HARD FACTS FOR MASTERLY INACTIVITY FANATICS. 327 Central Asia, and has long advocated an extension of its cultivation. But Russian merchants are not like many English ones-continually talking of public spirit, and never displaying it. When the occupation of Merv had been effected, the first act of the Moscow cotton spinners, Konshin and Morozoff, was to distribute gratis several tons of American cotton seed among the Turkomans, knowing that this was the most effective way of realizing the wishes of Moscow. Savva Morozoff did not rest content with Russian subjects, but adopted a similar course with those of Persia, distributing a ton and a half of seed gratis at Meshed and 900 pounds in Deregez. Such enterprise will make short work of the trifling obstacles to trade existing between the Caspian and India. How slight these are we may realize by examining a few hard facts. From Calcutta to Quetta is about 2,000 miles. When the Quetta railway, now in course of construction, is complete, there will be railway communication the entire distance between the two places. From St. Petersburg to Baku is a little over 2,000 miles, with steam communication complete almost the whole way. Baku and Quetta are thus about the same distance from the respective Capitals of Russia and India. Now, crossing the Caspian Sea from Baku to Port Michaelovsk, we find that the distance thence to Quetta is as follows: That is to say, it is only about half as far from the very much. But if we uncoil this fact further, we find other points of greater significance wrapped inside it. From Michaelovsk to Kizil Arvat there is a railway to facilitate intercourse; hence we may knock off 144 miles. From Kizil Arvat to Askabad is a wagon service along an easy, safe, and well supplied road; hence we may reduce the figure further by 135 miles. From Askabad to Sarakhs the distance of 185 miles is similar to the last in characteristics, and will be organized for trade in a few months' time. We may therefore eliminate from the general total this section also. Thus, from Sarakhs to Quetta all the distance the Russian trader has to traverse is 716 miles, or a trifle further than from St. Petersburg to Nijni-Novgorod. Perhaps I lack the penetration of statesmen of the Gladstone school; but I certainly cannot detect in this insignificant distance any bar to the almost immediate establishment of commercial intercourse between the 101 millions of the Russian empire on the one side of the vanishing Afghan zone, and the 250 millions of the Indian empire on the other, especially if it be borne in mind that only two slightly fortified towns bar the intervening high road the whole way-Herat with 50,000 people, and Candahar with a population of 60,000 souls. Should the Russian trader put off direct intercourse with India for a while, and confine his operations to Afghanistan, five easy marches will take his caravan from Sarakhs to Herat, and if he goes beyond, the distance from Herat to Candahar is less than from Tiflis to Baku. From Sarakhs all the way to Candahar is only ten miles longer than from Baku to Batoum. Hence, apparently the time is not far distant when the Parsees will be back again at Baku, not to worship the Everlasting Fire, but for the purpose of buying lamp oil for the bazaars of India, and other commonplace objects. What will be the effects of such intercourse I have no MOTTO FOR BOTH LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES. $29 space to discuss in this work, but some suggestions as to their character may be found in the Appendix. We cannot prevent this intercourse. The past and present policy of Mr. Gladstone's Government, of making a Chinese wall of Afghanistan to keep out the Russian trader and Russian tehinovnik, is so appallingly stupid that one cannot wonder at the statesmen of St. Petersburg holding our ministers in such high esteem. Even now that Russia is upsetting things right and left in Central Asia, they still continue to hope that a couple of towns held by a rabble will indefinitely separate the two empires. Yet nothing on earth and nothing in heaven. can prevent the approximation of Russia and India. If we do not secure at once a strong frontier to defend India, Russia will organize a strong frontier to assail it. And when she gets that strong frontier, England will have to be on her good behaviour in the East. On this account, with the Cossack entrenching himself at Merv and Sarakhs, and Kerosine revolutionizing affairs in the Caspian, the time has arrived when we should leave off being, like the Guebers of old-mute devotees before the Altar of Everlasting Talk-and ourselves fashion and impress a sound patriotic policy upon our rulers. The Empire first, Party afterwards-this should be our motto; nor can I conceive a loftier aim than that all should combine to uphold that Empire against those forces which have made Old Persia a prey to New Russia, and given over to the sway of the Cossack the magnificent resources of the Region of the Eternal Fire. 330 CHAPTER XX. 1884-1887. Rapid Development of Baku since 1884-Apathy of the British Petroleum Trade-"The New Wonder of the World"- Fountains at Baku of Late Years - The 11,000-Ton Gusher - Tagieff's Fountain-The Great Fountain of 1887-Production of Crude Oil-New Pipe-lines-Growth of Traffic on the Transcaucasian Railway-Trade at Batoum-The Conflict between the Crude Pipe-line and the Kerosine Pipe-line-The Pipe-line over the Suram Pass-Policy of the Russian Government-The Burmese Oil Fields-One Thousand Million gallons of Lamp Oil manufactured every Year- The "Moloch of Paraffin "-Growth of Russian Power in the Caspian-The Afghan Boundary Settlement"A Clerk in Epaulettes "-Russia and the Helmund. THREE eventful years have elapsed since I penned the foregoing chapters on the condition and prospects of Russia's power in the Caspian region, and there is hardly a forecast I made in 1884 that has not been realized in a manner not only amazing to the world at large, but to myself also. To-day every petroleum merchant knows something of Baku, and Russian oil maintains its place side by side with the American article in every market in Europe. Yet only three years ago Baku was practically unknown, and I had to argue and prove over and over again in the press that a large supply existed there at all. The copiousness of the wells I had seen was ascribed to ephemeral volcanic agency, and prophets hastened to declare that Baku would be played out long before she became a rival of Pennsylvania. That a single Baku well should spout more oil in BAKU QUITE COMMONPLACE NOW. 66 331 a day than all the wells of America put together, was a statement smilingly described as a traveller's tale," and my appeal that England should take a prominent part in the development of the new industry, in advance of foreign rivals, apparently fell dead upon the public ear. Had Baku been situated in some inaccessible and isolated region, my fate might have been that of Bruce, Marco Polo, and other travellers, but being placed midway between England and India, and occupying a central position on the Euro-Indian railway system-a system of which only a few hundred miles, from Merv to Quetta, remain to be constructed to complete railway communication between London and Calcutta-it came into prominence as soon as Russia began breaking down the sole remaining obstacles to a re-opening of the great highway of commerce of the past between Europe and India, viá Poti, Baku, and Herat. In a couple of years Baku was visited by more Englishmen than during the whole of its previous history. The Lumsden Mission, after passing through it, on its way to the Afghan frontier, maintained communication with London by means of couriers and detached officials, who constantly halted at Baku. Gaze and Cook, adopting my suggestion, escorted thither bodies of tourists. Of military officers anxious to see (at their own expense, à la Burnaby) what Russia was doing in. the Caspian, at least a dozen must have paid a visit to Baku. The accounts these and other visitors gave of the wonderful oil deposits of the Apsheron Peninsula, fully confirmed all I had said, and England began to think that, really, after all, there must be some money lying latent in Baku oil. Then the English and the United States' Governments sent consuls thither to report, and the scientific bodies of this country set a good example to somnolent Chambers of Commerce by promoting discussions on the future of Russian petroleum. Finally, the importation of Baku oil into Austria led to an |