two years later, appointed the first permanent agent in that important place.
It was not till after midnight that the dinner broke up, and Colonel Yonoff and all the officers escorted me back to my tent,
half a mile off, parting with many protestations of friendship. On the next morning they left for the Alichur Pamir. I waited on for a few days, expecting Davison to rejoin me, and we would then have proceeded together to Gilgit.
But three nights later, as I was getting into bed, I heard the clatter of horses' hoofs on the stones outside my tent, and, on looking out, saw, in the bright moonlight, about thirty mounted Cossacks drawn up in line, with the Russian flag in the centre. I hastily put on a great-coat, and sent my servant to ask the officer in command if he would come in. Two or three officers dismounted, and I found they were Colonel Yonoff and the same officers whom I had parted with three nights before. Colonel Yonoff said he had something very disagreeable to say to me. He then courteously and civilly, and with many apologies, informed me that he had that morning, while at Lake Victoria, on the Great Pamir, received a despatch from his government, in which he was instructed to escort me from Russian territory back to Chinese territory. He said he very much disliked having to perform such a duty, for I was a military officer and he was a military officer, and this was a duty usually performed by police officials ; we had, moreover, met before on very friendly terms, and he had been in hopes that I would have already left Bozai-Gumbaz, and saved him from the necessity of carrying it out.
I told him that I did not consider I was on Russian territory at all, and that, in any case, I was returning to India ; but Colonel Yonoff replied that by his maps Bozai-Gumbaz was included in the Russian territory, and his orders were to escort me back to Chinese, and not British territory. I then asked him what he would do if I refused to go, and he said he would,
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