The successful issue of this enterprise led, in 1895, to the

appointment of a mixed commission to demarcate the spheres of English

and Russian influence on the Pamirs. The boundaries of the three

Asiatic empires meet in those stupendous hills, but their difficulty

of access had hitherto precluded any attempt to lay them down

authoritatively. The English representatives, under the direction

of Sir M. G. Gerard, K.C.S.I., left India on the 30th June; and, a

month later, they met their Russian colleagues on the shore of Lake

Victoria, a wild mountain tarn which gives birth to the Oxus. No time

was lost in tracing the boundary prescribed in an agreement entered

into between the two Powers. Starting from the eastern side of the

lake, it follows the crest of the Sarikol range until the Chinese

frontier is reached. “From the sixth mile,” wrote Sir T. Holdich,

K.C.I.E., the chief survey officer, “a rugged and inaccessible spur of

the Sarikol range carried the boundary into regions of perpetual ice

and snow to its junction with the main range. Here, amidst a solitary

wilderness, 20,000 feet above sea-level, absolutely inaccessible to

man, and within the ken of no living creature except the Pamir eagles,

the three great empires actually meet. No more fitting tri-junction

could possibly have been found.”

The cordiality which marked the relations between the subjects of Queen

and Tsar was even more marked than on the earlier occasion. On their

arrival at the scene of action the travel-worn Britons were hospitably

received in the Russian camp, and a feeling of good-fellowship was

then and there engendered which never afterwards grew cold. The scanty

leisure left the commissioners by their duty of traversing ninety miles

of the most difficult country in the world was devoted to races and

shooting-matches.

The Kirghiz of the Russian escort astonished our countrymen by their

prowess at ulak, a struggle on horseback for a goat, similar to the

Bokhāran game of baigha. The Cossacks, too, displayed their wondrous

equestrian skill. August 3rd, the name-day of the Dowager-Empress of

Russia, was the occasion of an outdoor service, and the sweet plaintive

melody of the anthems of the Greek Church never sounded so impressively

as it did on those remote mountain heights.[639] Every lover of his

country will re-echo the hope expressed by the Russian commissioner at

a farewell banquet given to his colleagues on 11th September 1895, that

“the agreement just concluded would be the beginning of more cordial

relations between the two countries, and of a better understanding of

their national aims and desires.”

CHAPTER VI

THE CENTRAL ASIAN RAILWAYS

The conception of a railway between the Caspian and the heart of Asia

took shape, as we have seen, during the campaign of Geok Teppe, when

a little portable line between the base and a point thirteen miles

inland was of good service to the transport. The new railway battalion

redoubled its efforts after the fall of the Tekke stronghold, and

before the close of 1885 the line had been carried as far inland as

the large Turkoman village of Kizil Arvat, 135 miles from the Caspian.

A mighty impulse was given to schemes for railway extension by the

cession of the Merv oasis in 1884. The entire area between the Caspian

and the Amū Daryā was now in Russian hands, and there were no political

and few natural obstacles to delay the construction of a railway which

should connect the great arteries of traffic. But the advisers of the

Tsar were by no means unanimous in approving of the enterprise. A

strong party favoured the canalisation of the Amū Daryā, and an attempt

to divert its stream to its ancient channel, which entered the Caspian

at Krasnovodsk. Another faction pointed to the vast results achieved

in India by the network of railways, which enables a European military

force barely 60,000 strong to dominate 250,000,000 Asiatics; and urged

the necessity of providing the means of rapid transport of troops and

material between the Caucasus and the new strategic bases. Foremost

among the latter was General Annenkoff, who enjoyed great influence at

St. Petersburg, due less to family connections than to his experience

in the construction of railway lines.[640] His opinion was reinforced

by events in the Merv oasis, for the collision with Afghanistān in 1884

convinced the stubbornest advocates for water-carriage that a post of

vital importance could not be held without the assistance of a railway.

In April 1885 an imperial ukase directed the construction of a line on

the standard gauge between the Caspian and the new territories, and

charged its designer with the duty of carrying it into execution and

studying the question of extensions. General Annenkoff’s first care

was to devise a system calculated to economise time and transport,

and peculiarly adapted to countries which present few obstacles to

the engineer. A temporary line was to be laid with the utmost speed,

over which the materials and labour for completing the task might be

conveyed at leisure. The accommodation of the personnel was of equal

importance. The supervising staff consisted of three engineers-in-chief

and an army of subordinates, military and civil, selected for their

exceptional ability and vigour. Under their orders were two battalions

of railway operatives on a strictly military basis. The second of these

was recruited at Moscow by the general himself; and both corps showed

a devotion to their arduous duties which it would be difficult to

parallel. The scarcity of water in the desert precluded the possibility

of forming camps at intervals or working in sections. By a brilliant

intuition Annenkoff conceived the idea of a camp on wheels, which would

move onwards as the work progressed, and be furnished with provisions

and material by construction trains. It contained everything needful

for comfort and efficiency. There were carriages for the office staff;

dormitories and restaurants in two-storeyed cars, a telegraph carriage,

and a saloon for the director, resembling the cabin on a man-of-war

in the compactness and modest luxury of its fittings. Each vehicle

communicated with the others by means of covered passages; and due

attention was paid to ventilation and warming. Work began on the 30th

of June 1885. The rails[641] were spiked down to the sleepers without

the aid of chairs, and the rolling camp moved forwards at a speed

which was ultimately four miles a day. When Kizil Arvat had thus been

reached the soil ahead was levelled by 22,000 Tekke labourers, whom

stern necessity had compelled to exchange their long knives for spades

and sacks.[642] The rails and sleepers, brought from the base daily

by a portable railway on the Decauville system, were rapidly laid on

the soil thus prepared. Water in this dry and thirsty land is of prime

importance. It was provided at Uzun Ada, the Caspian terminus, by a

huge distilling apparatus. At other points the streams issuing from the

distant hills were diverted into reservoirs, whence the precious liquid

was carried to the line in pipes. At Merv the source of supply was a

canal connected with the Murghāb. The waterless tracts were supplied

from the nearest spring in immense wooden tubs placed on trucks. To

avoid the interruption in the flow of materials due to the closure

of the Volga by thick-ribbed ice, great depôts were formed at Merv,

Charjūy, and, later, at Bokhārā, while the minutest care was given to

perfecting every portion of the complicated mechanism.

[Illustration: DIVANIS OR DERVISHES]

The comfort and efficiency of the directing and the subordinate staff

were the subject of equal anxiety. The labourers, whether Russian

soldiers or natives of the soil, worked in shifts of six hours, and

were free for eighteen hours out of the twenty-four to enjoy repose in

their moving barracks and kibitkas. The sleepless activity of the chief

was contagious, and his behests were obeyed with a devotion which few

generals on the field have commanded. But when the arduous day’s work

in the burning sun or the icy blast was done, the sturdy Russians were

wont to break into song. Beautiful, indeed, was the effect of their

melody wafted on the still desert air; and finer still the spectacle

afforded by groups of the toilers, their faces glowing with the ruddy

bivouac fire, while from their midst came the rhythmic strain of some

chant, now breathing profound melancholy, and anon rising high in notes

of fierce martial passion. General Annenkoff justly said that “one of

the sources of Russian strength is that we are a singing people.”[643]

And thus the work of piercing these hitherto unknown steppes was pushed

onwards with a rapidity which was the wonder and envy of Europe. Merv,

352 miles from Kizil Arvat, was reached in fourteen months. The arrival

of the latest product of civilisation at the old robbers’ lair was made

the occasion of brilliant fêtes, and six weeks of rest were given to

the toil-spent men.

The works on the section between Merv and Charjūy began on August 1886.

Here the engineers had to encounter an obstacle even more formidable

than Chat Moss presented to George Stephenson. This was the famous

sandy tract--a stretch of nearly sixty miles extending to a strip of

land fertilised by the great river. It resembles nothing so closely as

the mountains of the moon as seen through a powerful telescope. The

eye ranges over a boundless expanse of sandhills covered in the near

foreground with camels’ grass. Here, when the wind blows fresh, the air

becomes charged with sand, which blinds the drivers and accumulates

in deep drifts on the line of rail. At such times night-running

is suspended, and detentions of several days are frequent. The

construction of stone galleries was at first considered inevitable,

but the expense involved was prohibitive. The desired object has, to

some extent, been achieved by planting the saxaul, a gnarled shrub

which thrives on the desert soil and throws out spreading roots for

many feet. On the Merv and Charjūy section, too, the earthwork was

far heavier than had hitherto been encountered,[644] and it is highly

creditable to the engineering staff that 141 miles should have been

completed in little more than four months.

Hitherto the bridging operations had been of no great importance. The

river Tajand, at the 434th mile, had been spanned by a wooden viaduct

of 348 feet water-way; and the Murghāb, at Merv, by a similar structure

with an opening of 197 feet. Charjūy is 664 miles from the Caspian, and

stands on the left bank of the Oxus, or Amū Daryā, incomparably the

mightiest river in Central Asia, and worthy to rank with the Ganges

and the Nile. At Charjūy it is a mile and a quarter wide, and in all

characteristics it resembles the Mississippi and the rivers of the

Gangetic Delta. All have the same wide fringe of sand on either side,

covered in portions with fertilising silt, the same islands clad with

long reeds and juniper, the same tendency to shift their banks. At

present the Amū Daryā’s main channel has swung to the eastern bank,

and its dull red stream surges with a perilous velocity. The cost of

a steel viaduct at so vast a distance from the manufacturing centres

was not to be faced, and nothing remained but to attempt a wooden

structure. Happily for the Russian engineers, a stratum of tenacious

clay underlies the sandy bed at no great depth, and afforded a secure

resting-place for the timber piles. These numbered 3330, and were

all brought from Russia by rail. The first was driven into the river

bed in June 1887, and so intense was the energy of the working staff

that on the 18th January 1888, little more than six months after its

commencement, the Amū Daryā was opened for traffic.[645] In spite of

its fragile construction, this work must rank with the greatest feats

of modern engineering. The vast distances from which every portion of

the material was brought, the rapidity and treacherous nature of the

stream, and the unforeseen difficulties grappled with at every step,

conspire to render the Amū Daryā bridge a conspicuous triumph of skill

and energy over the blind forces of nature. The Englishman cannot view

this grand work, dwindling to a mere point as its interminable length

spans the broad river, without a feeling of respect for the men who

carried it into execution. We have shown the world that nothing is

impossible to modern science, and we can best appreciate the noble

qualities evinced by General Annenkoff and the devoted band which

toiled to execute his grandiose conceptions.

