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116 116 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA. past is Baber ; in Tiflis, Nadir Shall and his numerous predecessors are quoted as the unanswerable autho- rities. In this rivalry the chances are mostly on the side of the Tiflis Grovernment, and since the conquest of the Armenian fortresses those chances have still further increased. It is difficult to persuade oneself that Kaufmann, that vain and meretricious ruler, will consent to forego the grand dream of his existence, and retire from a career which requires but a little further scope to bring upon him a war with England. It needs little judgment to perceive that Russia's national ten- dency is to absorb northern Persia, and to make the Caspian geographically the Eussian lake which it practically is at present. We must judge of each of these movements by its practicability — Kaufmann absorbing Afghan Turkestan, and the Grand Duke Michael Azerbijan, Grhilan, or Mazanderan ; and, while remembering that upon neither could England look with anything but the utmost disfavour, it must be admitted that it would be a much easier task to drive Russia across the Oxus than to oust her from Persian provinces so remote from us as those specified. In Kaufmann' s path there, therefore, stands the grand obstacle of England's watchfulness. He can scarcely make a forward movement in any direction without encountering the opposition of this country. An advance on Merv from Charjui would assuredly be the prelude to a war that would rage within twelve months of the arrival of Russian troops at that place, and of English at Herat — the unavoidable and only