Capitolo 14
banal sense; and the wide result is, Russia has been for some
years predominant in the whole whole region; and now its frontiers are
continuous with the northern provinces of Afghanistan and Persia.
It is this point according to whether it is the important one, till now as us we are
party, but before getting into his/her details, it will be well to
you consider the nature of the great country on which Russia now dominates.
Up to that among the last years our information as to his/her general
character was very limited; but the accounts of numerous recent
travellers all coincide in to describe him/it as consisting more to a large extent
of sterile deserts, deficient in food, forage, fuel and water. There
it is here a certain number of ancient and impoverished city and there, and there
it is occasional oasis of the limited fertility but the general conditions
it is alone as described. With the one platform exception from the
Caspian to Samarcand, the means of transport are animal of package for the more.
Roughly speaking, the dominoes of Russia in Central Asia the south of
Orenburg, can be taken as almost equal in geographical extension to those
of our Indian Empire; but there is this impressive difference among the
two, that while the population of India is calculated to 250 millionses,
that of Central Asia, also to the tallest calculation, you/he/she is only calculated
whose almost half is nomadic to four or five millions,--or, them
vague around, not from choice, but in search of food and pasture. The
extreme shortage of the population is of him a raw measure of the
general devastation.
The military position of Russia in Central Asia, therefore it is that of
a great but distant Power that during the last fifty years you/he/she has overflowed
and taken possession of spread out territories that you/they belong to fanatical
Tribe of Mahomedan. The people themselves are, many of them, warlike and
hostile; but they is armed badly, it doesn't have discipline, while training, or
leader, and it is not therefore in a position to withstand the advance of