"Panne seems little doubt that the kingdom so laboriously built up in Eastern Turkestan by the Ameer Yakoob Khan is in the hands of his gon rapidly dwindling away, and that in all prob. ability the Chinese flag will again fly over the nine parts of Kashgar. So Jong as Yakoob lived, such an event seemed practically impossible. The old Ameer kept too strict discipline over his troops, and succeeded in inspiring them with too much of his own spirit to permit the conquest by the Chinese to be an easy one, At one time, indeed, it seemed that the tables were turned, and that Yakoob was a not improbable invader of China; and there seems little doubt that, were it not for services rendered by Russia, whether in actual supplies or by the moral aid afforded by continually threatening the home dominions of the Ameer, the Chinese campaign would have had different ending. The kingdom ao recently founded by Yakoob, however, only repeats the old story of Asiatic empire, With one noteworthy exception, the continental empires of Asia have always, after at most a few generations, fallen to pieces through the family fonds of the ruling houses. It might be supposed, from the persistency with which this condition of affairs has aragon amongst the Turkish raling close of modern Asia, that it was ina great measure an effect of race. It is, however, older than Turkish domination. It was 8 rampant amongst the Persians in the time of Acheemenian kings as it is at the present day; and it ie noteworthy that the successors of Alexander, the Seleucide, as well as the descendants of Diodotus of Bactria, lost their empires eventually through the same cause, Medimval Burope suffered from the same evil, even with the restrictions to the succession imposed by the marriage laws of Oh i and it is only in modern time: experience has shown the necessity of Preserving in the strictest possible manner the rights of primogeniture, that family quarrels amongst princes are of little influence in settling the succession. The superior position held by women in Europe has certainly been effective in preventing the rapi of the intellectual—facull marks most Asiatic dynes It isa rare thing in Asia for the throne to descend through three generations without a marked deterioration in the personnel of its occupiers, Even China, which has been remarkably free from family straggles amongst its ralers, has suffered at all times from the slow but certain degradation of the Imperial clan. Even the Tsivgs, who present possibly the longest suc. cession of able princes, began to fail after an empire of a hundred and fifty years, and great was the fall from a Bien-long tos Hien-fang. In China, hard-set, the personal character of the Emperor is of less importance than io other Asiatic states, and hence the state seems little the worse notwithstanding that, after one long minority, it has been planged into another likely to be of equally long existence. La the other states of the Continent, there never has existed the strong bond of vested interests and old custom which have enabled the Chinese to stand up against Court abuses, and often to overcome them without revolution, Notoriously have the Turks been unable to pile up any body of constitu tional practice sufficiently strong or sufficiently definite to stand against the personal will of the raler; and hence a continued fluctuation of, on the one part usurpation and on the other of armed resistance or revolution, has marked most of the states which at various times have fallen under their sway. The state founded by Yakoob Khan has proved no exception to the rale. Even during his lifetime the jealousi of his sons were rapidly sapping the foundations of the State. Since his death they seem to have burst out with redoubled violence, and though his son Koolie Beg has succeeded to the throne, and apparently overcome opposition, his brothers have been able to divide the popular suffrage; and, following Tarkish custom, Koolie Beg thought it necessary to have one of them murdered before he considered his own life for the moment safe. It may be remembered that it was just such a state of affairs which, in the Inst century, induced the Chinese ocoupation, and it seems likely that a similar result will now ensue. A strong State in the centre of Asia would have, in the present condition of politics, a salutary effect through the stand it would be able to make against the retrogressive tendencies of Russian and Chinese policy. We hoped for 3 many years that, in the newly established kingdom of Yakoob Khan, such a State had been found, and that Yakoob would be able to hand down the territory to a worthy son. But it seems fated that Central Asia should continue a prey td its besetting sin, and should be condemned still to undergo the alternate scourges of military despotism or unbridled anarchy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.