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106 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA. of the halting-places en route. To make those depots would be a task of months of steady toil, and even then the advance of thirty thousand troops would be a matter which would require at least three months to accomplish. But the transport of artillery would be one of still greater difficulty. It is even open to question whether the road from Orsk to Kazala would bear of the conveyance of so much artillery over it ; but even if it did, the time required for its transport would still be very long. At the present moment it takes the Russian reinforcements from Europe nearly three months to reach Tashkent, and it is very doubt- ful whether by using the greatest despatch a large army could accomplish the distance in a shorter space of time. The only means of expediting this journey would be by continuing the rail to Kazala across the steppe — an undertaking which must financially be ruinous — and by improving the navigation of the Syr Darya so that powerful river steamers of low draught may be able to ply between Kazala and Chinaz. To construct that railway, and to build a sufficient number of river steamers, must be the task of years and not months. Until these have been done it will be im- possible for Eussia to mobilise any large force north of the Oxus. At the present moment Kaufmann can on his own resources assemble an army of twenty thousand men with thirty- two guns. With three months notice he can be reinforced from Orenburg by ten thousand men without any guns. By a supreme effort, involving the expenditure of several millions of pounds, he could