The Amū Daryā bridge is 4600 yards in length, including the approaches.

The water-way is 2270 yards, and a permanent way is laid 35 feet

above the mean river-level. The small cost of the structure is not

its least recommendation. Official statistics place it at £44,000,

without, however, reckoning the cost of transport and the pay of the

railway battalion engaged in erecting it. The whole is of wood; and

it is impossible to look down on the rapid current swirling round the

piles without a feeling of wonder that so frail a structure should have

borne the strain of eleven years. But fire is a far more dangerous foe

than water. The rainfall at Charjūy is insignificant, and the mass of

bristling piles as dry as touchwood. It is crossed daily by trains

drawn by locomotives burning petroleum fuel, and boats loaded with

inflammables constantly pass beneath. There are six fire-stations, and

the bridge is patrolled night and day; but all protective measures

would be useless if the flames once took hold. It is this consideration

which has induced the authorities to face the immense expense involved

in a steel girder bridge.

A pause of three months followed the conquest of this great barrier;

and, in September 1887, the engineers attacked the last portion of

their task--the 216 miles between the Amū Daryā and Samarkand. They

were aided by a third railway battalion 1000 strong, incorporated in

1886, and posted at Charjūy in the beginning of the following year.

The final section, however, was mere child’s play as compared with

those already traversed. After passing through 28 miles of desert,

the line enters at Kara Kūl on a cultivated zone, watered by the

river Zarafshān and its affluents, which extends as far as the

terminus at Samarkand. The capital of Tamerlane was reached in May

1888, and on the 1st of the succeeding month trains began running

with regularity between the Caspian and Samarkand, a distance of 879

miles.[646] General Annenkoff’s achievement was rewarded with the

generous appreciation meted out to every Russian servant of the state

who distinguishes himself by devotion to duty. “During three years,”

wrote his imperial master in a rescript dated 5th July 1888, “you have

worked with the energy which distinguishes you in accomplishing the

task, sparing neither health nor strength in a constant struggle with

natural obstacles which seemed almost insuperable. In just recompense

for the service you have rendered to the state, we have granted you

the insignia in diamonds of the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, which

we command you to wear according to regulations.”[647] In thus hailing

the completion of a line linking the Caspian with Samarkand the Tsar

could hardly have foreseen the vast economic results of General

Annenkoff’s enterprise. Its inception was due to considerations of

politics and strategy,--if the Central Asian Railway would rob the

desert of its terrors, strengthen Russia’s hold on the newly conquered

territory, and give the means of overawing Persia and Afghanistān; and

so it was treated as a military work and placed under the governor

of Transcaspia, who was himself subordinate to the Minister of War.

But trains had hardly begun to run ere merchants and passengers

flocked to the station; goods accumulated in masses which defied the

slender means of transport. In 1893, 185,000 tons of merchandise and

material were carried; and in 1897 the volume dealt with aggregated

249,000.[648] Trade left its old channels and poured into that which

gave merchants steamer communication with the great consuming centres

and the seaboard. Tea, which cheers the nomad as well as his civilised

brother, no longer enters Central Asia through Afghanistān. It is

transhipped at Bombay into steamers which convey it to Batum. Thence

it crosses the Caucasus by rail and the Caspian by steamer, and finds

the terminus of the Central Asian Railway at Krasnovodsk. This trade

is of very recent growth. In 1893 none travelled by rail; in 1897 no

less than 6,192,000 pounds. The commerce with Russia has been equally

affected. The wool and cotton worked up in Moscow factories no longer

reaches them by camel caravan; while the manufactured beet-sugar and

drugs so largely in demand in the Khānates travel by the new route.

That the railway should have profoundly modified the whole course of

Central Asian commerce is a natural outcome of the line selected by

the Tsar’s advisers. It follows the principal channel whence the silks,

sugars, and stuffs of India and China poured into Europe during the

ages illumined by Greek culture, and moulded by the governing instincts

of Rome. Balkh in Northern Afghanistān was a rendezvous for caravans

from the south and east. Thence the goods find water-way to the Oxus,

and so, by its ancient course, to the Balkan Bay on the Caspian. The

precious wares were carried in small vessels across that sea to the

embouchure of the Cyrus, now the Kura, 90 miles south of the modern

town of Baku. Here they were transhipped into canoes and dragged up

stream to the foot of the Suran Pass. At this point the light vessels

were carried, with their contents, 40 miles over the mountain to the

river Kvirilla, a confluent of the Phasis,[649] now called the Riom,

which discharges into the Black Sea near the fever-haunted port of

Poti. A glance at the map will reveal the identity of this ancient

highway of trade with that followed by the railway systems of the

Caucasus and the regions beyond the Caspian.[650] The revolution has

been recognised by the Russian authorities, and the Central Asian

railways have now lost their exclusively military character, and have

passed under the direction of the Minister of Ways and Communications.

They will eventually have a central administration at Tashkent, and

be managed by the governor-general at Turkestān.[651] The unlooked-for

success which has attended the opening of the trunk line has given a

great impetus to extensions. In 1895, works were commenced for branches

connecting Samarkand with Tashkent, the Calcutta of Central Asia, and

Andijān in Farghāna, a point near the Chinese frontier, and little more

than 300 miles due north of Chitral. The length of these sections is

401 miles; their cost has been £2,743,000, or £6840 for each running

mile, exclusive of rolling stock.

The line to Andijān follows pretty closely the old trade-route

eastwards, crossing the Zarafshān by a viaduct 392 feet long, near

the remains of the famous bridge attributed to Tīmūr, and passing the

towns of Jizāk, Khojend, and Kokand. At Khavast, 110 miles west of

Samarkand, a branch runs to Tashkent which traverses the Sir Daryā at

Chināz by a wooden bridge, on the Oxus model, 1120 feet in length.

Another bifurcation connects the main line at Khwāja Maghiz with New

Marghilān. The engineers have encountered enormous difficulties in the

construction of these branches, arising from the fact that they run at

right angles to the watershed of the country. The innumerable torrents

which pour down the mountain flanks on either side cause extensive

inundations during the rainy season. The water-way on this section

is greater than on any other portion of the line of equal length,

and heavy protective works have been deemed necessary to divert the

floods into the channels provided for them. The activity with which the

construction was pushed forward may be gauged by the fact that 63,000

tons of railway material were carried over the trunk line between

July 1897 and May of the following year. The extensions will serve a

rich and thickly peopled country, and open up the vast mineral wealth

of the mountain system whence the Zarafshān takes its rise. An annual

movement of goods to the extent of 240,000 tons is predicted, which

will increase by leaps and bounds when the great irrigation works now

under construction in Farghāna are completed. Another branch line has

been constructed between Merv and Kushk, on the Afghan frontier, a

distance of 192 miles. It follows the left bank of the Murghāb as far

as Pul-i-Kishti at the embouchure of the river Kushk, and the latter

up to the Russian cantonment bearing that name.[652] The economic

advantages of this line, which was thrown open for through traffic in

January 1899, are enormous. It passes through a tract which was once

among the richest in the world, and will soon regain a share of its

ancient fertility when the irrigation projects, which have received

favour, become accomplished facts. Its strategic value is equally

indisputable, for it will enable troops and supplies to be massed in a

few days within striking distance of Herāt. For Englishmen, however,

the importance of the Merv-Kushk branch lies in the fact that it is

designed to serve as a link in a project which germinated in General

Annenkoff’s fertile brain--that of uniting England with India by

railway. A glance at the map of the eastern hemisphere will show

that the shortest practicable line of communication between London

and the Indus passes through Russia and Central Asia. The direction

would be _viâ_ Calais, Berlin, Warsaw, Rostov-on-Don, Petrovsk, Baku,

Krasnovodsk, Merv, Kushk, Girishk, and Kandahār. The whole of this

distance has now been covered by railway, with the exception of the

195 miles of Caspian between Baku and Krasnovodsk, and the gap of

450 miles which still separates Kushk from Chaman. If the last-named

hiatus were bridged the journey from London to the Indus would

easily be performed in seven days, assuming that the present rate of

speed--thirty-two miles an hour on the European and twenty-five on the

Asiatic lines--were maintained. The net saving in time, if the railway

were completed, would be ten days, while the horrors of the Red Sea

and the monsoon would be bad dreams to the Anglo-Indian traveller. The

country between Kushk and Chaman presents no obstacle to the engineer.

The Paropamisus range would be crossed by the Khombau, or the Chashmi

Sabz Pass, neither of which is more than 3400 feet above sea-level, or

1000 higher than that on the tableland on either side.[653] From this

point, Herāt, the garden and key of Afghanistan, is only 30 miles; and

thence the line would be carried by way of Sabzawār, Farrah, Girishk,

and Kandahār to Chaman. India is now awaking from her long sleep, and

is permeated by new and unsuspected forces. If the tie which binds her

to ourselves is to be a lasting one, it must be drawn more tightly.

