should occasional violence be taken as conclusive evidence of a radically bad status. Were the game of interference played among populations less pliable than those making up the majorities in Central Asia, it would certainly be found that the benefit of mere regularity in a foreign-born government would not be accepted as against native, though violent and tyrannical rule. The truth of this proposition has been abundantly shown in the fierce resistance of Bokhara's neighbour state — Afghanistan — to British or Russian domination. But the Turkestan majorities are sheep-like people, accustomed ever to be mastered by some hardier, wandering folk from the far east plains of Mongolia or the nearer steppes and mountain valleys wherein irrigation methods are impossible, and hence where the struggle of man for daily bread and comfortable shelter develops those qualities which make conquerors of wanderers, or more yielding rebels of those who plough the stiff soil for an uncertain crop.
Not generally in the study of history's lessons have we sufficiently emphasised the special characteristics due to the unvarying fertility, the enervating facility, and the great vulnerability of irrrigation systems. Societies have been divided into nomadic, agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial types. The distinction that has not been clearly made and studied in its very important results is that which makes a separate class of the irrigating agriculturist -- safe against climatic risks ; crowded in small holdings ; dependent on combined action for the construction of irrigation works ; the ready victim of any violence which seizes some certain ditch. Con-
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