A CURIOUS LITTLE DHAMA.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1515, 15 January 1886, Page 4

A CURIOUS LITTLE DHAMA.

A curious little drama, on the denouement to which much of political importance may depend, is, I (London correspondent of the Manchett'r Guardian) learn from information receiled here, now being played in Ceni tral Asia. The territory of the Ainter of Bokhara lies betwet-n China and Russian Central Asia, to the north-west of Jndia. The Ameer Murzatir Eddin, who is a very old man, rules a fertile district called Kerki, on the Amu Daria, on which the Russians have cast a eye. They have asked the Ameer to sell it, and have offered him [i[ millions of rouble*, but he has refused to accept this price. He is willing, he says, to Bell the district, but liis price is the restoration of the ciiy of Samarkand, where the rulers of Bokhara and Tashkeud for more than a thousand years are buried. Samarkand id the most ancient and holy city in Central Asia, besides being the [most considerable town between the Caspian and the Indus. The nomad tribes look to its possessor as their ruler, and, therefore, it is the jewel of the Central Asian crown ot the I Czar. So the bargain will hardly be concluded in this sense; but now the Russians, probably with the object of demonstrating to the Ameer how i precarious his tenure of Kerki is, are I moving troops towards its borders. Bokhara showed good fight before, and 'it is possible that the Ameer will fight I again ; but it is regarded as more | probable that Russia will wait for iMuxEifir'a death, and then try what 'can be done with his mccwior,