are scarcely 130,000. Flourishing towns, such as New Kuldja or Hi (300,000 inhabitants), Bazandai (100,000), and Tchimpansai (50,000), have disappeared; there remain only the ruins. The numerous industrial works which the country contained have been burnt, and the laborious inhabitants killed without distinction—men, women, and children."
This is the evidence of a traveller in Kuldja during last year, and it fully confirms what Mr. Schuyler saw six years ago. The Russians have done literally nothing for the advantage of Kuldja and its people during the seven years and a half that they have been there. The great works carried out by the Chinese, which were so ruthlessly destroyed by the Mahomedans in the great outbreak in 1863, still remain to testify by their ruins to the fact that the Chinese possessed administrative qualities which Russia has never evinced in any of her numerous annexations. If we are to judge between the merits of China and Russia as governing powers, is it a false test to apply to the question, to compare the state of Kuldja in 1860 with what it is now in 1879, after it has had the supposed benefit of seven years' administration by a Russian officer ? In 1860 there were canals and roads, forests rising on the one hand, and fertile fields stretching on the other, tranquillity and order, a bustling trade, and a prosperous people; and in 1879 all those have dis- appeared or become useless, except the roads — which, like those of Rome, were indestructible — and the tranquillity which is only a military despotism. Under China, Kuldja contained two millions of people, and
