtedly the worst soldier in Asia--has been reduced to eight European officers per regiment, with all the combatants mounted, so as to secure their being swept away by the first fire.

"We have no army in England beyond what is required for police purposes; nor shall we have one until the Britons, still happily separated from the total world, determine, by a general conscription, to march with the rest of Europe, and to exchange a small standing army for a national force. And whilst we literally hold India with eighty thousand white faces, we freely allow the Native Powers to levy and to drill troops in numbers exceeding our own. Evidently our authorities are very sure of their affair. Possibly they rely upon the fact that the game is no longer worth the candle; that India, that golden land, has been squeezed till no more is to be got out of her. 'Poor India, every hair of her head is numbered!' said a mercantile traveller, when I explained to him the figures on the date trees; and, certainly, between the Abkari (excise) and the salt-tax, we have thoroughly emptied the pockets of the breechless population.

"But, happily, things are gradually getting to the worst, and we may fairly hope that they will surely mend. Presently we shall take a lesson from Russia, who manages her trans-Caucasian provinces by a mixture of foreign and native _employés_. Nothing more offends the patriotic Russian than to doubt that he is wholly European; and yet to the dash of Asiatic blood he owes many of his highest national gifts,--his facility in acquiring languages; his devotion to his Emperors, the 'Shadows of Bog upon Earth;' his subtle and persistent policy; his love of conquest and military glory; and his fatalistic calmness under fire.

"We shall remedy the chronic discontent of a pauper population by opening up new sources of wealth in reproductive works, in manufactures and mines. At present India is administered for the benefit of England, or rather, of the English trading classes, who must supply the public offices with paper and sealing-wax, and the soldiers and sepoys with broadcloth and ducks. The National Religion of England will become the State Church in India, and we shall cease to foster and encourage, by a fatuous and absurd toleration, the fanaticism of Pagan idolatry. We shall borrow from Russia another lesson of economy, by substituting military law and rule for the pseudo-constitutionalism with which we, like Portugal, have afflicted India; we shall relieve our great colony, or rather conquest, of such an incubus as Presidency Governors and Commanders-in-Chief, Members of Council and Chief Justices. We shall reserve High Courts and similar preserves for lawyers' game; but we shall confine them to the various capitals, where wealthy natives may play at law, and ruin themselves _à discretion_.

"With this money, now profligately wasted upon civil establishments, we shall maintain an efficient Native Army, which will deliver us from the feeble politic of 'purpose and no power.' At home a general conscription, or a revival of the Militia Act, will give us a force, between actives and reserves, of two millions of men. The first serious 'shake' in the East or the West will show us that our national existence depends upon this measure, or rather that the alternative will be subsiding into the position of Belgium and Holland. And finally, when Russia begins her railway from Tabriz to Teheran and Baghdad, we shall check her by the Euphrates Valley Line, at present our principal Colonial want. And thus the 'Ikbal,' or good fortune, which apparently departed with the defunct East India Company, will be inherited by the Imperial Rule.

"The Government of the Company, it must be remembered, was aristocratic,--an aristocracy of bales and barrels, if you please, but still, to a certain extent, a rule of honour. Its successor acts upon the latest and most modern rules of political economy; it buys its labour in the cheapest market, and it demands only a fair day and a half's work for a fair day's wage. It notably borrowed from China its system of competitive examinations, which examine all least worth examining,--that is, the memory and the receptivity, not the moral and physical value of its Mandarins. Some day, perhaps, we shall see a return of the well-abused system of patronage, whose evils can so easily be checked by the administration of proper tests, and by provisional appointments to be confirmed only after a sufficient period of practical trial.

