some appearance of wealth and civilisation; but, nevertheless, the first sight of it is always more or less of a surprise. The untravelled Western, to whom any part of the Asiatic frontier is on a par with Patagonia or the source of the Niger, would be somewhat bewildered at finding, in the very heart of the Eastern prairie, trim public gardens, and massive Government buildings, and well-paved streets thronged by fashionably-dressed loungers, and Tauchnitz editions of "Middlemarch" or "Poor Miss Finch" ranged behind irreproachable plate-glass. The first question of the resident officers is always, "What do you think of Orenburg?" and the sly smile accompanying the query shows how perfectly they have divined your "first impressions."

Towards sunset on the day of my arrival, I saunter up to the boulevard which overhangs the smooth stream of the Ural, and look down, in the cool of the summer evening, upon the meeting of Europe and Asia. Behind are shops, and hotels, and gardens, and fourstoreyed houses of hewn stone, and spacious promenades gay with the latest fashions; before is the great gulf of primeval desert out of which rose, in the evil days of long ago, the goblin figures of the Avar, and the Hun, and the Mongol. This is the threshold of the world, and beyond it lies our plunge into the unknown.

Two officers seat themselves near me, in front of the little refreshment room, and begin to talk―a conversation which forms a curious supplement to my own. reflections.

"I tell you, my dear fellow, there can be no doubt about it. The Government has approved the plan, and Lesseps himself (or his son if he can't) is coming down here to see about it all. There's a chance for Orenburg at last-and high time, too!"

"And do you really think it possible, then, to make a railway from here to Samarcand?"

"Why not? There won't be a single tunnel after Orsk, and perhaps half a dozen bridges (I should hardly think more) all the way from Orsk to Tashkent. Then, after Tashkent itself, once you get clear of the branches of the Syr-Daria, there's the steppe for you again, flat as a billiard-board. Provided we can feed our workmen (which will be the real difficulty), all the rest ought to be as easy as smoking a cigarette."

"But how about the matériel?"

“O, for that matter, there's wood enough along the Syr-Daria every here and there; and once we get the line as far as Orsk, it'll be easy to accumulate stores there. That line from Odessa to Krementschug and Kharkoff was quite as bad a bit in its way, and yet we did it."

"But think of the distance!"

"Pooh! the distance is nothing to what people think it. Let me see, now; Orenburg to Orsk, 176 miles ; Orsk to Kazalinsk, 494; Kazalinsk to Tashkent, 627; Tashkent to Samarcand, via Djizak, 186-total, 1483 miles. Well, it's 1478 from St Petersburg to Odessa, via Moscow, and quite as bad a country in some places."

"You've left out the Samarcand - Peshawur bit, though."

"Bah! that's no business of ours. What we want is a complete line of communication through Turkestan, so as to be able to bring up men and matériel, at short notice, to any amount we like."

"And then move on India, eh?" "Time enough for that. There's Kashgar to be thought of first; and besides, we must make sure of Bokhara before doing anything else. Not that that would be very difficult, for we can swallow it any day we like."

"But if you do swallow it, won't England object?"

"Let her object! who cares whether she does or not? So long as Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville are in power, we can treat England as we like. Come and have a glass of cognac."

And the two saunter off.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LAND WHERE ALL THINGS ARE FORGOTTEN.

"Do you know, really, if the Governor here had not received you and given you letters, I should have been doubtful about letting you pass? You don't call yourself an Englishman, and you don't look like one; but still you've got an English passport, and that's a thing we never admit into Turkestan."

So speaks, the morning before my departure from Orenburg, the old chef de police, a fine specimen of the Russo-German official. Polite, obliging, sometimes even jocular-but, under it all, inexorable as the grave. Looking at the quiet firmness and sleepless vigilance that lurk in every line of his smooth, courteous, marble face, I feel at once that, in the event of a disclosure, there is nothing to be hoped from him.

"If I had thought my passport such a bugbear, I'd have managed to lose it on the road," answer I, looking at him with a laugh, though inwardly my blood seems turning to ice. "Well, passport or no passport, I can always feel myself among friends so long as I'm on Russian ground."

"Not everywhere," pointedly remarks the man in office, bowing slightly in acknowledgement of the

implied compliment. There's no reason for stopping you here, now that you've got these recommendations; but I shouldn't be at all surprised if they stop you at Orsk or Kazalinsk (Fort No. 1) till they can communicate with the Governor-General. You see we have to be very careful on this line, because there's always somebody trying to slip past. I remember that some time ago (I think it was the autumn of 1869), an Englishman came here with a gun, and called on me, saying that he wanted to have a run along the Syr-Daria, having heard that there was very good shooting there. So I just said to him, 'My dear sir, whoever said that must have been making fun of you; I assure you that the shooting is infinitely better in Siberia, and I strongly recommend you to go there instead ;' and with that I wished him good morning."

The old gentleman gives a quiet chuckle at his own shrewdness, and, handing me a signed travelling-pass across the table, says pleasantly, "If I were you I'd go by the Emba Fort and the western shore of the Aral Sea, instead of Kazalinsk; but that's as you please. Come and see me again when you return. Good morning."

That night two or three of the officers at my hotel give me a kind of farewell supper. My preparations are already complete; I have bought a light waggon, a complete set of cooking utensils, a three months' stock of tea, sugar, and camp-biscuit, and various other necessaries suggested by the experience of my new friends, who have all been "out on the steppes" in their