whole current of
Russian thought into a different channel. Yakoob Beg was saved by the
outbreak of disturbances in Khokand, and, although the Russians never
acknowledged that they were so serious as to prevent them persisting in
their Kashgarian enterprise, still gradually the troops who had been
despatched to the frontier were recalled, and those who had been ordered
to set out for Naryn were retained in Tashkent and Hodjent, the two
towns chiefly threatened. Although this event is not part of Kashgarian
history, yet it performed so useful a function to that state, which
indeed it may be said to have saved, that some brief account of it here
may not be unwelcome.

Khudayar Khan, after the death of Alim Kuli, his hostile minister, in
1865, had been reinstated in his possession of Khokand, partly by the
efforts of his own faction, and partly by Russian assistance. From that
year to the year 1875 he was _de facto_ as he was _de jure_ Khan of
Khokand, and, although imbroiled on several occasions with Russia and
with his own subjects in those ten years, he still maintained a nominal
independence in the western half of Khokand, with his capital at the
city of the same name. For some reason, however, this Khan never was
popular. So far as we know concerning him, he does not appear to have
been any way worse than his neighbours; but one party in the state
accused him of being a tool of the Russians, while another, urged on by
the agents employed by that government, declared that he was gradually
drifting the country into a hopeless contest with that Power. Widespread
throughout the state there was dissatisfaction at his rule, and the
occasion afforded by a commotion among the Kirghiz was eagerly seized by
his subjects to rise for the purpose of subverting his power. At first
this movement seemed to possess no importance for the Russians, and was
regarded as one of those dynastic squabbles that had become too ordinary
an occurrence to occasion any surprise. The insurrectionary party, too,
had put on the throne Nasruddin, the eldest son of the Khan, a youth who
was supposed to be friendly to Russia, and who was not likely to prove
in any way formidable, having become passionately addicted to _vodka_
drinking. But behind this ostensible ruler there were others who aspired
to greater eminence than the king-makers of a petty state like Khokand.
Chief among these was Khudayar's brother-in-law, Abderrahman Aftobatcha,
who was entrus