commanding the squadron in the China seas, when followed into Yokohama by three British ships, prepared for action, and brought his guns to bear, explaining to the British flagcaptain, who questioned him as to his strange conduct, that the persistency with which British ships followed the vessels of his fleet led him to suspect some sinister design.

As announced in the debate on the vote of credit, the Khartoum expedition planned for the autumn was countermanded, and the withdrawal of the forces in the Soodan was in progress. The Indian troops at Suakin were ordered home. The Australian contingent in the Soodar was offered for service in Afghanistan if necessary by the Government of New South Wales. Other colonies made like offers. Fortifications at Hong-Kong, Singapore, and other naval ports were enlarged and improved, and coal stored at the coaling-stations. A new coaling-station, Port Hamilton, was occupied in the China seas, within a few hundred miles of Vladivostock. The inhabitants of British Columbia began to fortify their own ports, and the people of Hong-Kong and Singapore bore the principal part of the costs of fortification.

The Hindoos manifested generally a spirit of devoted loyalty. The native papers, which a few months before were loud in complaints of British oppression, and scarcely veiled their revolutionary sentiments, now vied with the London press in bellicose expressions. Wealthy nobles offered their property to the Government for the object of repelling invasion. The feudatory sovereigns, whose overgrown armaments were the subject of a scare in England the year before, placed troops and money at the disposal of the imperial authorities. The Nepaulese Government called out and drilled 12,000 Goorkas, and proffered their service. The Maharajah of Mysore equipped a regiment of cavalry, and offered to supply bullocks and to contribute to the extent of the whole resources of his state. The Nawab of Moorshedabad sold his family jewels in order to place two lacs of rupees at the disposal of the Government. The Nawab Ahsumoolla Khan, of Dacca, sold all his personal property, and proffered the eight lacs that it realized. The Maharajah of Tipperah, another of the prominent Mohammedans of Bengal, offered to contribute the proceeds of his entire estate. The heads of all the most important Mohammedan and Hindoo native states made formal tenders of service at the Rawul Pindi Durbar. The ruler of Cashmere placed his entire resources at the disposal of the Viceroy. Similar offers were made by the Rajput chiefs of Oodeypoor, Jeypoor, Jodhpoor, Ulwar, Dholapore, Kotah, and Bikaneer; the Punjaub chiefs of Puttiala, Bhawalpore, Nabha, and Jhind; the great Mohammedan chiefs Scindia and Holkar of central India, those of Bhopal, Rewah, Dhan, Oorcha, Punna, Rutlam, and Jowra, and the Nizam of Hyderabad, who was represented at

the durbar, and offered to furnish troops for operations on the Afghan frontier.

Russian Relations with Persia.-Simultaneously with her advance to the frontier of Afghanistan Russia has betrayed an inclination to secure a new "rectification" of the Persian frontier which would give her a portion of the fertile lands in the eastern portion of the Shah's dominions, and greatly improve her military, political, and commercial position, especially in relation to Herat. It is possible to improve the Russian communications and means of subsistence in this quarter by irrigating the desert; but that object can be accomplished still better by annexing a part of Khorassan. Since the inclosure of Persia on the east as well as on the north and northwest by the Russian dominions, the Shah is entirely at the mercy of the Czar. Difficulties between the Persian Government and Yomut Turkomans immigrated from Russian territory led recently to complaints from St. Petersburg, and overtures for the cession of Astrabad Bay and the Attrek valley, controlling the route from the Caspian to Meshed. Russia is said to have made offers for the purchase of the sacred city of Meshed, the possession of which would give her a great influence in the Mohammedan world as well as another commercial and military route to Herat and central Asia, and a wide section of productive country. The Khorassanis are prepared, if not eager, for Russian annexation, detesting as they do the Kajur dynasty. A petition to the White Czar to that effect was lately circulated among them, receiving 10,000 signatures. When the Russians moved upon Merv, the Zill-es-Sultan, Governor of southern Persia at Ispahan, who is the favorite son of the Shah, the most likely successor to the throne, and the most efficient administrator in Persia, went to Teheran in the hope of obtaining the ministry of war, and of carrying out a plan for an English alliance against Russia. To conciliate England, Ayub Khan, the pretender whom Russia may help to the throne of Cabul, was arrested near the Afghan border and imprisoned, while an Anglophile official was made Minister for Foreign Affairs. The condition for the transfer of the Shah's sympathies to England was the realization of Nassr-ed-Din's old dream of the annexation of Herat. To this the English Government would not listen, so the plan fell through, and the war office was given to another son of the Shah, the Naïb-es-Sultaneh, a friend of Russia, who brought to the avaricious monarch a gift of 250,000 tomans, supplied according to Persian rumors from the Russian Exchequer. In July, 1884, while the arrangements for the delimitation of the Afghan frontier were in progress, Yahya Khan, a relative of the Shah and a high officer of state, the Mushir-ed-Dowleh, was dispatched to St. Petersburg on a secret mission. The Shah is said to have conceded to Russia the privilege, in the event of an English war, of occupying and garrisoning the Persian frontier south of

