It is too hard, indeed, to scatter the sanguine views of the English optimists with regard to the strength of their fancied bulwarks. The way through Kabul would have to be taken only in case of necessity; for the chief points by which Russia could quite easily approach the Indian frontiers are Djhissag and Astrabad; from the former in a southerly, from the latter in an easterly direction. Both roads have often led armies, time out of mind, to the goal of their desires; for both, though bordered by large deserts, pass through well-peopled, even fertile districts, which can support many thousands of marching men with ease.
Indeed, even the chances of an eventual war are greatly over-estimated by the English. True, that their present army in India, numbering 70,000 picked British troops besides the strong contingent of sepoys, is not to be compared with any of their former fighting forces in those regions. To throw as strong a muster across Afghanistan into the Punjaub, would certainly cost Russia some trouble. Still we must not forget how stout a support an invading army would find in a Persian-Afghan alliance, and in the great discontent which prevails in the Punjaub, in Kashmir, in Bhotan, and among the fanatic Mohamedans of India. The ever-broadening network of Indian railways may do much to hasten and promote a concentration; but the fountain-head of military support for India being on the Thames or the islands of the Mediterranean, is not much nearer than that of the Russians, especially if we consider that more than three hundred vessels sailing down the Volga make the transport to the southern shore of the Caspian Sea considerably easier. By this road may a large army be brought in a short time to Herat and Kandahar through the populous part of northern Persia; on the one hand through Astrabad, Bujnurd, and Kabushan; on the other, by the railway as yet only projected to Eneshed. This railroad the Tzar wants to build for the relief of the pilgrimage to the tomb of Imam Rizah; yet through all the Russian promises of subsidies there gleam forth other and non-religious plans. Or would people in England, besides the no longer doubtful possibility of a Russian design upon India, measure the political constellations which the said power has called into being on her behalf, in the field of European diplomacy? The Russian-French alliance of a Napoleon I. and an Alexander I., which left noticeable traces in Teheran, would now be much easier to enter on than before, owing to the dominant influence of France in Egypt and Syria, through the commencement of the Suez Canal. And these things apart, will not the ever-increasing _entente cordiale_ between Washington and St. Petersburg prove of signal advantage for Russia's purposes? People scoff at the way in which the Yankee cap entwines itself with the Russian knout; and yet the banquets on the Neva, at which American brotherhood was vigorously toasted, the journey of the Tzarovitch to New York, the mighty show made by America in China and Japan, where she threatens to turn the calm face of ocean into an American lake;--do not these things furnish ample reason for discerning in the alliance between Russia and America symptoms of the greatest danger for English interests? Indeed, when the decisive moment comes for acting, Russia will be able to avail herself of many ways and many means, which, however little worthy of notice they may seem to English statesmen, will be carefully pre-arranged without any noise.