Page:Decisive Battles Since Waterloo.djvu/408

366 The khanate of Khiva resisted both the diplomacy and the arms of Russia until a very recent period. It occupied an area of about 200,000 square miles in the great plain of Turkestan, but of this area only a small part was under cultivation or capable of being cultivated. The chief oasis in which the capital Khiva is situated, stretches from the mouth of the Amou Darya or Oxus, about two hundred miles along its banks, and is watered by canals drawn from that stream. This fertile area is about 3,000 square miles in extent, and has a population of a quarter of a million. Geographically Khiva is of no great importance, but it has a prominent place in the political world, and the events of 1873 drew towards it the attention of all nations. Russia had long sought to possess the khanate, but, protected by the desert sands that surround them, the Khivans were able to bid defiance to their northern enemies.

It is a curious circumstance that the first expedition for this purpose actually succeeded in conquering the khanate and holding it for two or three months. It was organized and conducted by a chieftain of the Yaik or Ural Cossacks, and was simply a plundering expedition on a large scale. Finding the Khan unprepared for war, the chieftain drove him out, seized his capital, and took possession of his treasure and his wives. The Cossack declared himself khan, ruled the country, converted the Khan's favorite wife to Christianity and married her. But finding, after ten or twelve weeks of power, that the Khan was assembling an army to re-conquer his capital, the Cossack determined to retreat to the Urals, and started with a large caravan loaded with plunder. The Cossacks were overtaken by the Khan, and so severely were they handled that only five or six escaped alive to the Urals. The Cossack chieftain killed his newly converted bride when he saw that escape was hopeless, and then died fighting among a heap of slain Khivans who had fallen beneath his sword.