Page:ER Scidmore--Winter India.djvu/307

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THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS
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which he figured out every detail of the probable Russian transport problems, their line of march, the points of attack, and their possible resistance. A copy of this confidential and reliable guide to the conquest of India was promptly obtained by the Russian government, translated and sent broadcast through the Russian army as a manual of tactics, a handy sort of military Murray for Muscovite use when the Czar is quite ready for another winter visit to India. Russia has now reached the Pamirs and the borders of Kashmir; Bokhara is hers, and Persia, virtually; exploring parties of Russian soldiers have twice crossed the Hindu Kush, surprised of course to find they were in India, within British lines; and Kipling has depicted the Russian spy in "The Man Who Was," in which the retiring Dirkovich says, "Au revoir!" and, pointing to the Khyber, adds, "That way is always open."

The conquest of India is the dream and the duty of all Russians, and having closely followed every other clause of advice in that remarkable and much-questioned paper known as the will of Peter the Great, they are not once forgetting this one:

VIII. Bear in mind that the commerce of India is the commerce of the world, that he who can exclusively control it is the dictator of Europe; no occasion should therefore be lost to provoke war with Persia, to hasten its decay, to advance to the Persian Gulf, and then to endeavor to re-establish the ancient trade of the Levant through Syria.

While England has been pushing her frontiers northward for the good of the native, and to give the