"To an Englishman who has at heart the honour and interests of his native land, nothing is more offensive than the low standing taken by our writers in treating of the Central Asian Question, and the tone of despondency which contrasts so disparagingly with the high grounds assumed by the Russians. England accepted as a kind of boon the creation of a neutral zone,--a string of independent semi-barbarian States, separating the frontiers of the two great Asiatic Powers. Russia, with the moderation engendered by her intense vigour and vitality, throws this sop to Cerberus, perfectly certain that the measure is merely temporary, whilst the powerful war party which looks upon the Cesarewitch as its head, openly expresses its scorn and disgust. We are told by our Pundits that 'all we want is rest--rest from foreign wars, rest from political disturbance.' We want nothing of the kind: our only want is, _de l'audace, de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace_.

"We are assured that we are conservative, not aggressive; whereas our rivals are aggressive, not conservative; in other words, that they are young and active and strong, while we are old and stiff and weak. We are advised to push forward, because any check upon our frontier would raise a host of enemies in our troubled rear,--which means that our position in India is more or less precarious. We are informed in the same breath that Russia has certainly not contemplated anything like an invasion of India; and yet we are advised to take the strongest steps in order to secure ourselves from invasion.

"A curious comment, by the way, upon the first dictum is the tone of the young Grand Duke Nicholas' letters, published by Miss Fanny Lear, in which he considers an appointment to the Caucasus as the first step of a Russian march upon India. Again, we read the alarming sentence, 'If there was danger to British India from the attitude and possible designs of Russia twenty-eight years ago, that danger must be increased a hundred-fold at the present day.' Furthermore, we are threatened with the 'moral leverage' which Russia, by menacing India, can bring to bear upon us in Europe; and with the chronic conflagration which would result from the mere contiguity of a rival European Power; in other words, we are told that Russia can make India too hot to hold us,--as if we could not make, by means of China, Turkestan too hot to hold Russia. Her troops are ever moving on resistless as fate, whilst we are thoroughly alarmed by their advance: that is, Russia swoops like the hawk, while we cower like the pigeon.

"Hence, the perpetual reports of new invasion-routes from the North which fill our Press, the old Buroghil Pass being the latest 'fad.' And hence the trembling anxiety with which the Anglo-Indian eye was fixed upon the late Amir el-Muminin, Ya'akub Khan of Kashgar, as if a struggling little Moslem Prince, who would assuredly be crushed between the rival Colossi, Russia and China, held the destinies of British India in his weakling hand. Hence the exaggerated importance attached to what is called the 'Indian situation,' to the 'Russian glacis' on the north-east of Persia, and to the strategic approach from the south-eastern corner of Persia, 'which is so stealthily, but steadily progressing.' And hence, finally, the forcible feeble stand which we are making about the independence of villainous Bokhara, and the inviolability of pauper Merv--a village which once numbered a million of souls.

"This tone of excited despondency, this symptom of weakness and violence, has travelled far, and has already done great damage to our name. It has thoroughly complicated our relations with Afghanistan. As may be proved by any old map, that turbulent land of robber-chiefs has gained enormously, both in territory and in population, by our intervention. Yet Shere Ali Khan sulks and pouts because Lord Lawrence acknowledged his elder brother, the friendly Afzul Khan; because Lord Mayo did not anticipate his every wish, and because Lord Northbrook did not pay his subsidy--'tribute' I would rather call it--with all the regularity he desired. Hence he refused the Kashgar Mission, under pretext of being unable to protect the members,--'Their blood be upon their own heads if they come to Cabul!' Hence he will admit no English resident Agent; and the native _Aakil-i-Sarkar-i-Angriz_ is hardly permitted to address him in Durbar. The fact is, this miserable Highland Chief believes, and has been taught by us to believe, that he holds 'the road to the English.' He is convinced that he has only to offer aid to the Russians in order to drive us out of India. That he hates us, we know: during the Sepoy Mutiny he urged in vain his wise old father, Dost Mohammed, to invade the Punjáb--a measure deprecated by Afzul Khan. That he despises us, we cannot fail to see; and not less can we fail to feel that our policy has given him a right to despise us.[12]

"What, then, should we do in this matter? The 'repose of strength' is liable to be interpreted by the Oriental as supineness; moderation means fear; and 'compromise,' the basis of public and private life in England, has no synonym in the East. _De l'audace_, etc., is the only rule of conduct in the Afghan hills. At the first opportunity--and any day may bring one--we should break openly with Shere Ali; tread boldly upon the coat-tail which he is trailing for a fight; withdraw that phantom of a Native Agent, and offer the subsidy, a lakh _per mensem_, to the successor who promises us his friendship and his confidence. The latter measure has been characterized as a premium on rebellion. _Sit_, so be it!