That the line which is being carried across Siberia will eventually

be linked with the Central Asian system admits of no doubt whatever.

Expert opinion, however, is by no means in accord as to the route

by which the junction should be effected. General Kurapatkine,

while governor of Transcaspia, had detailed surveys made for a line

between Merv and Orenburg. A strong faction advocates one which would

commence at Tashkent and run by way of Chimkent, Turkestān, Turgai,

Nicholaievsk, and Troitzk to Chelyabinsk, the starting-point of the

Trans-Siberian Railway. Another party urges the superior advantages

of a route _viâ_ Turkestān, Albasar, Kokchetav, and Petropavlovsk

to Ishim. Prince Khilkoff, the Director of Ways and Communications,

favours a railway starting from Tashkent, and traversing Verni,

Semipalatinsk, and Barnaul, to end at Tomsk. The country which would

thus be opened up presents no serious obstacles to the engineer. It has

great fertility, and abounds in coal and other forms of mineral wealth.

CHAPTER VII

TRANSCASPIA IN 1898

The intense activity displayed in railway construction did not imply

neglect of the primary duty of a civilised state towards subject

peoples--that of giving them peace and order. The problem before the

Russian administration bristled with difficulties, for lawless habits

were ingrained in the population of Turkomania. The lesson taught

by Geok Teppe was the first step in the civilising process, for it

inspired the Tekkes, who outnumber all other tribes combined, with a

wholesome dread of the white man.[654] Their marauding instincts were

controlled by overwhelming military forces cantoned near the Persian

and Afghan frontiers in posts connected by the line of rail which

traverses the heart of the conquered territory. Thus the Turkoman

tribes had to choose between starvation and honest labour. They

unwillingly adopted the latter alternative, and their good resolutions

were strengthened by the immense demand for unskilled labour entailed

by the construction of the Transcaspian Railway. The erstwhile robbers

may now be seen toiling at cotton-presses, and tilling their fields

as assiduously as Indian peasants. But the demeanour of the elder

men show that they have not been effectually tamed; and until the

generation which harried Persia and defied the “Great White Tsar”

has passed away, the old leaven will still prevail in Turkoman

breasts. The influence of the hereditary chieftains was the great

obstacle in the path of reform. The Russians resolved to suppress the

tribal organisation with its general councils, and make the village

the administrative unit. In other respects the Whig watchword, the

“Government of the People by the People,” is that of the Russian

Government.

Transcaspia, for so the land of the Turkomans is officially styled, is

bounded on the north by the Khivan and the Kirghiz steppes. Southwards

it is separated by mountain ranges from Persia and Afghanistān; while

the Amū Daryā and the Caspian define its limits on the east and west.

In length it averages 600 miles, in breadth 350; the area being 230,000

square miles, or rather more than that of France. It is a land of

startling contrasts. The northern portion, amounting to four-fifths

of the whole, is a trackless desert; the remainder is made up of the

oases of Akkal and Merv, and the highlands watered by the Atrak and

Gurgan. The only minerals hitherto discovered are rock-salt, sulphur,

and naphtha, and the latter alone has any commercial importance. The

south-east corner of the Caspian is a region of geysers, petroleum

springs, and hills of asphalt, which may in time rival the wonderful

tract surrounding Baku on the western shore. At present, attempts

at exploration are confined to Cheleken Island, in the Bay of

Krasnovodsk, and have met with indifferent success.[655] In the absence

of mineral wealth, local industries are restricted to agriculture

and stock-raising. Heavy crops of barley, juwārī (_sorghum_), and

cotton are produced by irrigated land everywhere, and the exports of

the latter to Russia are enormous.[656] The bulk of the live stock

belongs to the nomad tribes, and it is rising in value. The Turkomans

owned £5, 7s. worth per head of the population in 1890; £7 worth in

1896. This growth has taken place in spite of epidemics due to the

terrible winters of the northern steppes. The Mangishlāk peninsula,

embracing the Ust Urt Desert, so fatal to Bekovitch’s expedition,

lost 40 per cent. of its cattle and sheep from cold and starvation

in 1890. Horses, on the other hand, are decreasing in number and

quality, for the repression of raids by the strong arm of the law

has destroyed the demand for them. The deterioration has engaged the

serious attention of the Russian. A committee appointed to inquire into

the cause recommended that the Turkoman breed should be encouraged by

prize competitions and the introduction of English and Arab blood.

But the law governing supply and demand cannot be long evaded, and we

are within measurable distance of the extinction of this incomparable

strain. Domestic industries, as in old times, are confined to the

women, for their lords and masters disdain sedentary labour. The

manufacture of carpets heads the list. Three-fourths of these are still

made at Merv, where the variety of designs, handed down from long-past

generations, and never committed to paper, is bewildering. Here, too,

the Russian conquest has brought with it a blight, for the hideous

aniline dyes exported from German chemical works are supplanting

the beautiful and durable colours extracted from indigo and other

vegetable substances. Exports have fallen considerably during the last

seven years,[657] and the case is the same with the embroidery,

shawls, and dress fabrics once produced in thousands by the deft

fingers of Turkoman maidens. The nomads, who constitute the vast bulk

of the population, have not yet taken kindly to commerce. The people

of Merv, indeed, accompany the caravans which still ply between the

oasis, Persia, and Khiva, but 3 per cent. only of the merchants and

shopkeepers of Transcaspia are Turkomans.[658]

[Illustration: GENERAL KURAPATKINE]

Until 1890 Transcaspia was a province of the Caucasus, but in that year

it was constituted a government, and intrusted to the care of General

Alexis Kurapatkine.

No living soldier has had a more brilliant career. It began at

the storming of Samarkand in 1868, when, as a sub-lieutenant of

the Turkestān Rifles, he won the Orders of St. Stanislaus and St.

Anne for special gallantry. Three years later he was promoted

lieutenant-captain, and entered the Military Staff College for a course

of special training, which lasted till 1874. Then, having attained the

rank of captain, he was posted to the Turkestān Staff. In the following

year he was despatched on a special mission to Germany and France, in

the course of which he took part in an expedition from Algiers into

the Sahara, and became a Knight of the Legion of Honour. Returning to

his old love, Turkestān, he was employed in 1876 in the reduction of

Tashkent, and gained the crosses of St. George and St. Vladimir. In the

same year he was sent as envoy to Ya`kūb Beg, a Mohammedan chieftain

who had wrested Kāshghar from the Chinese, and obtained the cession of

the town and district of Karashara. In 1877 came the Russo-Turkish

War, and the Tsar needed the help of his best and bravest soldiers

to hold his own against the stubborn Nizams. Kurapatkine became

lieutenant-colonel and chief of the Staff under General Skobeleff,

commanding the 16th Division. He covered himself with glory at Lovsha,

in the expedition to the Green Mountain, and at Plevna; and gained the

rank of colonel, with more of those baubles so dear to the military

heart. In 1879 he exchanged the sword for the pen, and became professor

of Military Statistics at the Staff College. But he pined, as all true

soldiers must, for active service, and his wish was speedily gratified.

He was appointed commandant of his old corps, the Turkestān Rifles,

and in 1880 commanded as brigadier-general in the reduction of Kulja.

Towards the close of that year he was sent in charge of reinforcements

to General Skobeleff, then engaged in a death-struggle with the

Tekkes of the Akkal oasis. His prowess in that memorable campaign

has been already noticed. In the next eight years he was attached to

the St. Petersburg Staff, and was employed in framing schemes for

mobilisation and the defence of the western frontier of the empire. He

also gained the Tsar’s special thanks for his services on a commission

for settling the system of government in Turkestān. As governor and

commander-in-chief of Transcaspia he showed that he possessed a rare

combination of the qualities which adorn civil life as well as win

battles.

His methods were based on an intimate knowledge of native character,

and a keen appreciation of its noble qualities; and on his translation,

in the beginning of 1898, to the great office of Minister of War, he

left behind him the reputation of a firm but sympathetic ruler.[659]

The charge for which he had laboured so strenuously then became

a province of Turkestān, and was placed under the control of the

governor-general residing at Tashkent.

Transcaspia is divided for administrative purposes into five

districts--Mangishlāk and Krasnovodsk, on the Caspian littoral;

Askabad, which includes the Akkal oasis; Tajand, watered by the

river of that name; and Merv. At the head of each is a military

officer, termed the district chief, who is responsible for the

executive and fiscal administration. The districts are parcelled

out into _pristatvos_, or subdivisions,[660] created in order to

facilitate police work, and again into groups of twenty-five villages

for judicial purposes. The village, which, as we have remarked, is

the administrative unit, is called, if permanent, _volost_; and if

inhabited by nomads, _aül_. It is governed by a mayor, on the old

Russian model, termed _volostnoi_, or _aülnoi_, as the case might be,

but more commonly _starshina_.[661] The village chiefs who replaced

the Khāns of old time are elected by the inhabitants, subject to the

governor’s veto. General Kurapatkine’s attention was, at an early

stage, directed to the defects of the judicial mechanism, which

was wholly independent of the executive power, and directed by a

professional lawyer sent out from St. Petersburg. The Supreme Court sat

at Baku, and appellants had then to face a journey of 200 miles across

the stormy Caspian.

In 1892 General Kurapatkine formed a Supreme Court, which sits at

Askabad and disposes of appeals from the decisions of the lower

tribunals. It consists of five judges, and observes the rules of

procedure and evidence current in Revision Courts. In causes involving

native law and custom, popular judges from the Courts below are

summoned to attend as assessors; while Kāzīs, natives versed in

Mohammedan law, are called in as experts when questions of marriage and

inheritance are concerned. The sentences in cases of gravity, such as

murder, are subject to the governor’s approval. Next in order to the

Judicial Commission, as that body is called, are the District Courts,

consisting of the chief aided by five “popular judges” selected from

the personnel of the lower Courts. These latter hold session weekly

at the headquarters of each group of twenty-five villages. They are

comprised of five “candidates,” judges elected by the inhabitants of

every village, who sit in rotation. These Courts of first instance bear

a strong resemblance to the panchayat system of ancient India, which

has been so cruelly shorn of its powers for good by a mistaken policy

of centralisation. Their capacity in criminal cases extends to the

infliction of fines of 100 roubles and three weeks’ “imprisonment.”

