Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/542

480 extent and physical conformations adapt them admirably to be strong natural outworks, Baluchistan and Afghanistan, lie beyond her western border, full of deserts and mountains, hard to traverse and easy to defend, inhabited by free and warlike races, to whom liberty is, as to ourselves, the noblest of possessions. Both these countries have been brought by England within the range of our political ascendency, and thus we have assumed a virtual protectorate over that vast tract of country which stretches from the confines of India to Persia and the Oxus River.

Taking as the central point of departure the Victoria Lake, whose shores are the high mountain cradle of the Oxus, the line separating Russian from English spheres of influence runs eastward to the Chinese frontier, and westward along the course of the river. Turning southward from the Oxus to the Indian Ocean, the whole western boundary-line which separates Afghanistan and Baluchistan from Russia and Persia has been marked out under English supervision, and secured by treaty or agreement. It must not be supposed that this line is secured upon any formal international compact with the states inside it, although their rulers have agreed to the arrangement which it represents; it has been fixed by negotiations with the states beyond, with Russia and Persia, who have promised and are pledged to respect it.

Here, then, beyond the extreme northwest of India, we may survey the system of protectorates operating on a grand scale; and we may find the strongest illus-