\ 
b80 Mr. Bell on the growing power of Russia. 
paper asserts, is still as strange. I suspect the German writer has 
confounded the Bokhars, or native inhabitants, with the Jews, or 
taken them for Jews ; for no writer, whether native or foreign, has 
noticed the fact. That Jews have been established there from time 
immemorial is fact ; but so have they been also in China, which is 
much farther east. Whom he calls the Jews, and whom he praises 
so much for their industry, are in fact the Taujiks, or native inha- 
bitants, in opposition to the Tartars, or the nomadic population, 
and are the descendants of the ancient Sogdians, or Sogdoites, so 
famous for their commercial journies to China in the days of the 
Sassanian and Byzantine sovereigns. But the wild hy pothesis, that 
the Bokhars are the descendants ¢ of the ten tribes, 1s an old exploded 
dream revived ; for Schickhard of Tubingen in 1628 took the Eu- 
thalite Huns of Bokhara for the tribe of Napthali, and Father Ge- 
nebrard made the nomadic tribes of Central Asia the descendants 
of the ten tribes. But it is a piece of extraordinary intelligence, a 
precious sample of geographical knowledge, to tell us that the river 
of Gozan is the Ganges,—that this Ganges was a river of the As- 
syrian empire ander Shalmanecen —and that the Ganges has its 
souree in Bokhara. It was certainly a great journey to be trans- 
ported from the Jerdan to the Kizil Ozan ; but to be carried all 
the way from the Jordan to the distant Ganges, Credat Judeus 
Apella, non ego! 
It now remains a query whether Russia will be contented with 
her vast acquisitions, and stop short in the career of conquest. 
Much has been said in praise of Russian magnanimity and mede- 
Fation ; and that having cbtained her object of Greek indepen- 
dence, and the free passage from the Euxine to the Mediterranean, 
and the reimbursement of her military expenses from the prostrate 
sultan, she will forscoth be content, and preceed no farther; and 
that in virtue of our intercession, of mighty efficacy no doubt alae 
combined with that of other European powers, she will generously 
spare a fallen foe, and not annihilate his political vitality. With 
all due deference to such an opinion, I believe that Russia will 
spare the sultan as the cat does the mouse, or as the Romans spared 
unfortunate Carthage. He will be spared just as long as Russia 
thinks fit, and a few more beatings and political bleedings will 
finish his existence. It is perfectly at variance with all past his- 
tory and political analogy, to suppose, that with the game at her 
foot, with the mighty prize now completely within ee reach, and 
to obtain which has been the labour of a century, Russia will gene- 
rously forbear, and remain within her new acquired limits. She 
will just act as all conquering states have done before,—seize the 
whole. The thirst of conquest is always increased by repeated 
draughts of the cup of victory; and we may i pend upen it, she 
will drain it off to the dregs themselves. The city of Constantine 
will ere long be the seat of the Russian Czar, and the-dreary shores 
of the Peleanie Gulf be exchanged for the delightful banks of the 
Thracian Bosphorus. With the read to Byzantium laid open, and 