"We have nothing to fear from the Afghan chief, most of whose subjects would right willingly exchange his barbarous sway for our civilized rule. We have nothing to hope from him; he would take, Afghan-like, our money with one hand, and stab us with the other. Here, if anywhere, are the time and place to assume the tone and position of a 'dominant race.' We have talked too long and too loudly about 'our fellow-subjects in India' and our 'Afghan allies;' let us now change the terms for 'conquered races' here, and for 'paid partisans' there.

"Curious to say, the latest form of Russophobia was developed by our grand national blunder, the great artillery duel in the corner of the Black Sea, which history will call the 'Crimean War.' After nearly incurring national bankruptcy by our rabid hostility to Napoleon I., we were cozened by Napoleon III. into an alliance, whose sole object was to give his house a status amongst the old and aristocratic dynasties of Europe. But, to do the latter justice, he proposed to take upon himself the chief onus of the campaign.

"It was Lord Palmerston--the statesman who saddled us with the Fenian imbroglio; the man who, believing about as much as Epicurus, never missed a Sunday morning service; the Irishman who knew the English public better than it knew itself--that rejected the Frenchman's offer to send the army, whilst England supplied the fleet. Thus, upon the obsolete principle that one Englishman can beat three _Mossoos or Johnny Crapauds_, we were allowed to contribute a mere contingent. Thus we were condemned to play, as is commonly said, second fiddle, without the least hope of rising in the world; whilst the want of ability amongst our superior officers, the normal English deficiency of organization, and a few miserable blunders, glorious like the Balaclava Charge, and inglorious like the run from the Mamelon, duly printed abroad throughout the civilized world, combined to form an ample 'vengeance for Waterloo.'

"The world has not yet learned that we entered half-hearted into that war; that we were thoroughly ashamed of our Turkish allies and of their cause; that many of our leading statesmen determined upon not abasing Russia; that Cronstadt was allowed to exclude us from St. Petersburg, when the late Captain Cole's turret-ship would have set the fortress at defiance; that Kars was given over to starvation because the Russians refused to make peace without a set-off for the southern half of Sebastopol, evacuated after a resistance of eighteen months; that Napoleon insisted on coming to terms with Russia, because his Crimean army was mutinous, and he had won his point; and lastly, that our allies' ignoble jealousy confined us to a game at long bowls in the Crimea, when, with the assistance of the Turks, the Kurds, and the Persians, we might easily have driven Russia once more behind and beyond the Caucasus.

"All this, and more, we have been told by the late Lord Strangford, in the two volumes of his pleasant works published some years ago by the Viscountess, whose late gigantic charitable undertakings in Bulgaria must be the envy and admiration of every woman. But, in determining that Russia had gained by the war as much as Great Britain lost, my clever friend was not so happy as in the rest of his judgments: in fact, he neglected one great item in the account which determined the balance in our favour. The Crimean War prevented the march of the Russian empire southwards,--the general rule of northern conquest. It compelled her to go and grow eastward.

"This necessity of growth in the Northern Giant is treated by our writers with a luxury of explanation. It is attributed to a steadfast political purpose; to the preponderating impulse of irresponsible military ambition thirsting for distinction; to a traditional creed of the Empire, which aims at augmented power in Europe through extension in Asia; to obeying the natural law of increase; and to all these causes combined.