Sarakhs along the Heri Rud as far as Kiafir Kaleh, the point where the Meshed-Herat road crosses the frontier line.

The Attitude of other Powers.-The English speculated on a wide-spread disaffection in Russia which would cripple the empire in the event of war. If they could land in Georgia, they expected that a rising of the whole Caucasus would take place, and the Russian communications with Asia would be broken. The Turkomans were represented as embittered by oppression, or easily to be bought off from their allegiance. Turkey they looked upon as their necessary ally. Austria was counted upon for a diversion in the Balkan principalities, while the Magyars were thought to be eager to seize upon Poland and to strike a blow at Russia out of revenge for old wrongs. The existing coolness with Germany and her rigidly pacific policy gave them no expectation of assistance from her, but rather of efforts to avert or circumscribe the conflict. The large German interest in Russian loans rendered such efforts the more probable. The financial embarrassments of Russia were supposed to be so great as to deprive her perhaps of the means, and certainly of the will, to carry on a great war. The Russians held as slight an opinion of the ability of the English to engage in the struggle, owing to the smallness of their army and the backward state of their armaments. Against an immediate conflict on the Afghan frontier they felt secure, and thought that, before that could come, Afghanistan would go to pieces and the richest provinces of the country fall under Russian sway. Though the Afghan ruler was controlled by English influences, or rather paid to keep quiet, Russia might again acquire the ascendency she had in the times of Dost Mohammed and Shere Ali. Assertions were repeatedly made by Russian officials and publicists that Abdurrahman was playing a double game. The English counted further that China would ally herself with England in order to save Corea from invasion and the seizure of her harbors for a Russian naval base, and to recover Mantchooria.

The Russian position in the controversy received actually the moral support of the Austro-German alliance. Confident of this support, the Russian Cabinet could afford to disregard the warlike threats of England, and maintain firmly the ground taken in the boundary dispute. Evidence transpired that the German Chancellor was taking measures to prevent an immediate conflict. However little Germany might object to the northern Colossus that hemmed her growth in eastern Europe and the arrogant naval power that thwarted her aspirations over seas wasting their energies in a localized conflict in central Asia, she could not suffer the torch of war to be kindled in Europe. If Germany and Austria, according to their apparent intention, compelled Turkey to keep the Dardanelles closed against the English fleet, Great Britain could nowhere reach

her antagonist to deliver a telling blow. The whole case of the English depended on the delusive figment of a "strong, united, and friendly Afghanistan." To attempt to march an army to the northern frontier of Afghanistan to battle for the neutralization of the disputed strip of country, was out of the question. The reconquest and thorough subjugation of the Afghans would be first necessary. Such an attempt would enable Russia to absorb the subject races of northern Afghanistan without a struggle, and fix the boundary along the Hindoo-Koosh, including whatever strategical positions she chose to possess herself of, if it did not drive the Afghans into the arms of Russia and enable her to chase the English across the Suleiman range and carry the war into India "under the banner of plunder and carnage, after the manner of Tamerlane." The false and helpless position into which English diplomacy was betrayed gave the British side of the controversy the appearance of hypocritical bluster intended mainly to impress the Ameer and the people of India.

It was reported that the German and Austrian ambassadors informed the Porte in April that if Turkey allowed either the British or the Russian fleet to pass the Dardanelles, the Treaty of Berlin would eo ipso be annulled, and that Germany and Austria would consider themselves free from every engagement. They declared further that the Porte would have to make its neutrality respected by its own resources, and that the result would be the same if either belligerent forced the passage of the Dardanelles.

