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A RUSSIAN OFFICER'S ESTIMATE OF TASHKENT.  123 
CHAPTER XVL 
Kashgar.-English Officers drilling the Inhabitants.-Yakoob Bek's En- 
voys.-Perfidious Albion.-Tashkent.-Commerce with Bokhara.-A 
Railway to Tashkent.-Irghiz.-A Wolf.-Tereki.-The Boundary-line. 
-How Far does Russia extend ?-Uncivil Inspector.-Bottles broken 
by the Frost.-Passengers' Necks.-Tartar Sleigh-drivers.-A Ruined 
Contractor.-A Team of Camels.-Head over Heels in the Snow.-The 
Kirghiz Horses.-A Hundred Miles' Ride.-Two Hundred Miles in 
Twenty-four Hours (on two Horses).-Two Extraordinary Marches. 
A FEW stations farther on I met an officer, who asked very 
eagerly if I were going to Kashgar-he had found out, by in- 
quiry from the inspector, who I was-and he afterward assured 
me that there were thirty English officers in the above-men- 
tioned khanate engaged in drilling the inhabitants. He said 
that my compatriots had already organized a force of ten thou- 
sand men to resist the Russian advance, and declared that this 
information had come from Yakoob Bek's envoys, who had 
been sent from Kashgar to Tashkent, and who had stated it to 
the Russians. 
I assured my informant that there was no truth whatever in 
the story, but with no effect; and he seemed thoroughly im- 
pressed with the idea that I was another agent of perfidious 
Albion, sent either to stir up the Kokandians or aid the Kash- 
garians against the designs of their Northern foe. I could not 
help remarking that if such were my designs it would have 
been far easier for me to have gone from India to Kashgar 
than to have come through Russia, and, as it were, through the 
heart of the enemy's country; but even this argument had no 
effect. Tashkent, according to him, was a sort of Paradise; the 
climate wAs excellent, and the inhabitants actually boasted a 
theatre. He said that the city contained five thousand Euro- 
peans and about seventy-five thousand natives, besides the gar- 
rison. The commerce with Bokhara was rapidly increasing,