Page:England & Russia in Central Asia,Vol-I.djvu/103

THE EUSSIAN GOVERNMENT IN TURKESTAN. 83 The old state of things has not given place unto the new. but is rather becoming consolidated under the stolidity of the Russian Grovernment. But Russia's success in dealing with the religious question is not very difficult of comprehension. She has only one religion to deal with. It is true that it is the fanatical creed of Mahomedanism, the religion which of all others has been most hostile to Russia ; but in these apathetic times it seems to be possible to blunt the edge of that zeal when it is directed against the Czar. We have found the chief supporters of Islam in Cen- tral Asia, the Ameers of Bokhara and Afghanistan, become in turns the puppets of Russian schemers, and vent their spleen either in threats or in acts against England, who is the ostensible buttress of Turkey in Asia as well as on the Bosphorus. At a first glance this appears very strange, if not incomprehensible. But it is not difficult to explain the religious apathy of the people of Russian Tur- kestan. Russia's treatment of the Mahomedan reli- gion in Central Asia has been most judicious, but it has also been facilitated by the fact that Russia had only to observe one law towards all her Asiatic subjects. They were all Mahomedans. In India England can never achieve a similar result. The Mahomedans there are a minority, and an alien minority. They are dangerous, and they always will be dangerous. It may even be said that further pre- cautions might be taken against the possibility of their combining, as they may combine so long as they are knit together by the ties of one faith, and so long as 6 *