On the civil side they try, without appeal, cases in which the value

of the subject-matter is less than 200 roubles. Further reforms

are in contemplation. The jurisdiction of the lower Courts will be

extended--Kāzīs will be excluded, and local experts summoned in cases

of marriage and inheritance. But, such as it is, the Russian system has

worked with remarkable smoothness. It recognises the innate capacity

for self-government which every Eastern race possesses, while the

village organisation remains intact; and has thus gained the entire

confidence of the people. The duty of preserving order and execution

of the Courts’ decrees vests in the district chief, the pristatvos and

the starshinas in their several degrees. In the quinquennial period

ending with 1895 they brought 3436 offenders to justice, a proportion

of nearly 25 per cent. of the population. It is undeniable that in

the eastern districts crime is far more rife than on the Caspian.

Merv had 1450 offenders during the five years, as compared with 419

convicted at Krasnovodsk. The classification of crimes affords curious

results. The offences against person and property nearly balanced

each other in the Caspian districts, while the contrary is the case

at Merv. Charges of theft constituted the great bulk of Transcaspian

crime; cattle-lifting came next in order of importance, followed by

wounding and murder.[662] Capital punishment has been abolished

throughout the empire, except in cases of treason. Murderers are

transported by rail and steamer to the Russian penal settlements on

the North-West Pacific.[663] As is the case in India, the volume of

crime varies directly with that of population. The tract in the Caspian

is sparsely inhabited, while in Merv the population is comparatively

thick. Broadly speaking, the numbers rise with the distance from the

barren seashore. The total population of the province was 235,600 in

1890, and 300,769 in 1895, showing an increase of 65,169, or nearly 26

per cent. The growth of the Kirghiz community during the same period

was no less than 60 per cent. The Tekke Turkomans are still the most

numerous class of the population;[664] then, at a long interval, the

Sariks and the Yomuds, a large proportion of whom roam over Persian

as well as Russian territory. Persistent attempts have been made of

late years to encourage Russian immigration, but with indifferent

success. Each family of new-comers is allowed a subsidy of 100 roubles,

besides seed-corn and land rent free. But the climatic conditions

are unfavourable, and the water-supply is unsuited to the European

constitution. In 1892 one-fifth of the immigrants succumbed to cholera,

and they suffer terribly from malarial fever.[665] As traders the

Russians cannot compete successfully with the astute Armenian and

Persian exploiters of Transcaspia. The Russian immigrants, who are

mostly railway servants, are 3452 in number, not reckoning labourers

who arrive at the beginning of winter and return home before the

fearful tropical heats set in. The rest are scattered in the mountains

south of Askabad on the Afghan frontier and the Caspian shore. There

are ten colonies of agriculturists, and three of fishermen, with a

total strength of 2174 souls. The besetting curse of these little

settlements is drunkenness. General Kurapatkine, who strove during

his whole term of office to foster Russian colonisation, endeavoured

to check this vice by prohibiting the sale of spirits; but it is to

be feared that enforced abstinence has only made the exiles’ lot more

forlorn, and their periodical outbursts more bestial. A semi-tropical

climate and a soil either barren or saturated with malarial poison is

not, and can never be, adapted to the children of the icy north.

The increase in population, large as it has been under Russian rule,

would have been still greater but for the prevalence of intermittent

fever. That this scourge is connected with irrigation is beyond doubt,

for the western districts, where water is scarce, are comparatively

free from it; while in Tajand 30, and in Merv 85, per cent. of the

applications for medical relief were due to intermittent fevers.[666]

The conditions prevailing in the irrigated tracts are precisely the

same as those in Central Bengal, which is in process of being slowly

depopulated by malarial fevers. In both countries we have a waterlogged

subsoil, due in the one case to excessive rainfall and inundations from

the rivers; in the other, to the presence of a network of irrigating

channels. The lesson to be learnt by administrators of both provinces

is the necessity of providing drainage. Smallpox was as fatal in

Transcaspia as malarial fever. Epidemics recurred almost annually, and

50 per cent. of the children were slain or disfigured by the pest. One

of the first steps taken by the Russians was to introduce vaccination.

They encountered a vast amount of prejudice, especially among the

priesthood, but the value of the boon conferred on suffering humanity

by Jenner has long been recognised. Vaccination is decidedly popular,

and as a consequence smallpox is almost unknown.[667] Enteric fever,

which is increasing in an alarming ratio in Indian garrisons, is rare

in Transcaspian cantonments, and unknown elsewhere in that province.

Epidemics of cholera are also uncommon. The last took place in 1892,

when the infection was introduced from India by way of Herāt. It

ravaged Meshed, the capital of Khorāsān, in May, and reached Askabad

on the 1st June, having travelled 100 miles in eighteen days; thence

it followed the line of rail, causing a mortality of 1859 out of 3471

attacks. The health of the Russian troops in Central Asia is, as might

be expected, less satisfactory than that of the civil population. The

annual admissions to hospital during the six years ending with 1895

were no less than 705 per mille; the deaths, 12.5; while 20.2 were

discharged as unfit for further service. Thus the loss by death and

incurable disease to the Russian army serving in Transcaspia exceeds 3

per cent. annually.

Readers who have followed our description of the physical conditions

encountered in Transcaspia will have grasped the fact that its tillage

depends wholly on the timely supply of water by artificial means. The

Turkoman farmer is not, like his European comrade, at the mercy of the

seasons, for he taps the rivers and streams descending from the Persian

and Afghan highlands, which enjoy a fairly constant rainfall.[668] Dams

erected in channels give a “head” of water which is drawn off into

distributories or _arīks_, and these, again, are subdivided into tiny

rills which afford to every plot of cultivated land its portion of

the precious fluid. The parent stream thus gradually loses its speed

and volume, and finally disappears in the arid desert sands. Where

visible water is not met with, the springs on the mountain flanks are

reached by a system of tunnelling. A well is sunk at a higher level

than the area to be irrigated, and, when water is found, a lateral

tunnel is excavated which carries the subterranean water several

hundred feet nearer its object. At its extremity another well is dug,

and the piercing process is repeated till the thirsty tract is reached.

A well-known natural law compels the water in the last of the chain

of wells to rise to the level of that first sunk; and thus a head is

formed which supplies a system of distributors. The method is known as

the Persian, and is of extreme antiquity. So great is the skill of the

older labourers practising it that the mole-like excavations in which

they work are barely two feet in diameter by four in height.

On assuming the government of Transcaspia, the Russians made a

special study of this all-important question, and came to the

conclusion that it was impossible to improve on the methods evolved

by ages of practical experience. Their policy, therefore, as regards

irrigation, has been one of non-interference. Steps were taken to

prevent cultivators in the Persian and Afghan territory from tampering

with the sources of the water-supply. A chief engineer is posted

at the provincial capital, Askabad, and subordinate ones at the

district headquarters; but their functions are limited to suggesting

improvements and supervising the repairs to canals and distributories.

The task of allotting the water-supply was left in the hands of the

Mīrāb,[669] a native official elected by the inhabitants of every

village dependent on irrigation. His operations are guided by the

average quantity of water required by individual peasants. The unit

is termed _Sū_,[670] and is by no means a constant quantity. In some

parts it implies the volume of water sufficient to irrigate a given

area, varying between one and five acres. In Merv the Sū implies the

quantity which flows in two hours through a distributory discharging

water at the rate of 1¼ quarts per second. In Tajand it is equivalent

to the needs of an average garden, or to a discharge of half a gallon

per second. In many parts of the Merv and Akkal oasis the process

is simplified by the existence of associations of peasants, termed

_Artel_, each of whom receives a _Sarkār_,[671] or head of water,

consisting of 8 to 36 Sū. The ordinary irrigation channels are held in

common by the villages which they supply, but wells and underground

aqueducts vest in the person who excavates them and in his heirs. The

Russians have shown great practical wisdom in avoiding unnecessary

interference with a system so complex; for an attempt at stringent

control would bring them in contact with fierce prejudices and lead to

loss of prestige.

Turning from the system to its operation, we find the most important

works connected with the Murghāb, that ancient source of Merv’s

prosperity. It rises in Afghanistān, as do its confluents, the Kāshān

and Kushk, a fact which places the Merv oasis at the mercy of the

Amīr. It is more than probable that the next rectification of frontier

demanded by Russia will comprise the whole watershed of these streams.

The course of the Murghāb in Russian territory is 530 miles long; its

breadth at Merv is 84 feet, and its depth 7. The Panjdih oasis, with

a cultivated area of 75,000 acres, owes its fertility to this river,

whose waters are confined by a dam called the Kawshut Khān Band.