The Swedish Government began to arm its fleet and to construct batteries for the purpose of preventing England from establishing a coaling-station in Gotland. The Baltic powers were expected to unite in enforcing the neutrality of the sound. The Porte provided against eventualities by fortifying Kars and ordering arms and ammunition.

While England and India were stirred with war preparations, preliminary arrangements for mobilization were quietly made in Russia. The Russian press contemptuously characterized the feverish preparations of Great Britain as childish threats. Since the beginning of the year only a slight movement of troops had taken place, principally from Turkistan to the Afghan frontier. A few battalions only had crossed the Caspian. The force on the Afghan frontier in May was reported as follows: In Khaka, 100 infantry, 400 cavalry, and 3 guns; at Surakhs, 300 infantry, 400 cavalry, and 3 guns; at Pul-i-Khatum, 200 infantry and 100 cavalry; at Kushid Kala, 2,020 infantry, 800 cavalry, and 4 guns; between Kushid Kala and Merv, 2,060 infantry, 600 cavalry, and 4 guns; near Penjdeh, 1,200 infantry, 800 cavalry, and 4 guns; at Zulfikar, 400 infantry; and at Akrobat, 200 cavalry.

After the Penjdeh incident war preparations proceeded with greater haste. Two di

The army in Turkistan numbered nearly 70,000 men, including the Cossacks colonized in Zerafshan and on the Narym. The main forces were collected in the Ferghana district, with headquarters at Marghilan, and in the Zerafshan district with Samarcand for its center. In the first there were 12,000 men, and in the other from 12,000 to 15,000. The Amu Darya district was garrisoned by from 4,000 to 5,000 men. These forces, which would operate in the region of the Oxus, and possibly descend into India near Jassin by a new route across the Pamir, could be recruited from Tashkend and the line of the Syr Darya, and ultimately from Orenburg and western Siberia. The Turkistan army was under the command of Gen. Rosenbach. Gen. Komaroff's army numbered about 6,000 men, including the newly enlisted Turkomans, and had to depend upon the Caucasus for re-enforcements.

At the beginning of the year the terminus of the Transcaspian Railway was still at Kizil Arvat, 146 miles from Michaelovsk, the startingpoint. The road was graded nearly to Askabad by the middle of May, and the track was laid as far as Bami, 35 miles east of Kizil Arvat. For the rest of the line the rails were still at St. Petersburg. The rolling-stock was very deficient, but an additional supply was being made at Dantzic. The road was completed to Askabad by about the 1st of October.

The Boundary Negotiations.-The Russian Government insisted from the beginning that the basis of the delimitation should be settled by direct negotiations between the two cabinets. The English Government, on the other hand, not having at command the necessary topographical information, sought to invest the Frontier Commission with the fullest possible dignity and power. The Russian Cabinet was determined to make good its claims to the lands of the Turkomans, while the Anglo-Indian authorities were disposed to contest those claims, as was shown by the Afghan occupation of Penjdeh. If the Russians had sent an ostentatious commission, attended by a small army, such as the Indian and military authorities had persuaded the British Government to send as Sir Peter Lumsden's escort, a wrangle over disputed points between the commissioners might lead to a collision between British and Russian troops and precipitate a war. Therefore the Russian Government, protesting that an unostentatious technical commission was intended,

did not send Gen. Zelenoy to meet Sir Peter Lumsden, but laid their territorial claims before the London Government, while the Cossacks quietly occupied the country claimed. M. Lessar, an engineer of French birth, who had explored the frontier region with reference to railroad routes, was sent to London in the beginning of February, to assist in the negotiations between Earl Granville and Baron de Staal. The main point of the Russian contention was that the frontier line should be an ethnographical one, and that it should assign to Russia the Turkoman tribes that had recently acknowledged Russian sovereignty, and all the lands possessed by them. The line along the crest of the Barkhut and Paropamisus mountains, from the Heri Rud to the head-waters of the Kushk, was proposed as a suitable one from the ethnical point of view, and also in a geographical and in a strategical sense. The country to the north of it had been reclaimed from predatory violence and rendered available for peaceful colonization by Russian arms. The argument that a part of it once belonged to Herat was balanced by historical claims based on the ancient extension of the dominion of Merv. The alarm and hostility created in England by the Russian advance, and the angry demand that the Russian outposts should retire from the debated zone, led M. de Giers to offer as a concession, in the beginning of March, that the line should not follow the physical frontier of the Borkhut mountains, but should be drawn farther north in such a way as to include in the Russian dominion the pasture-lands of the Salors, the salt lakes of Ni Maksar, which furnish the Turkomans with their salt-supply and their only export article, and the oasis of Penjdeh. This line, propounded by M. Lessar, coincided with the line of Cossack posts, which had been advanced to guard the Salor pasturages and the salt lakes, except at Penjdeh, then held by Afghan troops. Since the arrival of Sir Peter Lumsden the Afghans also had advanced into the debatable zone. They confronted the Russians at Zulfikar, occupied the northern entrances of the Borkhut passes, and had crossed the Kushk at Penjdeh. The expulsion of the Afghans from Penjdeh gave the Russians military possession of every district claimed. The attitude of the Ameer Abdurrahman and the feeling of the powers of Europe forced England to give up every thought of declaring war.

