No doubt the way would be considerably smoothed for Russia along both the Candahar and the Bokhara lines, if by gradually extending the circle of her conquests she had brought the inhabitants of Khorasan and Turkistan to obey her. But there are obstacles to the achievement of this preliminary task which the empire is not by any means competent to surmount, nor will it be so for a very long time to come. To say nothing of climate, soil, and distance, all the tribes in question are animated with a hatred and aversion for Russia, which will long neutralise the projects of the tzars. We often hear of the great influence exercised by the cabinet of St. Petersburg at Khiva, Bokhara, and Cabul; but we believe it to be greatly exaggerated, and the history of the various Muscovite embassies proves most palpably that it is so. What did Negri and Mouravief effect at Khiva and Bokhara? They were both received with the most insulting distrust, prevented from holding any communication with the natives, and watched with a strictness which is only employed against an enemy. Mouravief even went near to pay for his embassy with his head. Was Russia more fortunate at Cabul? We think not. The remoteness of her dominions may cause her agents to be received with some degree of favour, especially at a time when the sovereign of Cabul finds himself exposed to the hostility of England. Yet it is not the less true that any serious attempt of Russia on Turkistan and the eastern regions of Persia would suddenly arouse the animosity of the Affghans and all their neighbours. We readily admit that the imperial government has it in its power, by its advice and its intrigues, to exercise a certain influence at Cabul, to the detriment of England; but that this influence can ever serve the extension of the Muscovite sway is what we utterly deny, knowing as we do the intense and unmitigable aversion to Russia which is felt by all the natives of Asia.
The conquests of Alexander the Great and of Genghis Khan have often been appealed to as proving how easy it would be for the tzars to follow in the footsteps of those great captains. Such language bespeaks on the part of the writers who have put it forth the most profound ignorance of the actual condition of the places and the inhabitants. When Alexander marched towards Bactriana to subjugate the last possessions of Persia, he left behind him rich and fertile countries, important Greek colonies, and nations entirely subdued; moreover, he marched at the head of an army consisting of natives of the south, possessing all the qualifications necessary for warfare in the latitudes of Central Asia. Furthermore, at that period the provinces of the Oxus contained numerous rich and flourishing towns, with inhabitants living in luxury, and little capable of resistance. Nevertheless, in spite of all the facilities and all the supplies which the country then offered to an invading army, its physical conformation, broken and bounded by deserts both on the north and on the south, seems to have aided the efforts of its defenders to a remarkable degree. It was in fact in this remote part of Persia that the conqueror of Darius had to fight many a battle for the establishment of his transient sway. The same circumstances marked his march to India. Invasions have become still more difficult since his day, for all those regions once occupied by wealthy and agricultural nations have been ravaged and turned into deserts; scarcely do there exist a few traces of the ancient towns, and the populations subdued by Alexander have been succeeded by hordes of Khirgis, Turcomans, and Affghans, who would be for the Russians what the Scythians were for the King of Macedon and the other conquerors who tried to enslave their country.
The Mongol invasions can no more than Alexander's be regarded as a precedent for Russia. Inured to the fatigues of emigration, carrying all their ordinary habits into the camp, changing their country without changing their ways of life, unburdened by any materiel of war, and never retarded by the slow and painful march of a body of infantry, the hordes of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane were singularly fitted for occupying and retaining possession of the immense plains of Turkistan, and realising the conquest of India.
Russia, on the contrary, is totally devoid of those grand means of sway which Alexander and the Mongols enjoyed. The Russians have nothing in common with the soldiers of antiquity and of the middle ages, and are placed in very different circumstances: they are natives of the coldest regions of the globe; they have no possible opportunity of previous acclimation, and they are separated from the frontiers of India by more than 500 leagues of almost desert country, in which the employment of infantry, wherein alone consists the real superiority of Europeans over Orientals, is impracticable.