3-053-665 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Nations of Western Asia: Armenian woman in Karabok, 1873. Engraving from a photograph by Mr. Levites. 'The advance of Russian conquest with some elements of European civilisation seems in this age destined to put a new face on the border-lands that lie between Europe and Asia, or those parts of one and the other continent which surround the Caspian Sea. It is the manifest destiny of Russia to bring these countries, except such as belong to the two Mohammedan empires of Turkey and Persia, into the peaceful and industrial fellowship of civilised mankind, sharing in the ideas and habits of modern Christendom. To be jealous of this mission, confided by Providence to Russia, would be most unworthy of Great Britain, whose glorious and beneficent task is that of communicating English ways and means of life to the nations of Southern and Eastern Asia, within reach of her maritime commerce and naval power'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.