Farther north we have the Yolatan oasis, inhabited by Sārik Turkomans,

with another huge dam, known as the Kāzī Keui Band, affording water

to 125,000 acres, at a velocity of 1500 feet per second. Near its

site are the ruins of the Sultān Band, a work far vaster than any of

the present day. It gave a head of 28 feet, and made the fields and

gardens of Old Merv the most fertile region on the globe’s surface. The

Sultān Band was destroyed in 1784 by the Amīr Murād of Bokhārā,[672]

a piece of vandalism which ruined Merv’s prosperity and made it a

robbers’ lair. Just a century later the Tsar, to whose private estates

the site of Old Merv belongs, ordered the construction of an anicut

13 miles up stream. The work was carried out by Colonel Kashtalinski,

superintendent of the state domains at Bahrām `Ali, the first railway

station east of modern Merv. It includes a dam which gives a 14 feet

head of water, and is connected with a series of storage basins feeding

a central canal 20 miles long. This, in its turn, supplies 35 miles of

secondary canals and 105 of distributories. The area thus irrigated

amounts to 15,000 acres, 5000 of which are under cotton, and 3675 grow

wheat and barley. The whole is let out to Turkomans and Bokhārans, and

the mountains of cotton waiting for transport by rail in the season

are a standing proof of the excellence of the crops; the return is

indeed said to be not far short of a hundredfold. So great is the

demand for farms that the natives compete for the privilege of holding

one at a rent in kind amounting to a quarter of the gross produce.

In spite of prohibitions, subletting is very rife, and the same plot

supports several families. The cost of these splendid operations was

about £105,000, an expenditure which was declared by an eminent English

authority on irrigation to be one-fifth of what a similar work would

entail in India. It is in contemplation to restore the Sultān Band, at

a cost estimated at £210,000. There can be few better investments for

capital than one which will restore to the brightest jewel of Russia’s

Asiatic diadem a portion of her ancient splendour.

The policy of _laissez-faire_ has been extended by Russian

administration to popular education. Every village of importance has

its Maktab,[673] or primary school, where a modicum of corrupt Persian

and Arabic is combined with an inordinate amount of parrot-like

repetition of passages from the Koran. In 1893 these numbered 179,

with an attendance of 2629 boys and 331 girls. The teachers generally

belong to the priestly class, which in old days enjoyed less authority

than in any Mohammedan country. Since the Russian invasion their

occult influence has increased, and it is not exerted in the invaders’

favour. Throughout Islām, indeed, the mullās are irreconcilable enemies

to Western progress, and a recent rebellion in Farghāna has led many

experts to doubt whether tenderness to indigenous institutions has

not been carried too far; for the Maktabs are forcing-grounds for

the Madrasas, or colleges, which are to be found at every district

headquarters, and are centres of obscure intrigue. Russian education

has indeed advanced with giant strides. The first school in which

the difficult tongue of the conqueror was taught dates from 1882,

when this was opened at Kizil Arvat for the railway staff. Mdlle.

Komaroff, daughter of the first military governor, founded one in

that headquarter in 1884. It has now become the “Town School,”

with 184 pupils, including 62 natives. In 1890 there were but 5

schools throughout the provinces, with an attendance of 395. General

Kurapatkine has spared no effort during his long term of office to

promote Russian education; but, until 1894, he encountered sullen

opposition. In that year the tide began to turn, and in 1896 there

were no fewer than 69 Russian schools, with an attendance of 1196. It

is to be hoped, in the best interest of Transcaspia, that the mistake

which has had such sinister results in India will not be repeated

there. Vernacular education under close Russian supervision is far

preferable to a system which encourages a mechanical study of an alien

tongue by classes which can never be rendered better or happier by its

acquisition.

The method of collecting revenue in Transcaspia displays the simplicity

and reliance on native agency which are seen in other branches of the

administration. The principal tax is one levied on each “kibitka,” a

term which conventionally includes fixed as well as movable dwellings.

The rate in force at the present day is six roubles, or nearly thirteen

shillings; and the incidence per head of the population, assuming the

kibitka to shelter five persons, is only two shillings and sevenpence.

The starshina is held responsible for the realisation of an amount

equivalent to the number of kibitkas in the village multiplied by six,

and he pays the sum directly into the district treasury. In practice

the tax is treated as one on income, and a wide latitude is left to

the starshina. He reduces the demand from widows and daily labourers

to a few pence, and exempts paupers altogether; while wealthy families

are made to pay as much as £22. As the kibitka tax amounts to no

more than a twenty-fifth of the average family’s earnings, there is

rarely any difficulty in collecting the entire demand. Malversation is

extremely rare, and, in one case at least, the villagers voluntarily

subscribed a sum sufficient to cover its mayor’s defalcations. In the

Sarakhs district a different system is in force. There a tax is levied

proportionately to the _Sū_, or unit of water, used in irrigation.

Small excise duties are levied on tobacco, matches, and kerosene oil,

and the owners of cattle driven from Persian territory to Transcaspian

grazing-grounds pay a trifle on each head. The only other tax is one

on trade, which has long been current in the Central Asian Khānates.

Merchants who are not Russian subjects pay Government one-fortieth of

the value of wares received or despatched by caravans. No budgets as

we understand the term are published by the provincial governor; for

the immense cost of the garrisons maintained in Central Asia should

fairly be set off against the receipts from taxation. It is tolerably

certain, however, that Russia finds her Asiatic possessions a source of

heavy expenditure from the imperial treasury, which she is content to

endure in view of indirect advantages which she reaps from them. Their

strategical value is incalculable, for they place Persia, Afghanistān,

and Western China at her mercy; while the benefit to Russian commerce,

by the daily increasing movement of goods on the Transcaspian railway

system, is equally conspicuous.

The proceeds of taxation are allotted to local as well as imperial

purposes. Among the former, roads are of the greatest importance.

The province possesses 458 miles of metalled roads, exclusive of

one constructed in 1888 between Askabad and Meshed, the capital of

Khorāsān. On this a waggon service plies daily, and every high-road

has its line of telegraph wires. The latter are connected with 17

offices, which dealt in 1896 with 113,434 messages. There are 25 postal

stations, connected by a series of hand vehicles, which in the same

year cost nearly £50,000 sterling.[674]

The entire system of transport, however, is in a transition state, for

the railway has already revolutionised the mechanism of commerce. Its

length in Transcaspian territory is 663 miles, and an extension from

Merv to Kushk, on the Afghan frontier, a distance of 192 miles, will

be completed before the 1st June 1899. The old caravan roads southward

lay through Persia and Afghanistān; but the insecurity which reigns

there, and the transit duties levied, have driven merchants to adopt

the longer but safer route by steamer and railway. Thus goods for China

and India travel by way of Bombay, Batum, and Baku. The Caspian is

traversed by steamer,[675] and at Krasnovodsk the railway is met with.

The whole line was placed under the charge of General Kurapatkine in

1892; but on his transfer in the beginning of 1898 to the Ministry

of War it passed under the control of the Minister of Ways and

Communications.

This necessarily brief sketch of Transcaspian administration reveals

an honest attempt on the part of the Russians to promote the material

welfare of her former foes. It is too often repeated by writers who

are blinded by political passion, or have no personal knowledge of

Central Asia, that the subject peoples there are groaning under the

heel of a ruthless military oppression. Englishmen who have visited

the heart of the great continent, and mixed freely with every class of

the population, agree in denying the truth of these charges. General

Kurapatkine, when on the eve of laying down his high office, declared

that Russian policy might be defined as the maintenance of peace,

order, and prosperity in every class of the population. Those, he went

on to say, who fill responsible positions are expressly informed by

Government that the assumption of sovereignty over other nationalities

must not be attempted without very serious deliberation, inasmuch as

such become, on annexation, Russian subjects, children of the Tsar, and

invested with every privilege enjoyed by citizens of the empire.[676]

These noble words reflect the attitude of General Kurapatkine and his

lieutenants. Many of the latter had a lifelong experience of native

manners and mode of thought; and one at least, Colonel Arandarenko,

district officer of Merv, is adored by the inhabitants of the oasis.

That the forces of disorder have been rendered impotent is certainly

not the case. The contrast between the prosaic present and the wild

romance of that past which is fast fading into legend must be bitter

indeed to the half-tamed Turkomans. Nature, we know, _nihil facit per

saltum_; and governments, however despotic, are incapable of suddenly

changing the trend of a nation’s instincts, the legacy of unnumbered

generations. It may, however, be said with perfect truth that the

Russians in Central Asia strive earnestly, and with a great measure of

success, to promote the greatest good of the greatest number.

CHAPTER VIII

ASKABAD AND MERV

Krasnovodsk, the western terminus of the Transcaspian Railway, stands

on the northern side of the Balkan Bay, through which the Oxus once

discharged into the Caspian. It is protected from the groundswell by a

natural breakwater of jagged rock which stretches nearly twenty-five

miles southwards; and from icy Siberian blasts by a range of barren

limestone hills.

The little town which nestles in this bleak amphitheatre is of recent

origin, for it was only in 1897 that it superseded Uzun Ada, a shallow

and insecure port on the south of the bay. The Government offices,

substantially built of a warm brown freestone, surround a central

square, where a patch of grass and a few scraggy trees strive in vain

to relieve the desolation which recalls the surroundings of Aden to

the Eastern traveller. Nor is the parallel confined to externals,

for Krasnovodsk is dependent on distillation for its water-supply.

