In comparison with all this, what has Russia to show? Not so much, I
confess, but she has effected considerable improvements in the annexed
territories. The great plains to the north of the Black Sea, which were
formerly the home of nomadic, predatory tribes, have been brought under
cultivation; the tents of the nomads have been replaced by thriving
villages, flaming blast furnaces, great foundries, and fine towns, such
as Odessa, Taganrog and Rostoff; the Crimea, whose inhabitants once
lived mainly by marauding expeditions and the slave trade, is now a
peaceful and prosperous province; in the Caucasus, which was long the
scene of constant tribal warfare and where the well-to-do inhabitants
were not ashamed to sell their young, beautiful daughters to the Pashas
of Constantinople, permanent order has been everywhere established and
many abuses suppressed; in Siberia, which was little better than a
wilderness, there are now thousands of prosperous farmers, railways and
river steamboats have been constructed, and the mineral resources are
being rapidly developed; thanks to the improvement of communications in
that part of the empire, Peking is now well within a fortnight of
Petrograd. Even in Central Asia there is evidence of improvement; the
Russian military administration, with all its defects, is better than
the native rule which preceded it. Such was, at least, the impression
which I received in semi-Russianized territories like Bokhara and
Samarcand.
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