picion or menace of aggression; but to abstain from promoting this policy at our doors, and at the same time to encourage and strengthen Kashgar, lying geographically and politically almost in another system, would be merely Quixotic. There was thus a sense of unreality in the idea of a political Mission to that country which can hardly have escaped the Government, or still less Sir T. Forsyth, who had always been its chief promoter. However, the idea met with very general favour and interest, and the Mission was carefully organised and despatched, not without a certain flourish of trumpets, which seems incidental to the start of all expeditions nowadays, from Ashantee to Arctic. But the result cannot be said to have equalled the expectation. Politically, as we have shown, no direct results could have been expected. Sir T. Forsyth might have done such work well, but there was very little to be done. The Amir was ready to conclude a treaty of commerce, or do anything else that would give him a claim on our protection; but the discovery, at an early stage, of the exact value of the 'friendship' which the Mission had come so far to offer, may have increased the suspicion with which their movements were watched, though they were treated to the last with the greatest courtesy and hospitality. The surveillance and restraint to which, under the guise of attentions, they were subjected, might, we think, have been resisted successfully at the beginning, and is to be regretted as having limited the opportunities for observation in a country so little known. For with the exception of Captain Trotter's report of the expedition to the Pamir, the addition to our previous stock of knowledge is not great. A few statistics of the trade with India, in itself a somewhat microscopical subject, are given, but no estimate of the revenues of the country; also some account of the population, their manners and customs, and an elaborate résumé of the history of the country, ancient and modern, by Mr. Bellew; but these, with some meteorological tables, routes, and vocabularies, representing no doubt considerable labour, comprehend the total, if somewhat meagre, results (as reported to Government) of the labours of the Mission.

It is curious, indeed, that a writer in this Review should have been able, three years ago,* to evolve, partly from his own geographical consciousness, and partly from reports of native explorers, so complete a sketch of the country, that an English expedition on the spot, with all appliances and means to boot, has added comparatively little to what was already known. Mr. Bellew's Kashmir and Kashghar' is as yet the only inde

เ

* Quarterly Review,' Art. VIII., No. 268, vol. 134.

pendent

pendent work on the subject by any member of the Mission. He is, as becomes a practised traveller, a diligent and acute observer, and gives us a lively and interesting account of his experiences. He is always in good-humour, and always in good taste; and this is no small praise. But both the style and the arrangement of the book are marred by evident haste and want of care, which detract in some degree from the pleasure of reading it. We feel bound also to take exception to his system of spelling Oriental words-if system it be-for we have quite failed to discover its clue. It is highly desirable that there should be a uniform plan, like that now in force in India, but words and names that have become part of the English language must be excepted. It is wrong, on any system, to write jungal for jungle. And it is a mistake to change other naturalised English words, such as Tibet, Cossack, Koran, into Tibat, Cossac, Curan, &c. And if the names of two of our oldest acquaintances are to be travestied as the Great Mughol and the Grand Lamma, we may as well allow Young Bengal to write Landan and Mariban for London and Marylebone. A member of the medical profession should, moreover, not be guilty of such slips in spelling as belladona, hyosciamus, æleagnus, hipophoe; and 'kut, the costum of the ancients,' should be costus. Some curious expressions are used which we do not recognise as English. It is not, perhaps, too late to protest against the imitation of the French idiom in such a sentence as, "The party encamped on the flats where, since some days previously, the officials had collected,' &c. House to house visitation' is a formidable expression to apply to a round of afternoon visits, though that ordeal may have its terrors. In another place we read of the invaders of Tibet plundering, slaughtering, and captivating.' Here we are puzzled, and can only conjecture that the author may have plagiarised the idea from the poet (perhaps his countryman) who sang, 'He meets with a friend, and for love knocks him down!'

6

The author, when remarking on the fact that the Buddhist creed of Tibet has never yielded to Mohammedan pressure, either from Kashmir on the south, or from Kashgar on the north, is led into some strange speculations. He admits that the Buddhist population is sunk in ignorance and superstition, while their priesthood is idle, sensual, and degraded. He then describes the unnatural custom of polyandry, and adds, 'By this means, and the transfer of so many to a life of celibacy in the monasteries, the population is kept down to a proportion which the country is capable of supporting.' The result is, that the community is peaceable, well-ordered, and industrious.' Indeed,

but

but for these time-honoured checks on reproduction, much suffering and disorder must inevitably have arisen!' The Malthusian doctrine would have had a valuable ally in Mr. Bellew, had he only lived sixty years sooner. Perhaps, by the way, the remarkable conduct of the invaders of Tibet, in slaughtering and captivating,' may have had something to do with the question of polyandry.

A more harmless institution among this peculiar people is the game of polo. Every village has its polo-ground set apart for the game, which is played with great spirit and good-humourthough the skill and speed is not equal to that attained in England and in India.

Sir T. Forsyth, on a previous Mission to Yarkand, had failed to see the ruler of the country, who was absent on a distant expedition. Von Hellwald, with characteristic unfriendliness to everything English, attributes the failure of that Mission to its having been starved by the Government, and snubbed by the Maharaja of Kashmir. The present Mission, at any rate, had nothing to complain of, being well equipped in all respects and substantially assisted by the Maharaja. During a nautch, given by him in their honour, their piper marched in playing, in full Highland costume, but the 'barbarous' or 'barbaric' apparition gave great scandal to the civilised Hindoo company present, as well as to the fair corps de ballet!