"For the anthropologist, one amply suffices. The body politic, like the individual, must grow to attain full development; and 'earth-hunger,' as it is called, characterizes all young peoples in the lusty prime of life. At present the only great conquering races are the Slav, especially Russia, and the English, especially the Anglo-Americans. The former conquer by invasion, the latter by occupation and colonization.

"Why Great Britain, at the present moment of her history, has turned her sword into a ploughshare, is apparently little understood by the mass of foreign writers. The truth is, we are still in a period of reaction. During the first quarter of the present century we meddled with--and often, it must be confessed, we muddled--European affairs which least concerned an insular people.

"About 1850 the counter-action set in with peculiar violence. Lord Palmerston was rebuked by the Crown for his officious interference in continental matters. Mr. Cobden was at the summit of his fame. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was to inaugurate the reign of peace and good will amongst men, and international commerce was to cement the union of the Pan-European family. The Frenchman would never invade us. If he attempted so obsolete a step, our touching and charitable reception of him would melt the heart of the bearded Zouave and the Sapeur, to whom nothing is sacred. The army should be turned into a body of navvies; the navy was to be converted into police-ships and emigrant-ships. Posterity will marvel at this peace mania, and perhaps will sneer at the part which the peacemakers took in precipitating the Russian War of 1853. It reads like a tale of Bedlam, but it is not the less true. The secondary symptoms of the dread malady still ferment in the national constitution, and possibly we may not escape without tertiaries. But the perfect cure must come at last.

[Sidenote: _Eastern Politics_.]

"About 1863, when Russia had recovered from the fatigues of the Crimean campaign, her 'manifest destiny' began to show itself in what we vaguely term 'Central Asia.' It is not my purpose to trace her steps. England, and especially India, looked on uneasily, although a 'large portion of the thinking public, including the optimist class of Anglo-Indian politicians to a man, declared in favour of the Russian advance.' And no wonder. The actual civilization of the Russian Empire may not yet be of the highest order, yet it is long centuries in advance of the reckless barbarism which characterizes the Great Horde and the Usbeg Khanats. Whilst annexing the barren steppes, the eastern shores of the Caspian, the lands about the Aral, and the noble valleys of the Oxus and the Jaxartes, Russia's mission was _terram aperire gentibus_. She opened military roads and proposed railways; she built forts and meditated canals. She rendered the country passable to the traveller and to the trader. The European had no longer to fear being plundered or reduced to slavery, or being foully murdered. She enlisted sundry marauding tribes; she had made them disciplined soldiers and peaceful subjects, whilst many 'bad neighbours' were converted by example into 'good neighbours.'

"Again, the dash of Eastern blood in the veins of Russia enabled her to curb the fanatic spirit of her new lieges. Her enemies had predicted that she had disturbed a hornet's nest; that her lines were now cast in unpleasant places, amongst the most violent and bigoted of Mohammedan races. Even our latest writers dwell upon the prospects of an anti-Russian _Jehád_, or Holy War.

"But Russia is the only European Power which can successfully abate the evil; and we must seek the reason of her success in her despotic rule, the only regimen which the Oriental understands. She knows how to handle her Sáyyids and her Súfis; she 'grasps her nettle,' and this is the only treatment to which the ecclesiastical throat, priest or parson, Mullah or Brahmin, unconditionally submits.

"We, on the contrary, with our excess of toleration and _penchant_ for liberty, too often degenerating into licence, make the natives subjected to our rule far more bigoted than they were when we first conquered them. Formerly, the Hindú would allow the 'Mlenchha' to drink out of his metal pot, which only required scouring to become pure once more; now he pours the water into a double leaf, or into the European's hand. Twenty-five years ago, when entering the mosques or mausolea, we removed our hats and wore our boots; now the Moslems insist upon our conforming to a practice which, in our case, means degradation. At Jeddah, the guardians of Eve's tomb only laugh when a terrier runs in and out of the doors; after a few years of British rule they would object to admitting not only the terrier, but the terrier's master. In her early relations with Persia, the Russian was as fanatical as the Persian, till the murder of an envoy taught him the more prudent way of dealing with Moslems. We have notably failed in this matter, and I should be sorry to see the experiment tried elsewhere.

