‘The strategic importance of the Euphrates valley railway’ [‎30] (111/204)

( 30 )
the Steppes were not quite prepared to encourage so
civilized an object by giving free passage to com
merce through their territories. He, however, when
able to turn his attention from the Swedes and Turks,
entered into some sort of correspondence with Khiva;
for it is urged on behalf of Russia, that so far back
as 1703, the Czar received the Khan's allegiance, at
a time when the latter was sorely pressed by the
Amir of Bokhara; and from 1714 to 1717 efforts
were made to establish Russian authority on the
eastern shores of the Caspian, and generally in Tur-
kistan. Accounts of two expeditions with this object
in view are given in the 'Journal of the Russian
Imperial Geographical Society' for 1853. One was
despatched from Siberia under Colonel Bucholz, and
one from Astrakhan under Prince Bekovich.
But although Peter the Great continued to push
forward his scheme of intercourse with India, and
for this purpose sought to make a ready road through
Bokhara and intervening countries, no positive mea
sure of occupation or annexation in Central Asia
seems to have been carried out until after that
monarch's death, in 1725. He had, by his own pre
sence and that of a numerous army, made the tribes
on the seaside of the Kharazm desert accustomed to
personal contact with the Europeans or semi-Euro
peans north of the Steppes and the Caspian ; but by
treaty with Persia he had abandoned claim to posses
sion of any tracts east of the latter. In 1732, however.