a land route eastward, while England held the sea and was conquering and overrunning India for her own exclusive advantage.

Tried by the rules of Christian morality, the course of Russia can not be defended; but on the other hand, when compared with the policy of any one of the great nations of Europe, she will scarcely suffer in the comparison. She stands before the world as one among those powers, swayed by the same ambition, and using against others the same means and the same arts which were directed against herself, and which every strong one was using like herself for the subjugation of the weak. Not to defend or justify the acts of the Russian court, have these remarks been made, but to expose the hypocrisy of those who, deeply stained as Russia with the sin of ambition, and selfish and wanton aggression, wiped their mouths with an affectation of innocency, and cried out against the Czar as if he were the only disturber of the repose of Europe-and where this was done merely as a cover for their own ultimate designs. Let England compare her own march from the trading-post of Clive, northward over the subjugated provinces of India, with that of Russia from Moscow to the Caspian, and she will find little cause for self-congratulation. She has established a rule there over one hundred and fifty millions of a downtrodden people, the rule of strong and exacting masters over comparatively weak and defenseless races, that will be crushed out and displaced, not elevated to the position of free and civilized communities, who will neither share the glory nor the prosperity of the nation by which they have been subdued. India is a vast plantation owned by England, and worked exclusively for the benefit of the dominant race. But to return to a consideration of the commerce of the East. Russia aims at the trade of the East Indian Archipelago, China, Northern India, Persia, and the countries around the Hellespont, the Euxine and the Caspian. To place herself in communication with the wealth of the East Indian Islands she has stretched her dominions to the Pacific, and along its shore, till she now embraces the mouth and

the valley of the Amoor, including a large and fertile province obtained from China. This river opens up a commercial highway, as has been stated, far westward through northern China into Siberia, toward the Ural, whence a railway is practicable into Europe, toward Moscow and Odessa. Rivers and canals already connect all parts of the Empire with the Euxine and the Caspian, and then a great northern route stretches out before her, by the way of the Sea of Aral, toward Herat and Northern India. Already this trade has been nourished into great importance. This will appear by the following statement copied from MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE, in an article whose authority can scarcely be questioned:

"The Russian caravans carry the furs of foxes, beavers, castors, of Kamkschatka and of America, coral, clocks, linens, woolen cloths, wool, leather, looking-glasses, glass, etc., and give them to the Chinese in exchange for silk, precious stones, tea, cotton, rice, porcelain, rhubarb, gauzecrape, mourning-crape, musk, anniseed, silks with threads of gold, velvets, tobacco, sugar candy, preserved ginger, pipes, combs, dolls made of silk and of porcelain.

"In the time of Catherine, this business was valued at 20,000,000 of franes, equally divided between the Russiaus and Chinese. The business has constantly progressed ever since, and in 1850 the Russians exported to China 28,000,000 franes worth of merchandise. The caravans of Kiatka have not alone the privilege of the commerce between China and Russia; the independent Tartars carry to Oremberg and Troizkai the provisions which they purchase in India and China. A part of this merchandise, and of that brought by other caravans from Thibet, from India, from Khiva, from Bokhara, from all central Asia, from Persia, from Georgia from Armenia, arrive at the great fair at Nijnei-Novgorod, at the confluence of the Volga and the Olka, where, it is said, 600,000 merchants assemble. To give an idea of the importance of the commerce of Russia with the different countries of Asia, it is sufficient to say that she imports by the Caspian 8,000,000 francs' worth of merchandise, to

which must be added about 10,000,000, to represent the productions which she receives by land from the Turkish and Persian provinces. She buys 116,000,000 francs' worth of Chinese productions, and brings from Bokhara and Tartary 76,000,000. Her exports by land to Asia amount to 170,000,000 of francs.

"It would be easy for Russia to bring all this commerce to the Black Sea, without doing any prejudice to her provinces in the north of Europe. She is doing everything for the accomplishment of this result, and nature has traced the route by which this immense commerce would easily flow into the Euxine. The most considerable rivers in Russia-the Dnieper, the Dniester, and the Don-empty into this sea; and with them, all the agricultural and manufacturing riches of Russia would descend into the Euxine, attracted there by the merchant vessels of the maritime nations of southern Europe, of western Asia, and of the north of Africa. In order to prevent any obstacle to this powerful current of commerce, which would bring to the south the productions of the north-east of Europe, the rivers just mentioned were connected with the Baltic and the White Sea by means of a vast system of canalization, conceived and commenced by the genius of Peter the Great.