"Some six years after Russia's first decided move eastwards (1869), she abandoned the direct Persian line, and adopted the new plan of turning her friend's flank by annexing the Balkan or Krasnovdsk Bay, and exploring the northern valley of the Atrek river, the road popularly known as the 'Atok,' or hill-skirt. Thereupon the alarmist openly denounced the annexation of the eastern coast of the Caspian, and the subjugation of the Turkomans, as a 'violation of treaty.' The good sense of the public refused to be scared. What sympathy, indeed, could England have with wretched Khiva, whose main industry was kidnapping Russians and enslaving Persians? What with hateful Bokhara, the very focus and head-quarters of Islamitic fanaticism; the city of barbarians, whose murderous chief, Nasr Allah, had foully put to death Stoddart and Conolly? Could we forget that, unable to reach this double-dyed assassin, despite the proverbial length of her arm, England was compelled to leave the slaughter of her envoys unavenged, to sit down and cry like an impotent crone?

"Again, the public saw no objection to the two great Powers, Russia and England, dividing between them the Empire of the East. Not a few of us were put to shame by the importance attached to establishing a craven 'neutral zone' of independent native states. The 'friendly partition of Asia, leaving no intermediate zone,' was the favourite idea of the Russian Press and of the public, especially the powerful and influential war party, or party of progress. Here, again, we took theoretically lower grounds than Russia. We were afraid to meet her; she did not fear to meet us. After all, the prize, such as it is, will fall to the better man: _detur digniori_ will be the verdict of the world. If we can win the day, let us do so; if we cannot, let us cease to accumulate futile obstacles in the path of those who deserve to win.

"And we shall gain little or nothing by the strong flanking position secured by the reoccupation of the open country of Shaul, of Kandahar, and even of Herat. Men are ever hankering after Herat and its 'stupendous earthworks.' A still better line of outlying frontier, namely, Khelat, Quetta, and Jelalabad, would avail us as little. Wanting an army, English or native, we shall be driven to moral influence, to sympathy and moral support, to moral disapprobation--a pretentiously feeble tactic without the _gros bataillons_ to give it _vis_. So the late Macgregor Laird defined moral influence in West Africa as a 68-pounder worked by British seamen.

"Our present policy must be a lively trust in the chapter of accidents, and looking forward to the day when we can place two millions of bayonets in the field. Russia has internal dangers of her own. She works cheaply; her invasions of Khiva cost her, we are told, £70,000, whilst we paid £15,000,000 for our occupation of Afghanistan. Still capitalists are beginning to inquire curiously about her budget, and she refuses to satisfy their curiosity. 'Russians' fell two per cent. in one day during last autumn, and a chilling report pronounced them to be 'shaky.' The fact is, a portion of the English Press has so long been preaching the doctrine of repudiation, that the world of debtors begins to lend its ear to the charmer: there are so many nations which can afford to _payer les Anglais_. South America may be pronounced to be 'going,' Turkey to be 'gone;' and the influence of such failures on a gigantic scale, especially when they extend to Europe and to England,--where at the present moment nothing is safe beyond ground-rents, railways, and three per cents.,--must sooner or later weigh upon Russia. Even she cannot go to war without the sinews of war; even her ingenuity will be puzzled to make _la guerre nourrir la guerre_ amongst the impecunious peoples of Central Asia.

[Sidenote: _China_.]

"But our highest prospect of happy deliverance from this terrible northern rival is still to be noticed; and that so little attention has been paid to it by our writers is not a little astonishing to the student. In Russia it must have caused a vast amount of anxious thought; and it readily explains the cautious system of her approaches, parallels, and encroachments in the East: her provisional system of indirect until ready for direct rule over her new conquests; her strategic lines of observation and demonstration; and her carefully disposed apparatus of supports, reserves, and bases of operations. _Nolens volens_, will-we nill-we, Russia must eventually absorb Kashgar; she must meet China face to face, and then her serious troubles begin.