The building where the precious fluid is manufactured from the briny

Caspian is well worth a visit, inasmuch as its designer, M. Yagen, has

solved the problem how to extract a maximum of fresh water at a minimum

expenditure of fuel. The steam, generated in tubular boilers heated

by a roaring fire of petroleum refuse,[677] passes through a series

of iron vats sheathed with felt, losing some of its heat and aqueous

particles in each. But the chief ornament of Krasnovodsk is, strange to

say, the railway terminus. Unlike those which disgrace so many English

towns, it is a highly successful effort to blend the ornamental with

the useful. The trains which leave Krasnovodsk for the heart of Central

Asia twice a week are made up of second and third-class carriages on

the corridor system. They are warmed in the abominable fashion peculiar

to Russia, by air heated in a roaring stove, and their lavatories are

on the most primitive model. The stuffy compartments contain narrow

wooden benches; and upper berths, which let down at night, form very

indifferent beds. In one of these little purgatories the traveller

bound for Samarkand ensconces himself at 4.30 p.m., after a substantial

meal at the railway buffet, which differs in no wise from those met

with on the Caucasian railways. But the jolting and discomfort are soon

forgotten in the novelty of the surroundings. For seventy miles the

line skirts the deep blue Caspian, which is covered in winter with wild

fowl, a living contradiction to the travellers’ tales which represent

the great lake as nearly destitute of animal life. The northern

horizon is hemmed in by the rugged outlines of the Great Balkans, a

range as desolate and forbidding as the mountains of the moon. Then

the train plunges into a boundless plain covered with sparse tufts of

wiry grass. This is the great Turkoman Desert, the habitat of that

splendid race which inspired terror in the Roman legionaries and defied

the greatest military power of modern Europe. But soon the rugged

outlines of the Kopet Dāgh Mountains open southward, and at 6.22 on

the following morning the train halts at Kizil Arvat, the workshops

of the Transcaspian Railway, which break the wild poetry of hill and

desert by their prose of Western industry. They were founded ten years

ago by General Annenkoff, whose modest bungalow is still pointed out

with the respect instinctively rendered to genius everywhere. The works

on the south side of the railway are as complete in their degree as

those at Crewe. The forges and fitting shops come first in order. They

occupy two masonry sheds, exhibiting lines of blacksmiths’ forges, in

each of which an astatki fire burns without the smallest attention from

the operatives. The installation in the turning-shop, with its lathes

and steam hammers, would interest an Englishman more if it was not too

evident that the appliances were of German origin. It is a relief to

pass into the engine-room and find one of the five machines, with a

horse-power of 52 nominal, bearing the honoured name of Tangye. The

foundry will be next visited. It can furnish castings up to a maximum

of two tons. In point of fact, locomotives of the latest pattern may be

turned out at Kizil Arvat; though in practice it is found expedient to

import them from Moscow. The carpenters’ shops are lofty structures,

with a floor area of 36,000 feet, where cars and waggons are turned

out with great rapidity. The inspecting carriages are marvels of

compactness, containing a saloon upholstered with luxurious settees,

a bedroom, bath, and kitchen. The storehouses are specially worth

visiting. Their sides are lined with masonry compartments, containing

tools, with “plus and minus” slips enabling stock to be taken in in

a few hours. With the exception of a few files which bear Sheffield

trade-marks, the tools are all the products of Russian and German

workshops. Nor has our declining metallurgic industry any share in

the supply of raw material, for the tariff practically excludes its

products from the empire in the absence of a special authorisation of

the Ministry of Commerce. Some attention is paid to the comfort of

the workmen employed at Kizil Arvat. There is an institute, styled

a Casino, containing a restaurant, where meals can be had at an

absurdly low tariff, and a ballroom large enough to accommodate the

700 workmen and their wives. Some distraction is a sheer necessity,

for the surroundings of Kizil Arvat are calculated to drive a European

to despair. The town stands in a dreary plain two miles from the

mountains, which supply an abundance of water. Nothing would be easier

than to produce vegetation of surpassing beauty, for the desert soil

needs but irrigation to furnish everything that could delight the eye.

The People’s Park only serves to make the aspect of the town more

forbidding; and the ugly square boxes serving as married quarters

are entirely destitute of a garden. The place is said to be healthy,

in spite of a summer heat rising to 110 degrees; but another tale is

told by the crowd which are attracted by the band of the 2nd Railway

Battalion, stationed here. The adults are generally ill-favoured and

stunted, and the repulsive sores on their faces are evidence of bad

water and insufficient nutrition. The working population is Russian,

with the exception of a few Turkomans, who are admitted as apprentices,

and exhibit a mechanical bias which ought to be more encouraged. Wages

and working hours would hardly be approved of by the pampered British

artisan. Foremen draw a salary of £110 to £130 annually, but the rank

and file are paid on the piece-work system. A carpenter of average

industry can earn 5s. 6d.; a fitter, 4s. 4d. per diem. The hours of

work are from 6 p.m. till noon, with a break at 7.30 for breakfast; and

again from 1.30 till 7 p.m.--an eleven hours’ day.

Geok Teppe, the scene of the crowning mercy of 1881, is the next

halting-place. In this dry atmosphere the vestiges of the Tekkes’

last refuge enables the traveller to conjure up the fearful scenes

enacted there eighteen years ago. A hundred yards north of the railway

stretches a long earthen rampart 12 or 15 feet high, broken near

its south-east angle and on the eastern face by huge gaps, through

which the infuriated Russian soldiers pressed on the memorable 24th

of January 1881. The interior of the rude fortress is still scored

with funnel-shaped holes, and strewn with fragments of iron left by

the exploding shells. The whole scene comes vividly before him who

ascends Dangil Teppe, a mound at the north-west corner whence the

Turkomans plied their only gun during the siege.[678] He seems to see

beneath, the dense mass of dark felt kibitkas lit up by the explosion

of missiles charged with petroleum. His ears are stunned by the

shrieks of the agonised women and children who seek shelter in vain

from these messengers of death, the hoarse cries of the combatants

locked in a death-struggle, the roar of musketry and the clash of

steel. While he is fain to admit that civilisation has gained by the

issue of the tremendous struggle, the Englishman bares his head in

honour of the brave men who bled for freedom here. The Russian lines

can still be distinguished to the east of the crumbling ramparts; and,

as if to point Gray’s sad moral, “the paths of glory lead but to the

grave,” three graveyards alone remain where the pulse of war once

beat highest, tenanted by the bones of those who died at their Tsar’s

behest. The Cossack and the Stavropol Regiments have their own God’s

acre, and in a third, which stands near the site of Skobeleff’s camp,

is a white-washed mound with an iron plate recording the number of the

slain. A little museum of relics of the siege has lately been opened

between the rugged earthen wall and the railway line. The contrast

between past and present is placed in a startling light by a large

cotton-pressing factory which has been established by a Jew near the

western face of Geok Teppe. Here gangs of Turkomans, some of whom were

doubtless once eager in war and foray, may be seen toiling at the

screw-presses under the sharp spur of necessity.

[Illustration: A GROUP OF TURKOMANS AT ASKABAD STATION]

Askabad, the capital of Transcaspia, is 322¼ miles from Krasnovodsk,

and is reached in twenty hours. The town dates only from 1883, and

now has a population of about 16,000, including a garrison of 10,000.

It stands on the broadest part of the Akkal oasis, at the foot of the

Kopet Dāgh range, which affords a refuge to the European in the fierce

summer heats. There are two sanataria,--Fīrūza, in a pleasant valley

2800 feet above sea-level, and Khayrābād, 3000 higher, a Transcaspian

Simla sacred to the Di Majores of the official Pantheon. The broad

streets are lined with vigorous young trees, and cut each other at

right angles. The Anglo-Indian traveller is forcibly reminded of the

cantonments, which are believed to have furnished the founder, General

Komaroff, with a model for his headquarters. In the matter of roads,

the Russian stations of Central Asia would give points to any town in

the European dominions of the Tsar. They show no break-neck holes, no

boulders which only a droshky can negotiate; and their excellence at

Askabad is vouched for by the existence of a flourishing bicycle club,

which is the centre of social life for the non-military population.

On leaving the station the tourist passes, on the left, the offices

of the railway staff, with Oriental arcades surrounding a pretty

garden, a technical school, which has recently been enlarged, and

a pro-gymnasium, and thus reaches the barracks, which stand at the

north-east corner of the town, and accommodate four active and one

reserve battalion of Transcaspian Rifles, a regiment of Cossacks from

Terek in the Caucasus, three batteries of field and one of mountain

guns, and a squadron of 200 Turkoman militia. Their quarters have been

arranged on purely Indian lines. Every company or squadron has a lofty

one-storeyed building allotted to it, containing a dormitory with a

double row of beds, a chapel, and a hall for recreation and military

instruction. The latter contains two rifles on stands with targets for

aiming-drill, which is illustrated by books containing photogravures of

the different positions. Here, too, are always seen oleograph portraits

of the reigning Tsar and his consort. So vast is his empire, that

unless the personality of the sovereign were not brought home to the

people by these perpetual reminders there would be some risk of its

becoming a mere abstraction.

Every care is taken to keep alive the traditions of the army by

coloured prints portraying acts of bravery and self-devotion in

past campaigns. Thus the story of the soldier Ossipoff is told in

nearly every barrack-room. He belonged to a garrison which defended a

redoubt in the Caucasus during Schamyl’s insurrection. Besieged by an

overwhelming force, the little band held out to the last extremity; and

when the position was taken by storm, Ossipoff exploded the magazine,

blowing himself and hundreds of the enemy into the air. To this day

his name is borne on the muster-roll of his battalion, and when it is

called the man next on the list replies: “He has died for the honour

of the Russian army!” In the company kitchens the soldiers’ cabbage

soup may be tasted. It is made with stock provided by the half-pound

of fresh meat which, with three pounds of rye bread, constitutes the

daily ration. On gala days the men have a mess of rice boiled with

butter and raisins. The fare would probably excite loathing in the

British private, but the physique of the troops is a sufficient proof

that it is abundant and nutritious. The means of developing muscle are

not wanting; for every barrack-ground has a gymnasium as well as a

miniature fort, which is formed by competing companies at the word of

command. The parade-ground adjoins the barracks. It is overshadowed by

the cathedral, a splendid structure built three years ago in an ornate

Byzantine style, which contains, on the left of the altar, a beautiful

_eikon_ in enamel of the soldier’s saint, Alexander Nevsky, in full

panoply, placed there in memory of the late Tsar. In the centre of the

Champ de Mars is a pillar commemorating Geok Teppe, flanked at each

corner by an Afghan cannon captured at Dāsh Keupri in 1885. Manœuvres

take place weekly on the broken ground between the town and the lower

spur of the Kopet Dāgh Mountains. British officers who have witnessed

one of these field-days are unanimous in praising the workmanlike

appearance of the troops. The riflemen in their tunics, knickerbockers,

and long Russian boots are sturdy, if rather undersized; and the

Cossacks are picturesquely clad in long caftans and closely fitting

astrakhan shakoes. The artillery come into action at 3500 yards,

and show a fair amount of dash; but the Cossacks’ performance is

disappointing. A water-course encountered during a charge will reduce a

regiment to a disorderly mob, and the ponies are blown long before the

objective is reached. It is the belief of good judges that a cavalry

regiment of Upper India would be quite a match for a similar Cossack

force. The infantry show that they have been drilled assiduously,

and their movements are executed with mechanical precision. It is,

however, unaccompanied by the spirit and keen enjoyment which the

British soldier imports into mimic warfare. In point of fact, the

rank and file in Russia are taught to look too exclusively to their

officers for example and support, and self-reliance is not encouraged.