"The Danube alone could bring into the Russian ports of the Black Sea the commerce of a large part of western Europe; for the Danube, united to the Rhine by the canal Louis, which puts it in direct communication with France, Belgium, and Holland, offers to commerce the most direct line of communication between Europe and Asia. The Caspian is connected with the Northern Sea by means of an immensely important canal, which joins the Volga to the Meta, a tributary of the Volchov, which falls into the Lake of Ladoga. This lake communicates with the Baltic (Gulf of Finland); the Volga itself is connected with the Lake of Ladoga by the canal of Tehkvin; and the canals of Koubensk, and of the north, unite the Caspian with the White Sea.

"However great the importance of this net-work of

canals in Russia in Europe, still they do not suffice to carry out but a part of the commercial projects of Peter the Great. It was still necessary to bring eastern Asia and the Black Sea into communication with the Caspian Sea. Peter, as we have already seen, had traced on a map the plan of a canal between these two seas; this was no more than the renewal of the project of Seleucus, of which we have spoken in its place. At a later period he decided to join these seas by means of a canal between the Clavlia, a tributary of the Don, and the Kamychenka, a tributary of the Volga-an enterprise which had been attempted by the Venitians and the Tartars of the Crimea.

"There were great difficulties to overcome before completing this canal, for the Don is higher than the Volga. But Peter undertook to overcome them, and employed an English engineer named Perry, who, after three years labor, was obliged to abandon it to complete fortifications of immediate necessity. Catherine II. caused the enterprise to be carried on for two years; but the ravine of Peter the Great, as it is called, is still unfinished.

"Now, it is probable a railroad will take the place of a canal. The Black Sea has already become almost a Russian lake. The Caspian belongs to the Czar, for Persia has lost the right to keep an armed force there, and her communication with the Black Sea becomes at once of the greatest importance to Russia. Besides, the Caspian receives the Volga, that immense stream which traverses all southern and eastern Russia, which, by the aid of the Kama-one of its tributaries-is connected with the Ural Mountains, so rich in mines of gold, platina, iron and copper; also the rich productions of all eastern and central Asia, of Persia, of Armenia, and the neighboring countries, flow into the Caspian by different routes. Now, to carry out the commercial views of Russia, it remains to put the Caspian in direct communication with all central Asia, as far as India and China. Nature had primitively established this immense line of communication, by making but one great internal sea of the Aral and Caspian. Ever since the epoch

of the separation of these two seas by the vast steppes of Manquischlaks, a communication still existed, if it is true that as late as the tenth or eleventh century of our era the ancient Oxus (Amou Daria) emptied into the Caspian, placing her in a direct communication with the south-west frontiers of China and the north of India; but in the present day this river empties into the Aral, but still could, by its numerous tributaries and by caravans, easily bring the productions of Chinese Tartary, of Thibet, of Cashmere, and of India, by Khiva, to the Aral, which receives the Seria Daria (Jaxade), which is the route of an active commerce, and the best communication with the table-lands of China, Turkistan, southern Russia, and the Black Sea.

"From the preceding, it is easy to understand the efforts made by Russia to get possession of Khiva, which is at the head of the Amou Seria (Oxus). Once mistress of this place, Bokhara would soon see her at her gates, and Khokanee, which is near, would become her prey. Then she would at pleasure direct the caravans of China, of Thibet, and of India. After that, it would be easy to create a communication between the Caspian and the Aral, and the Black Sea would be connected with the extreme East. Independently of the facilities of communication by water, just mentioned, a prodigious quantity of merchandise would come by caravans from the East to the Black Sea.

"In two hundred days, the caravans can make the journey from Chin-Si, on the western frontiers of China, to the eastern shores of the Caspian. From there the numerous steamers can easily transport the merchandise to Astrakan. A large part of the commerce of western Persia, of Armenia, of Mesopotamia, and other countries bordering on the Tigris and the Euphrates, on the north-east of Asia Minor, goes to the Black Sea, and Trebizond is its principal depot. Now, Trebizond is within a few leagues of the Muscovite frontiers. Russia is preparing to extend herself on the South. She already covets Kurdistan and Armenia, and would like the possession of the Tigris and the Euphrates, so important to her commercial interests; and in 1829,