On the 13th of April Lord Granville proposed that, in order to avoid the repetition of regrettable occurrences such as that of the 30th of March, the Russian troops should withdraw from the disputed territory, the English Government undertaking on their part to prevent the return of any Afghan force to the debatable land, and that the Russian commissioners should proceed to the spot and the joint commission begin operations at once; that the commission should be guided by the political relations of the tribes occupying the country,

and avoid imposing upon the Ameer obligations that he would be unwilling or unable to fulfill; and that any difference arising between the commissioners should be referred to their respective governments. M. de Staal made a condition that the line proposed on January 28 should be the basis of delimitation. M. de Giers, in his answer, declined to withdraw Russian troops, but would consent to the retirement of the outposts from any locality during the examination of the ground by the commissioners, attended by escorts limited to one hundred men, and proposed that, as delimitation progressed, each side should be bound to establish posts and maintain order along the frontier. The British Government desired to obtain from Russia a treaty recognizing the boundary now to be agreed upon as a perpetual and

Negotiations were resumed in May. The English Cabinet showed a willingness to accept the fait accompli, and give Penjdeh to Russia. The concession was less difficult after the Ameer's voluntary renunciation of the position. They demanded that by way of compensation Zulfikar should be secured to the Ameer.

Much indignation was felt in England at this compromise, which gave up the whole debated zone, and practically accepted the Lessar boundary that was rejected in March, without any requital for the blow to British prestige and honor received at Penjdeh.

The Russian reply, received May 29, agreed to the proposal to leave to the Ameer Zulfikar and Maruchak at the southern extremity of the Penjdeh oasis. The pass of Zulfikar is double, one entrance giving access from Per

inviolable limit to Russian operations. The Russians declared that they wished to obtain as permanent and secure a frontier as possible, as was evinced by their contention for an ethnographic boundary, and for the indivisibility of the tribes. Their object in asking for a delimitation was to establish settled order in their Turkomanian possessions, and guard against border troubles with the Afghans. In view of the evanescent and fictitious nature of the English protectorate over Afghanistan. the troubled and unstable condition of the Afghan state, and the quarrelsome and aggressive temperament of the Afghan people, they naturally declined to assign so sacred a character to a paper boundary. To the English demand M. Lessar responded with the query, "Who will answer for the Afghans?"

VOL. XXV.-2 A

sia, by a ford across the Heri Rud, and the other from the Salor country to a valley that leads into the plains north of the Borkhut mountains. The English demand was not justified by strong strategical considerations, but had its motive principally in a desire for an amende from Russia, such as would be implied in the abandonment of a post already occupied by the Cossacks. Military circles in Russia now became indignant in turn at the slight concession required as a salve for British honor. They obtained the ear of the Czar, who declared that positions occupied by his troops should not be surrendered. In demanding Zulfikar the English ministry took the precaution to obtain the approval of the Ameer, and thus provide against another discomfiture like his disavowal of their claim of Penjdeh. They

were therefore in the position to declare that England was pledged to secure Zulfikar for the Ameer. The Russian minister, obedient to the dominant sentiment, endeavored now to minimize the concession to which he had consented in principle, that the line should be drawn on the Heri Rud, “at a point north of Zulfikar."