Mr. Bellew describes with great spirit the formidable obstacles of the Himalayan route. The expedition must have been well handled, for the loss of baggage-animals from Ladak onwards was only eight out of three hundred-the losses in general, from accident, cold, or fatigue, being enormous. The confusion and difficulty at the Pass of Sanju were tremendous; and Mr. Bellew gives an amusing account of the miseries of some refined Stambouli Turks, who had come to visit their distant and very dissimilar relatives in the home of their ancestors, and whom they regarded very much as Mr. Francis Osbaldiston did his northern cousins. Mr. Bellew good-naturedly gave them a helping-hand in their troubles, and also tried to raise the spirits of an unfortunate Afghan who had broken down under the effects of the dam,' or rarefied mountain-air, which he believed

* Mr. Shaw remarked that the cattle suffer less, in proportion, than men from the rarefied atmosphere; but Mr. Bellew thinks that in his eagerness to promote trade across the mountains, Mr. Shaw under-estimates the difficulties of the journey. Personally he seems to have been insensible to fatigue or privation. It must not be forgotten that to him is due the honour of the first successful advance into that long-closed country, as is duly related in his 'High Tartary, Yarkand, and Kashgar,' an interesting record of his adventures, and of difficulties overcome by a happy mixture of boldness and diplomacy with patience and good-humour.

to

to be a poisonous exhalation from the ground. 'Come,' I said to him, you ought not to complain, for you are accustomed to hills in your own country, and should feel quite at home here.' You are perfectly right, Sir,' he replied, we have hills in our country, and proper hills, too, with trees on them, by the blessing of Providence. They are ten times higher than these miserable mounds of gravel, and we go up and down them without the smallest discomfort or trouble.' These miserable mounds of gravel' have not, certainly, in outward appearance the dignity befitting their great elevation. They lie in the centre of the mountain-mass, in an almost rainless district, for the rainbearing clouds are intercepted by the ranges to the north and south of them. They have thus not yet been carved out by that great instrument of Nature into artistic forms of hill and valley. This fact seems to have a bearing on the recent geological theory which would explain the present formation of the Himalayas, and of the plains below them, by a far more copious amount, in previous ages, of glacier and water. This condition of things in all probability existed, but to obtain this more copious supply, the theory alluded to supposes a former elevation of the range to a height some 12,000 feet greater than at present. But it seems obvious that if the range at its present height intercepts and condenses the clouds so completely as to leave none for the regions behind it, the amount of moisture in the higher strata of the atmosphere must be quite inconsiderable.

We are surprised that a Persian scholar like Mr. Bellew should more than once speak of the 'Arnebia, or Prophet-flower;' that humble plant deriving its name, not from Nebi, a prophet, but from Arneb, a rabbit. But clearly a philologist should have been added to the otherwise complete staff of the Mission, for he suggests elsewhere that the Ala-tagh may mean ‘Allah'tagh. This would, anyhow, be an improbable combination of two different languages; but Ala, we believe, is a Turki word, meaning variegated. Again, by another writer in the report, we have Ak-su (Turk.white water') suggested as the derivation of Oxus. But, as indeed Sir T. Forsyth points out, the Turkish language, in all probability, had not reached these parts when the Greek name of Oxus was in use. The latter is found in the root wakh, whence the name Wakhsh, which it closely resembles, Wakhán, &c. The resemblance to wakh is close enough, and would be curiously so if the Greek & could ever have had the force of the Spanish, which represents the Arabic kh. A varying scale of the inaccuracy of different nations in their rendering of foreign names would be rather curious. The Chinese, owing to their system of writing, often disguise a

name

name completely. The Polynesian races, again, seem devoid of the necessary energy to pronounce our more compact sounds. The Greeks, among European nations, were notoriously bad, being equalled, possibly, by the French. Here, perhaps, in either case we may detect a latent protest against the possibility of reproducing barbarian sounds by the one civilised tongue. We once thought that we were better than our neighbours in the matter; but our presumption was checked by reading, in a German paper, of the Indian town of ' Dschalindar, den die Engländer, die allen Namen vertauschen, Jullunder nennen!' The territory of the Amir is practically conterminous with the great plain of Eastern Turkestan, of which the natural limits are so marked, that it is not surprising that it has generally been subject to a single power. Bounded on the east by deserts of unknown extent, it is separated from the rest of the world on every side by the loftiest mountains. On the south the Himalaya, rising range after range, and crossed only by passes of 18,000 feet in height, separates it from India. On the north are the Tian Shan mountains, behind which the Russians now lie in somewhat menacing proximity; and on the west, a series of lofty peaks, the buttresses of the great mountain mass comprising the Pamir plateau, and where the streams rise which descend on the one side towards the Sea of Aral, and on the other towards China. The vast plain slopes gradually to the east, and is watered, but in very scanty measure, by streams which, owing their existence to the melting of the snow, are wide rivers in summer and nearly dry in the winter. Being an almost rainless district, it is dependent for agricultural purposes on this intermittent source, and the population is accordingly found distributed along the course of the streams, and mainly near the foot of the mountain ranges, where the chief towns lie scattered at distant intervals. The mountain streams, after yielding a great part of their volume for irrigation, are still further reduced by absorption in the gravelly and sandy soil which prevails along the base of the mountains, and is the result of their detrition.* Some are then altogether lost, while others reach the channel of the Tarim river, which, after a course of some thirty days' journey through a succession of marshes, falls, as is usually supposed, into the mysterious Lake Lob, in a region unknown to civilised man. Captain

* The higher ranges of mountains, especially in the west and north, consist in great measure of paleozoic schists and shales, the strata dipping at a very high angle. Thus the amount of detrition, by frost and flood, is enormous, and the vast mass of material accumulating where the valleys debouche upon the plain, causes the streams which intersect it to separate and spread out in a fanlike shape; and the constant alteration of their course and inosculation of their channels cause serious embarrassment to the hydrographer.

Trotter,