"The dash of Tartar blood in Russian veins establishes a remote cousinhood with China. There is something of physical, and more of moral, likeness between the two peoples. Both are equally sturdy, hardy, frugal, energetic, persistent, aggressive, and brave in facing death. Both have a national speech, a peculiar alphabet, and, to go no further, a religion which distinguishes them from the rest of the world. Both are animated by the sturdy vigour of a newly awakened civilization. During the war of 1842 we facetiously said that it was rank murder to attack the Chinese troops with any missiles but oranges. Presently the Ever-Victorious Army, led by Gordon, one of England's noblest and best neglected sons, showed the might that was slumbering in a nation of three hundred millions.

"And now China is preparing herself, with that slow but terrible stedfastness of purpose which distinguishes her, to exercise her influence upon the civilized world,--upon the other three-fourths which compose the sum of humanity. After a hundred checks and defeats she has utterly annihilated the intrusive Mohammedan schism which attempted to establish its independence in Yunnan. She will do the same in Kashgar, although the dilatoriness of her proceedings, unintelligible to the Western mind, tends to create a false feeling of security. She is building a fleet and is rolling her own plates. Her army is being drilled by Europeans; the men are armed with Remingtons, and she has six manufactories for breech-loading rifles. Securely cautious of her coming strength, she declines all little wars with England and France till another dozen years or so shall enable her to meet her enemies on terms which, forecasted in 1842, would have appeared the very madness of prophecy.

"Such is the nation which is fated to contend with Russia for the glorious empire of Central Asia. This is the Power which our Press and its teachers have agreed to ignore. In the coming struggle we shall see the direct result of the Crimean War, and then, perhaps, we may reap the reward of sacrifice and losses which hitherto have added little to our honour or to our power.

'Now whether he kill Cassio,
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
Every way makes my gain.'

[Sidenote: _Eastern Politics_.]

"When we were at Jeddah I addressed to the _Daily Telegraph_ a letter upon the 'Partition of Turkey.' This paper had not pronounced itself in January, 1876, as decidedly as in January, 1877, so the missive was published on March 7th, with the heading only changed to 'The Future of Turkey.' I did not then know that the Duke of Wellington had put forth exactly the same views upon the critical point, the main question, What is to become of Constantinople? nor could I forecast that Mr. Grant Duff, who probably glances, like other men, at the _Daily Telegraph_, would see in a dream what I saw when wide awake,--the Kingdom of Byzantium revived.

"During the last two years and a half of war and massacre, which must have cost the lives of a million human beings, the situation has shifted, but the truth remains untouched. Still the Sick Man's constitution is breaking up fast; and the political doctors and patent drugs have done him no good. What peace he now enjoys is accompanied neither by honour nor by honours. Instead of removing proud flesh and amputating gangrened limbs, the rough surgeons have cut into the very vitals of the patient. They should have pruned the tree; they preferred to bark it. Under such circumstances vitality is impossible. With acephalous governments and dynastic demoralization, diminished states and autonomous provinces, to say nothing of utter impecuniosity and of a paper money that threatens to be cheaper than assignats, ruin is a mere matter of time.

"Resolved to maintain the 'integrity of Turkey,' the doctors have disintegrated it. Turkey has become, not 'a scattered Empire like England,' but a mere 'geographical expression,' as was the Italy of the past. And now the Sick, or rather the Dying Man, has only to look forward to financial ruin, to Russification, to the reign of dementia, to spoliation, to partition--

'The dull grey close and apathetic end.'

"During the last quarter of a century the preservation of the putrid Power has cost us forty thousand lives and four hundred millions sterling. We are not likely to spend much more.