In stubborn endurance they are as unsurpassed to-day as they were at

Borodino, where the victorious legions of Napoleon found their match.

But it is impossible to conceive the myriads of the Tsar winning a

“soldier’s battle”--wrestling from the foe a victory imperilled by the

incapacity of their chiefs. Reviews are more frequent in Russian than

in English armies. On specially solemn occasions, such as the birthday

of the sovereign, they are preceded by a Te Deum at the garrison

church, which is attended by the chief military and civil officials.

The connection between Church and State are far closer than with us. We

have seen that the imperial power owes its evolution quite as much to

priestly influence as to the ambition of the princes. The obligation

has never been forgotten by the Tsars, who are, literally as well as

figuratively, heads of the Church, and regard its hierarchy as the

mainstay of the whole fabric of their Government. Brilliant is the

display of uniforms at these official devotions. Combative officers are

distinguished by gold lace, those of the scientific branches by silver;

but all are gorgeously attired, while galaxies are frequent of fifteen

or twenty medals and crosses on the same manly breast. The review which

follows is a mere march-past; and as each company files before the

general he exclaims, “Good day, my children,” a greeting which elicits

the reply in chorus, “We are pleased to render you service.”[679]

The Askabad Government House is a straggling one-storeyed edifice

resembling an overgrown Indian bungalow, but it is well adapted for

ceremonial. The other public buildings are a library with 12,000

volumes, a military printing-office, and that of the _Turkestan

Gazette_--a daily paper edited by a member of the governor’s staff,

which, unlike its Indian contemporary, is no dry catalogue of

promotions, transfers, and official acts.

The railway between Askabad and Merv follows the now familiar Kopet

Dāgh range for 105 miles, and then, at a roadside station named

Dushak, trends sharply to the north-east. Here the great mountain

barrier between Transcaspia and the dominions of the Shāh attains the

height of 9000 feet; and its spurs, clad with rich verdure, offer an

ever-changing succession of graceful outlines. The intervening plain

is covered with thorny camel-grass, varied by patches of cultivation,

where mountain torrents afford the means of irrigation. A wider expanse

of green betrays the vicinity of the river Tajand, better known to

fame as the Harī Rūd, which laves the walls of Herāt. It is crossed by

a girder bridge 347 feet in length. Merv is reached in thirteen hours

from Askabad. Nowhere in Central Asia is the contrast more marked

between the present and a comparatively recent past. It is difficult

to believe that this pale copy of an Indian junction can have been

the robbers’ den so elaborately described by Marvin from hearsay,

and by O’Donovan from bitter personal experience. A broad metalled

road, parallel with the line of railway, leads to the Murghāb, a

canal-like stream crossed by a bridge with ninety-six feet water-way.

On the right bank of this ancient source of Merv’s prosperity are

the remains of a stupendous line of ramparts, which, O’Donovan tells

us,[680] were commenced in hot haste by the Tekkes in the vain hope

that they might serve as a bulwark against the Russian advance. From

their crest, thirty feet above the plain, the barracks of the garrison

are seen embowered in stately trees. Merv has immense strategic value,

and is therefore the headquarters of a force far larger than would be

necessary to overawe the scanty population of the oasis. There are four

battalions of Transcaspian Rifles, one of sappers, a railway battalion,

and two batteries of field artillery. On the east of the Murghāb, too,

is the Russian town, laid out with the same depressing regularity as

Askabad. But the bungalows which line the dusty streets are redeemed

by no wealth of tropical foliage. The humanising effects of gardening

are not appreciated by Russians, and the jealously watered compounds

of the officials enclose only scraggy trees and stuccoed buildings.

The interiors are less forbidding. The rooms have polished floors, but

little in the way of furniture save low divans spread with Turkoman

carpets and tiger skins.[681]

The climate of Merv is detestable. In summer the temperature rises

to 100 degrees, and the houses must be sealed hermetically between 8

a.m. and sunset. No punkahs mitigate the sweltering heat, and ice is

tabooed on the ground that it increases the liability to fever. This

latter is the bane of Merv, as it is of all irrigated tracts without

subsoil drainage. In 1896 nearly 5000 of the population perished; and

so high was the death-rate in the Russian garrison that it was in

contemplation to remove the troops temporarily to healthier quarters.

In no place are health-giving diversions more necessary, but such

are unknown even to the younger officers. A respectable bag of the

brilliant Central Asian pheasant may be made in the brushwood cover

three miles from Merv. In India the environs of a military station are

swept as bare of game as the Plaine de St. Denis by Parisian gunners.

Polo is unknown, though the ground in all directions is suited to the

noble pastime, and ponies can be picked up for £10 or £12. The scanty

leisure left the young fellows by the absorbing round of duty is given

up to billiards and dancing. Balls take place on Sundays at the Casino,

an institution which takes the place of our messroom and club. It

belongs to Government, and is maintained by subscriptions levied from

all civil and military officers. At the entrance is a buffet covered

with bottles and the usual components of the zakouska. Adjoining it is

a restaurant, which offers an extensive menu at prices much below those

of the railway refreshment-rooms and the miserable hotels. This opens

on to a fine ballroom adorned with portraits of Tsars and Tsarinas past

and present. Guests are received on their arrival by two members of

the Casino committee, and make their way through a hall crowded with

officers in undress uniform to the ballroom, at the upper end of which

the great ladies of the place sit in state round a table covered with

dishes of apples and bonbons. After making his obeisance, the visitor

is free to enjoy himself--if haply he can secure a partner, for the

dearth of the fair sex at Central Asian balls is more marked than in

India. Mazurkas and cotillons are practised with a zeal which would

perhaps be considered “bad form” at Simla; while the majority unable

to participate in their ardent pleasures block the doorways and find

solace in frequent adjournments to the buffet, which is always thronged

with hosts only too willing to pledge their friends in rassades of

vodka and fiery liqueurs. The close resemblance between Central Asian

and Indian cantonments extends to the bazaars. The lines of small open

shops, the dusty trees, the open drains, even the indescribable but

never-to-be-forgotten odour, all are common to British and Russian

possessions in the East. The trade of Merv is not confined to the

permanent bazaar. A weekly market is held on a plain to the east of

the town. The roads converging thither are thronged on Mondays with

Turkomans riding double on their ill-fed ponies and two-wheeled Persian

carts piled high with goods. The latter are exposed for sale in long

lines of covered booths, where Hebrew, Persian, and Armenian vendors

squat, surrounded by dried fruits, rice from Meshed, coarse beet-sugar

from Russia, and rocky almond paste. The fruit would win a first prize

at any English show. Nowhere are melons cheaper or more fragrant,

apricots and grapes nowhere more choice. The cheap cutlery, trinkets,

leather goods, and samovars are much the same as one sees in Russian

markets west of the Caspian, but the prices are at least 100 per cent.

dearer. The embroidery, shawls, and carpets for which Merv was famed

have lost in value and quality since the Russian conquest. Vast

is the concourse of Turkomans from all parts of the oasis at these

weekly gatherings; but there is far less of the babel of sounds and

the eager bargaining than is seen at Indian bazaars. It is in vast

crowds that national spirit is unconsciously displayed. If that of Merv

be reflected in the thousands of big-boned, slouching Turkomans in

sheep-skin hats and flowing garments who flock hither to lay in their

weekly supplies, then it is evident that their spirit has been crushed

by conquest.

[Illustration: RUINS OF OLD MERV]

The ruins of the ancient cities which successively bore the name of

Merv stand in a dismal plain covered with tamarisk and camels’ thorn

ten miles from the modern cantonments. The railway station whence they

may be visited is called Bahrām `Alī, after an eighteenth century

chieftain who held the neighbouring robber tribes under stern control,

until his overthrow by Amīr Murād, the founder of the Bokhāran dynasty.

Trim orchards and broad roads surround the halting-place, and on

all sides may be seen huge piles of cotton awaiting transport. For

Bahrām `Alī is the centre of the Tsar’s private domains, which have

of late years received a plentiful supply of water from one of the

old irrigation works now restored by imperial enterprise. Leaving

this smiling oasis, one enters on a scene of desolation which can be

matched only by the environs of Delhi. Like that vast tomb of empires,

Old Merv is a series of ruined cities, each built of its predecessors’

materials.[682] The most recent is the citadel so stoutly defended

by Bahrām `Alī in 1784. It is an irregular quadrangle of about 250

yards square, surrounded by a wall with circular towers of brick.

Within, amid a mass of ruins, is a mosque with a cupola still standing,

and in the courtyard of the citadel, at the north-east corner, are

the remains of the founder’s palace, a quadrangle of three-storeyed

buildings in fair preservation. Passing out of Bahrām `Alī by the

eastern portal, one sees, a mile off, two arched recesses standing side

by side, conspicuous by their ornamentation of blue enamelled bricks.

