OLD PERSIA-NEW RUSSIA. 321 CHAPTER XIX. OLD PERSIA-NEW RUSSIA. Sermons Preached by the Rocks at Baku-The Slovenly Persians of To-day-Will the English Some Day Become Pariahs in India ?-Russia Growing Towards Our Eastern Empire-We are Only Sojourners in India, the Russians are Settlers in the Caspian-The Material Growth of Russia More Fraught with Danger to Our Rule than her Military Operations in Central Asia-Russia becoming More Unassailable in Central Asia, while We continue as Vulnerable as Ever in India-The Shortsighte Iness of English Statesmen-The Caspian now a European Lake-The Widening of the Boundaries of Europe-Its Significance - The Waterway between London and Baku-The Population of Baku; Remarkable Growth-Tchernayeff's New Road to Central Asia vid the Mertvi Kultuk and Khiva-Discovery of Petroleum along it-The Traffic on the Volga-Russia's Progress towards the Persian Gulf-Fate of Persia - The Baku Road to IndiaStatistics of it-Disappearing Obstacles-The Cossack Approach to IndiaImpossible to Prevent an Approximation of the Two Empires-The Duty of all Englishmen. OLD Persia-New Russia: what deep meaning exists in those words! What visions they conjure up of the extension of the White Tsar's dominions towards our Eastern Empire! Twenty-five centuries of Persian priests mumbling their prayers at the Surakhani altars, day after day, year after year, and in the interval the great Persian Empire expanding to its fullest-stretching from the Indus in India to the Bosphorus in Europe, and embracing at times Afghanistan, modern Persia, the Caucasus, and Asia Minor-and then contracting, breaking up, and becoming bit by bit what we see it to-daya mere Khanate, dependent for its existence upon the nod of the Emperor of Russia. If the rocks at Baku Y could speak, what tales they could tell the slovenly slippered Persians, loafing about the bazaars under the eye of the bearded, heavy-booted Russian policeman, of the great creed and great empire of their ancestors. As they pass me chattering-a sapless, effeminate, dirty rabble-I regard them with curious interest. To think that these should be the children of men, proud citizens of a great and warlike empire-who once upon a time used to resort to the Surakhani altars, to thank the great Fire God that they were not as other people, poor cowardly oppressed creatures, but warriors and statesmen respected from Delhi to Constantinople. It is not the past, however, that engrosses all my thoughts. What if I could penetrate a few centuries into the future! I might then see some curious traveller watching with similar interest ragged loafers in the bazaars of Bombay and Calcutta, and asking himself—can these possibly be the children of the gifted English warriors, who once possessed the most magnificent empire the universe had ever seen? But the world rolls faster to-day than it used to do in olden times. Empires rise, ripen, and rot more rapidly. Our Eastern empire is growing towards Russia; Russia's empire is growing towards ours. In a few short years the two will touch, and then humanity will see whether the Russian empire will swell beyond the line of demarcation, and break up our empire as it has already broken up and sucked the sap out of the Persian empire; or whether the superior vitality of our empire will stem any further advance in the direction of India. More we cannot hope for. The Russians can break up our power in India-they can trip us off the backs of the natives: we cannot break up their empire in Asia. The English are only sojourners in India: the Russians are settlers in the Caspian region. Generations hence, A SERMON FOR ENGLISHMEN. 323 unless the character of our rule change, we shall still be merely casual residents in the East, while the Caspian region, from being on the outskirts of the Russian empire, will be as much within its limits as Novgorod and Penza; and the Russians dwelling there will exercise the influence attaching to numbers which we cannot hope for in India. The English will be then, as now, but a drop in the ocean of Indian humanity. The Russians, on the other hand, will be the main element in the Caspian region. While a mere handful of white faces will be all that will represent English suzerainty at Benares and Allahabad, Merv will be a busy Russian mart-another Kazan or Orenburg-and Baku, with a population of half a million or more Russians, the all-powerful metropolis of the Caspian. Hence, the rocks of Baku have sermons to preach to Englishmen as well as to the degenerate children of Iran. We are citizens of a great empire. The jewel of that empire is India. We know, although there are traitors in our midst, ever whispering suggestions to the contrary, that the greatness of England is largely bound up with the maintenance of her rule over that grand dependency. We know it to be the set purpose of Russia, who is already at the gates of India, to strive to expel us from the peninsula next time we openly thwart her ambitious plans in Europe. Yet though we see the vigorous roots of Russia deriving sustenance from the vitals of Tartary, Persia, and Turkey, and every year thrusting out suckers further and further east, we make no attempt to check that growth or set our empire in order. To my view, the material growth of Russia is fraught with more danger to our rule in the East than the extension of her armaments towards Herat and Candahar. We are developing India enormously. I do not know anything more calculated to make an Englishman proud of his empire than the rapidity with which we are opening up the resources of that splendid country. But while commerce grows and wealth accumulates, the number of Englishmen ruling and defending India shows no sign of increase. Excluding women and children, and including the army, administration, and mercantile classes, there cannot be more than 150,000 English in the country. All these regard themselves as strangers in a foreign land, and look to some day returning home; none are encouraged to settle in India. Quite the reverse is the case with Russia. The Caspian Sea, which not so long ago was a purely Persian expanse, is now becoming as much a Russian lake as Ilmen or Ladoga. The peasants of Middle Russia are colonizing the steppes at the foot of the Caucasus. Soldiers are settling down in colonies in Transcaucasia. Baku, Tiflis, Batoum-once strongholds of Persia, Georgia and Turkey-are assuming the aspect of Russian towns. Officials, soldiers, and traders come and go, but there is always a proportion, and a significant proportion, that permanently settles down in the country. Twenty years hence, the 150,000 English in India will have received only solitary additions to their numbers; they will still be strangers in Kurachee and Calcutta, Delhi and Madras. On the other hand, by that time Baku will have become as thoroughly Russian as Odessa, and the Persian element will have disappeared from the Caspian as completely as the Turkish element from the Sea of Azoff. In plainer language, while we shall be still as liable as now to be shaken off the surface of the 250 millions of India, by means of a judicious manipulation of the discontented elements there, it will be beyond the power of any mortal man to expel Russia from the Caspian. Therein lies the great significance of |