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EUSSIA's military strength in central ASIA. 113 To utilise this powerful military machine would require a mucli slighter effort than would be necessary to reinforce Kauf mann's army. There is only one point on which it is possible to entertain any difference of opinion, and that is with regard to the manner in which reinforcements are to be transported across the Caspian from Baku to Ashourada Bay or Krasnovodsk. The southern half of the Caspian is open at all times and seasons ; but the northern half is closed during the winter months. The Caspian fleet is limited in numbers — consisting of only twenty steamers and as many sailing vessels — and quite inadequate to the conveyance of a large army. But there is no reason why the Volga boats should not be utilised for the purposes of transport on the Caspian; and they are amply sufficient for the pur- pose we are discussing. Without building a single fresh vessel, Russia possesses the means of carrying an army of fifty thousand men with its necessary artillery across the Caspian in the short space of one week, after the assemblage at Baku of the merchantmen and barges from Astrachan and Derbend. And the only difficulty that would beset an army in this direction would be this passage of the Caspian, for once across that sea it is plain sailing to the walls of Candahar, or, for the matter of that, up to the Indus itself. It is a fact that is not realised in its full signifi- cance in this country that the northern provinces of Persia, and much of Western Afghanistan, are fertile districts, possessing water and herbage in abundance — the two great necessaries for an army — that the road from Astrabad to Meshed, and thence to Herat, 8 .