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 kingdoms of Persia and of Afghanistan, as it has already absorbed the khanates of Central Asia.

Central Asia is the vague term which for the purpose of this narrative may be held to describe the countries bounded by Khiva and the Kizil Kum Desert on the north, Tashkent and Kokan on the east, Northern Afghanistan and Northern Persia on the south, and the Caspian on the west. Its political importance lies in the fact that the whole of it has, within the last twenty-five years, become a Russian province. Its khans, or native princes, have been paralysed or overthrown by Russian diplomacy or by Russian arms. Alone the Khan of Bokhara maintains a position of quasi-independence, but his attenuated dominions, lying between the Russian provinces of Transcaspia and Turkestan, and traversed by a Russian military railway, may, for all practical purposes, be looked upon as forming part of the empire of the Czar.

A few days before starting on our journey, we received a telegram from Sir Robert Morier, Her Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg, informing us that permission had been granted