the Government evidently thinks it can afford to treat her presence as a matter of indifference.
For this last and most important movement Russia has chosen her time happily. The well-known callousness of the Gladstone Government to all the foreign, and especially the Indian, interests of Britain, was a safe guarantee that no obstacles would be placed in the way of her advance from the Caspian; while the troubles in which the Premier had involved his country forbade the supposition that under his administration Britain would engage in a war with Russia save as a last resort. Accordingly, she waxed bold, and swept up Sarakhs, although our military authorities were well aware of the importance of that position. Indeed a little before the annexation of this post, Sir C. MacGregor had reported that Sarakhs could not fail to exercise a very serious influence on the momentous issue of the Indo-Russian frontier question.
"This," he says, "must happen, whether it fall into the hands of the friends of England or into those of her foes. Whether Russia use Sarakhs as a base for offensive measures against Herat, or England use it as a defensive outpost to defeat any such operations, that position will be heard of again. And if my feeble voice can effect a warning ere it is too late, let it here be raised in these words – If England does not use Sarakhs for defence, Russia will use it for offence."
In spite of this significant caution Sarakhs was allowed to fall an easy prey to the advanced forces of Russia, and it was only when it was too late that the British Government began to feel alarmed, and to press for an amicable delimitation of the frontier.
Misfortune seems hitherto to have unfailingly attended all our efforts to have a proper demarcation of the north-western boundary of Afghanistan effected. Lord Mayo, when Viceroy of India, was very anxious for a timely settlement of this difficult subject. When the "neutral zone" policy was arranged with Russia during Sir Douglas Forsyth's mission to St Petersburg in 1869, it was agreed that the territory then actually held by Shere Ali Khan was to constitute the limits of Afghanistan, and it was intended that the boundary-line should be fixed on this principle. A rough agreement was arranged between Lord Loftus and Prince Gortschakoff in the winter of 1872-73; but as it was not followed up by a survey, and was accompanied by the "most decided and positive assurances that not only was it far from the intention of the Emperor to take possession of Khiva, but positive orders had been prepared to prevent it," and that "his Majesty the Emperor considers extension of territory to be an extension of weakness," it is not much wonder although it speedily passed out of account. Lord Mayo's lamented death prevented that action which would have undoubtedly been taken, to have the frontier line strictly marked off; and his successor, Lord Northbrook, so effectually succeeded in alienating the confidence of the Ameer, that no proposals from the Government of India for a formal delimitation would have been listened to. Lord Northbrook bequeathed to Lord Lytton all the elements of a rupture with Afghanistan, and the war which followed placed the frontier question in the background. Lord Ripon, the next Viceroy, was too much occupied in carrying out his orders to "scuttle out" of Afghanistan, and too little
