than the material ones, though the latter were by no means small. Khiva had been considered inaccessible and impregnable. Its fall exerted a powerful influence upon the Moslem inhabitants of Central Asia, by showing them that the Russians were invincible. Khiva was the last stronghold of Islam in Central Asia after the fall of Bokhara, and its capture was necessary to the spread of Russian influence in the direction of India. And however jealously the conquest may have been regarded by British statesmen, there can be no dispute that humanity gained greatly by the result of Kaufmann's victory.
Whatever shortcomings there may be in the rule of the Czar, it is far preferable to that of the Khan. Human life is no longer disregarded; tortures and wholesale decapitations are no more permitted; raids for purposes of plunder are things of the past, and the inhabitants of neighboring districts are no longer in constant peril of being carried into slavery. Before the arrival of Kaufmann the Great Square of Khiva was the scene of terrible spectacles. Vámbéry describes how he witnessed there in 1863 the payment for the heads of men slain in battle, the execution of prisoners, the sale or bestowal of others into slavery, and how several aged men, useless as slaves, were thrown on the ground, and firmly held while the executioner gouged out their eyes, and coolly wiped his dripping knife on their beards. If nothing else was required, the abolition of these wanton cruelties was a complete justification of the Russian conquest of the Oasis of the khans.
