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 governments as had the Trans-Caucasian bridge. In time, a line of railway was driven from St. Petersburg via Moscow and Orenburg to Tashkent at the back of Afghanistan, whence it linked with the Trans-Caspian Railway from Krasnovodsk, opposite Baku on the Caspian. Direct communication was thus afforded from St. Petersburg and from the Trans-Caucasian country to Persia and Afghanistan. With a Russian resident ruling in the ancient Moslem capital of Bokhara, a spur had been dropped from the Trans-Caspian line at Bokhara City to Termez on the northern frontier of Afghanistan whence a caravan road threads its way up into the passes of the Hindu Kush and down again to Kabul and the Khyber Pass. From the Merv oasis, also on the Trans-Caspian line, another spur had been dropped to Kushklinsky Post on the Afghan frontier whence the traditional Herat-Kandahar-Kabul road leads to the Khyber Pass and the fat plains of India.

This long loop of line from St. Petersburg and the Caspian to the back of Afghanistan traversed territory securely held by Russian arms and the British had no contact with it, except the frontal contact of their railheads on the southern frontier of Afghanistan, i. e., within India itself. Except for diplomatic exchanges between London and St. Petersburg, the Government of India had no means of making itself felt at Bokhara City and the Merv oasis. Indeed, Russia had made even the Afghan capital of Kabul an intermittent nightmare in India. Long ago, Russian intrigue in the Afghan capital had compelled the East India Company in 1839 to dispatch an expeditionary force to occupy Kabul and