The terms of this agreement were in February 1873 formally accepted by Russia; and, faulty and irregular as the document is from a diplomatic point of view, it has quieted all frontier agitation between the Oxus and Heri-rúd for the last ten years, and would have served the same purpose for another ten years in advance but for the unfortunate intrusion of Russia into the controversy as a sequel to her conquest of Merv.
Russia first reintroduced a discussion on the frontier early in 1882, suggesting, in the interests of peace and order, that the arrangement of 1872-3 should, in respect to the western portion of the line, be complemented by some formal demarcation, determined by actual survey of the country; but as the Tekkehs were then independent, and there seemed to be no advantage in encouraging Russia to absorb their territory up to the line of demarcation, the proposal for a joint commission of delimitation was received by us at the time with some coldness. Two years later, in February 1884, affairs having much advanced in the interim, negotiations were resumed, and in due course (July 1884) commission _ad hoc_ was appointed, General Lumsden being nominated by the British Government, and General Zelenoi by the Russian, with instructions to meet at Serakhs in the following October.
Now, it is quite evident that in the earlier stages of these frontier discussions the Russian Foreign Office understood the provisions of the 1872-3 arrangement, which were held to govern the later negotiation, in their natural and common-sense acceptation. The principle of a distinction between plain and hill was fully recognised, and the phrase “dependencies of Herat” was held necessarily to include the province of Badgheis, a tract which extended from the Paropamisus range to Serakhs, and which had been a dependency of Herat from the time of the Arab conquest. The line on which the commissioners were to be engaged is thus everywhere spoken of by M. de Giers and M. Zinovieff in the preliminary negotiations as a direct line from Khoja Saleh to Serakhs, or to the neighborhood of Serakhs, and there is no hint of any deflection of the line to the south. After the annexation of Merv, however, and especially after M. Lessar had perambulated Badgheis and made a careful study of the valleys of the Kushk and Murgháb rivers, larger views appear to have dawned upon the Russian authorities. Geographical and ethnological conditions were then invented that had never been thought of before. It was discovered that the Paropamisus range was the true natural boundary of Herat to the north, that the district of Badgheis, which lay beyond the range, had been absolved from its allegiance to Herat by efflux of time, Afghan jurisdiction having been suspended during the Turcoman raids which had desolated the district for above fifty years; above all, it was asserted that the Saryk Turcomans who dwelt at Penj-deh and in the valley of the Kushk, well within the Afghan border, must be registered as Russian subjects, because another detachment of the same tribe, who dwelt at Yolatan, beyond the desert and near Merv, had proffered their allegiance to the Czar. Questions of principle of such grave moment, it was further stated, required to be settled by the two European Governments before the commissioners could enter on their duties, and General Zelenoi was accordingly, without further explanation or apology, sent to rusticate at Teflis, regardless of the public convenience or of the respect due to his colleague, who had been waiting for him for four months on the Murgháb with an escort of 500 men and a large gathering of attendants and camp-followers.