The question as to the extension of the territory to be conceded was scarcely raised when the Liberal Government in England went out of office. The anti-Russian speeches of Lord Salisbury before taking office, in conjunction with the choice of so pronounced a Russophobe as Lord Randolph Churchill as the head of the India Office, led the Russians to anticipate a vigorous and militant policy that would overturn the basis for a friendly understanding already attained. The Marquis of Salisbury quieted the general fear by his statement in Parliament that, as he found the business in the process of settlement, it became the duty of the new Government "to take up the policy where it had been left, and to conduct it to such an issue as seemed consistent with the public interest." He laid down as a "dominant condition" of his policy that the pledges given by the outgoing Government should be fulfilled. The Tory Government insisted, however, on the largest construction of the terms of the Russian engagement with reference to Zulfikar. The line proposed started at the Heri Rud, north of the pass, taking in the defile leading from Persia Afghan, as well as the pasture-lands along the river that go by the name of Zulfikar, but leaving to Russia the interior valley and the other defile, besides other positions in dangerous proximity to the wells and salt lakes of their new possessions, that were claimed by England for the Ameer. To give up these, they declared, would be surrendering "the key to Russia's house." The nearest road from Akrobat to the wells of Mulla Hairan Taka, and the pasturages of the surrounding valley, lies through the country claimed by England. M. de Giers distinctly refused to concede this portion of the disputed territory in the preliminary negotiations that preceded the agreement to abandon Zulfikar. Russia offered to allow the matter to be settled by the commissioners on the spot, but the proposal was rejected. In the beginning of July the Afghans began to mass troops again on the border. The Russians thereupon advanced in force to Zulfikar. The British boundary commissioners retired to Herat, and were now invited into the city by the Afghans. Since the Ameer's return from India his troops had been at work improving the fortifications. The assistance of English engineer officers was now accepted. Lord Salisbury demanded that the Russian troops should be withdrawn from the advanced positions in the Zulfikar Pass pending negotiations. Russia agreed, on the condition that the Afghans should not occupy the positions evacuated. The discussion over

Zulfikar was finally brought to a termination in the beginning of September by a compromise. The Russian Government, after making topographical inquiries, considerably modified their position, abandoning to the Ameer the whole of Zulfikar Pass proper.

ALABAMA. State Government.-The following were the State officers during the year: Governor, Edward A. O'Neal, Democrat; Secretary of State, Ellis Phelan; Treasurer, Frederick H. Smith; Auditor, M. C. Burke; Attorney-General, Thomas N. McClellan; Superintendent of Education, Solomon Palmer; Railroad Commissioners, Henry R. Shorter, L. W. Lawler, and W. C. Tunstall; Commissioner of Agriculture, E. C. Betts. Judiciary, Supreme Court : Chief-Justice, George W. Stone; Associate Justices, H. M. Somerville and David Clopton.*

Legislative Session. The Legislature, which was in session at the close of the year, adjourned in February. Among its notable achievements were the defeat of the restrictive railroad bills and the reduction of the tax-rate from six and a half to six mills. The road laws, founded on a social and economic condition whose base was African slavery, have been proved ineffectual under a system of free labor. These laws are left as they were, except in some counties where the people clamored loudly for a change.

A law was passed providing for instruction of all pupils in all schools and colleges supported in whole or in part by public money, or under State control, in hygiene and physiology, with special reference to the effects of alcoholic drinks, stimulants, and narcotics upon the human system.

Another law modifies the common-law liability of employers to their workmen, in cases of death or injury resulting from carelessness or defective materials or faulty construction.

Other acts of the session are the following: For repairing the buildings at Talladega, known as the Alabama Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and

the Blind.

To prevent public drunkenness.

For the revision and codification of the public statutes of this State, both civil and criminal.

For the appointment of inspectors of timber and lumber.

To amend an act to amend an act to revive and com

plete the geological and agricultural survey of the State, approved Feb. 19, 1883.

To authorize the Governor to employ an expert socountant to act as examiner of public accounts and to define his duties.

Further to define and regulate the convict system of Alabama.

For the sale of such lands as have been or may be selected under and by virtue of an act of Congress entitled "An act to increase the endowment of the State," approved April 23, 1884; and for the applicaUniversity of Alabama from the public lands in said tion of all moneys arising from such sales.

To authorize the Alabama State Bar Association to institute and prosecute proceedings to disbar practicing attorneys.

of

To allow the oral examination of witnesses in courts

chancery.

To prescribe a uniform mode of executing conveyances of lands and of every interest therein.