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185 185 eager to be the puppet of the Russians and to play the game they may sketch out for him. His ambition and his vanity will urge him to prosecute whatever aggressive design General Kaufmann may entrust to him, and his hostility to England has been but thinly veiled. There is a reason, too, though it is now seldom mentioned, why England can never hold out the hand of friendship and alliance to Bokhara, why the Ameer of that State can never receive assistance from our countrymen against any foe, even though it should be Eussia herself. The story has been told so seldom, and is now so utterly forgotten, save by the few contemporaries who still survive of the unfortunate sufferers, that it will bear repetition, even though little fresh can be said to that already so forcibly pronounced by Mens. Terrier. In the year 1839 not only had Afghanistan been conquered by a British army, but the bold scheme had been conceived by a few men, remarkable for their foresight, of raising a powerful barrier in Central Asia from amongst the Tartar States of Turkestan to any encroachment on the part of Russia. With that object in view Colonel Charles Stoddart, one of M'Niell's most trusted officers, went to Bokhara, and for the same purpose Captain Arthur Conolly arrived at Khiva, and travelled thence to Khokand. For the moment" the great game in Central Asia" found favour in the eyes of the authorities, but the fit passed rapidly off. There can be no doubt that Charles Stoddart, splendid fellow as he was, was not the man most suited to work out an intricate negotiation in so