The Pamir.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7079, 27 February 1893, Page 3

The Pamir.

We hove often heard of the advances made by Russia across Turkestan, on the road to the confines of India. It is not so long ago that the journey of Captain Burnaby to Khiva, and the residence of a newspaper correspondent, Mr Donovan, at Merv, excited the wonder and alarm of the English people, as showing the rapid progress of the Russian eastward; and when Lord Salisbury ridiculed these fears and told the timid politicians to got a large map and see how difficult it would be for Russian armies to traverse these great spaces with the munitions of war, he underrated the persistency of that Great Power in its desire to threaten and possibly strike a blow at England through her Indian possessions, Russian officers are now busy intriguing in Persia and Afghanistan, and we are kept on the alert for new revelations of their designs. North of Afghanistan and of Cashmere, and lying between Eastern Turkestan, the territory of China, and the extreme eastern boundary of Asiatic Russia, is a region that from its height, vaetnes», and grandeur seems the culminating point of Western Asia. Captain Tounghuaband the Indian officer who has so vividly described the district, says of ic ; “ When the great compression took place, this seems to have been the p'oint at which the solid crust of the earth was crushed together to the greatest extent, what must have been level peaceful plains were pressed and upbeavad into these mighty mountains, as the highest peaks are only a few hundred feet leas than Mount Everest* Lonell’, desolate, and inhospitable as these mountains are, there are secluded rallsys, where n few hardy hill men till the ground and form villages. General Sir B. Strachey says : '* It is a wonderful thing that people should talk about a region of this sort as something to be coveted and even to be fought* over. From Mr Littledale’s account of his journey with 10 or 12 horses, gradually diminishing in numbers from the hardships of the road, obliged to carry his food with him, and even fuel to cook it, the possibility of anything like military operations being carried on over such a country seems so ridiculous that it is strange that it is even discussed.”