In front of each is a tombstone of grey marble, showing extracts from

the Koran in raised Arabic lettering. According to tradition, they

cover the remains of two standard-bearers of the Prophet. Hard by is a

fine vaulted well; and the group are the sole exceptions to the tale

of ruin told by the heaps of crumbling bricks which stretch as far as

the eye can see. The oldest of the ruined cities of the plain, called

Giaur Kal`a, stood eastwards of these monuments. It was destroyed in

the seventh century, when the Caliph `Omar’s lieutenants carried their

creed through Central Asia by fire and sword. Giaur Kal`a is identified

by its vast earthen ramparts, which have proved more durable than the

bricks and mortar of a much later age. As in the case with Bahrām

`Alī, there are the remains of a citadel at its north-eastern angle,

from which an extended view can be had of the poor relics of vanished

splendour. North-west of Giaur Kal`a are the only buildings of ancient

Merv which continue to serve the purposes of man. They are a serai and

mosque, which have clustered round the ugly tomb of a saint named Yūsuf

Hamadāni. It contains the usual vaulted chambers for the accommodation

of travellers, ranged in a square in which their goods and camels find

standing room. Beyond it is the tomb of Sultan Sanjar, exactly in the

centre of the site of the second of the towns which successively bore

the name of Merv. It is said to have been modelled on that of Firdawsi

near Meshed, but it closely resembles the great mausolea of Upper

India. All are alike, quadrangular buildings topped with an echoing

dome, which gives a sense of vastness and solemnity beyond anything

that the “long-drawn aisle and fretted vault” can compass. Even in

its ruin the splendid edifice shows feats of workmanship in brick and

mortar which it would be difficult to imitate with all the appliances

of modern science. The Sultan who sleeps below was the best of the

Seljūk Turks; and, to judge from the abundance of offerings piled on

the rude clay mound which covers his remains, he still lives in the

hearts of the people. The noble work was seen in all its majesty by

only two generations; for in 1221 the city of the good Sultan Sanjar

was razed to the ground, with a fearful slaughter of the inhabitants,

by Tulūy Khān, a worthy son of the ferocious Chingiz. Here the ground

is strewn with fragments of pottery exhibiting strangely beautiful

designs, iridescent glass and enamelled tiles; and no one can doubt

that systematic researches would yield more substantial tokens of a

buried civilisation. The source of the fabulous wealth of Old Merv

stands revealed in the numerous irrigating channels with which the site

is scored. This is the land where--

“----fairest of all streams, the Murga roves,

Amongst Merou’s bright palaces and groves.”[683]

The source of supply was an immense dam erected across the stream

thirty-five miles southwards, called Sultān Band, the destruction

of which 114 years ago by the Amīr Murād brought utter ruin on the

oasis. The mischief wrought by that fanatic has already been, in

part, repaired by the Russians; and the charming house of Colonel

Kashtalinski, superintendent of the state domains, is embowered in

gardens and orchards which will soon restore to this much harassed spot

some share of its ancient prosperity.

CHAPTER IX

BOKHĀRĀ, A PROTECTED NATIVE STATE

The 141 miles which separate Merv from the Bokhāran frontier were

the costliest and the most depressing section of the Transcaspian

Railway. It includes that terror of Russian engineers known as the

Sandy Tract,[684] and no trace of cultivation is met with until the

weary eye finds solace in the restful green which marks the course of

the mighty Oxus. The border stronghold, Charjūy, crowns a hill to the

south of the railway line, and bears in its rugged outlines a faint

resemblance to Edinburgh Castle. The little town which nestles at its

foot is garrisoned by a Russian force consisting of a battalion of

Turkestān Rifles and a squadron of Cossacks. At Kerki, 110 miles up

stream, three more rifle battalions and a regiment of Cossacks serve

as a reminder of the power of Russia. The source of the Amū Daryā is

Lake Victoria, a beautiful sheet of water embosomed in the Pamirs

15,600 feet above sea-level, which was visited by Marco Polo, and

rediscovered in 1838 by Captain Wood of the Indian Marine.[685] The

bed of the great river is 350 yards wide at the point where it leaves

the hills at Khwāja Sālih, 90 miles north-west of Balkh; and 200 miles

down stream it swells to 650 yards. The mean velocity is 3½ miles

an hour, the average depth 9 feet, increasing to a maximum of 29 in

August after the annual rains. The course of the Oxus in our day is

north-westerly, and it discharges into the Sea of Aral above Khiva.

The stream once before bifurcated at Kohna Urganj, 70 miles south of

the great inland lake; and one branch flowed south-westwards, entering

the Caspian by the Balkhan Bay. At some period in the fifteenth or

sixteenth century the Khivans attempted to restrain the course by

a dam, and so caused a diversion of the western channel, which can

still be traced through the Turkoman Desert.[686] To restore it has

been the dream of the Russians since the days of Peter the Great.

Elaborate surveys have demonstrated that the operation is perfectly

practicable; and those who advocated it urged with truth that the

canalisation of the river would turn many thousands of square miles

of desert into a garden. The railway has, however, won the day; and

the only use made of the Amū Daryā by the Russian authorities is to

support a steam flotilla. This service was inaugurated in 1887,[687]

and is now carried on by steel-built steamers drawing 2 feet of water,

and carrying 200 tons of cargo. Its chief value lies in the means it

gives for the transport of troops and munitions of war, for the river

is navigable up to the Afghan frontier, 700 miles from its mouth. The

Amū Daryā, however, cannot be made to serve the needs of commerce,

for the channel is constantly shifting, sand-banks are thrown up and

disappear in a few hours, and the navigating officers are in the hands

of native pilots, who divine obstructions by observing the colour of

the water. We have already described the great viaduct which spans the

Amū Daryā near Charjūy. It is admittedly but a make-shift, and will

soon be replaced by a girder bridge. The traveller glances uneasily

at the current swirling round the slender piers, and feels inwardly

relieved when his train has crept safely to the opposite bank. On

either side of the line there now stretches a dead level of parched-up

loam, broken here and there by hillocks covered with the outlines of

some ancient citadel. There are many of these Central Asian Pompeiis,

deserted owing to the failure of the water-supply, or overwhelmed by

the ever-encroaching sand. Mosques, market-places, and palaces stand

as they did centuries back, but the narrow streets show no signs of

human life. But the desert yields again to cultivation, and the train

speeds through fields of cotton and millet, overshadowed by splendid

trees. The fair domains irrigated from the river Zarafshān have been

reached, and its centre, Bokhārā the Noble, comes into view. A canon

of Russian policy ordains that the European quarters shall be placed

at a considerable distance from the great cities. Thus the effect of

sudden waves of fanaticism, which are always to be feared in Mohammedan

countries, is lessened, and time is given to organise defence. The

railway station is eight miles by road from the capital, and is the

centre of a Russian town called New Bokhārā. Its broad thoroughfares

are destitute of trees and flowers, for nothing will grow in this

ill-chosen site. Among many mean buildings of the bungalow type are

some with architectural pretensions--a handsome residency, built

by M. P. Lessar during his term of office as representative at the

Bokhāran Court, a palace in a hybrid Byzantine style lately erected

for the Amīr, the new buildings of the Imperial Bank, and the offices

of the 3rd Railway Battalion. The Russian quarter already numbers 6000

inhabitants, and is daily growing in importance at the expense of its

older rival. The highway leading to the latter passes through a country

which is evidently much subdivided, and cultivated with extreme care.

The fertile belt is watered by distributories from the Zarafshān,[688]

which passes Samarkand and pours a flood of wealth into Bokhārā’s

lap. These canals are popularly attributed to Alexander the Great and

Tīmūr, heroic figures which serve as a spur to the imagination of

poets and professional story-tellers throughout Central Asia. They

are, in point of fact, the inevitable result of the natural conditions

encountered. The soil in Bokhārā is either a rich yellow loam or sandy

waste, and the latter is ever encroaching. The rainfall is scanty;

and, but for the help of irrigation, mankind would long since have

given up the incessant struggle for existence. Nowhere in the world are

the contrasts between desolation and plenty more startling. A caravan

approaching the capital finds itself, after weary months spent in

the sands, suddenly surrounded by waving crops, and trees laden with

luscious fruit, while its ears are greeted by the ripple of water.

The mechanism by which this wondrous change is effected would excite

the derision of a European engineer. The surveyor lies prone upon his

back in the direction from which he wishes to bring water, looks over

his forehead, and notes the point when ground is last seen. This rude

substitute for the theodolite involves a great deal of misplaced

labour, but its results are as marvellous as those of the Egyptian

irrigation department. The precious fluid is brought from the mountains

in canals, carried round spurs, and crossing ravines in pipes, which,

like those of our old London water companies, are often mere hollow

trees. When the plain is reached the gradient is very slight; and so

tenacious is the soil that streams 30 feet in breadth are restrained

by banks 3½ feet high and 3 feet broad at the base. The whole adult

village population are the labourers, their only implements being a

clumsy hoe, the lap of their long flowing robe, and a hurdle of plaited

branches. The administration of the canals is on a popular basis. The

superintendents, called “aksakāls,” are elected by the cultivators;

and every village has its own “mīrāb,” who watches over the repairs

and distributories, and is remunerated by a fixed proportion of the

harvests. In years of plenty the task is an easy one; but it is far

otherwise at the critical weeks which precede the spring melting of

the snows. Every drop of water is then worth its weight in gold, and

it must be so divided that each plot may get its just proportion.

Complications, too, occur owing to the privileges which certain

villages enjoy by royal grant or immemorial prescription, and by the

absence of any satisfactory method of measuring discharges.[689] The

Russians have shown wisdom in leaving the canals in native hands in

the territory administered by them. In Bokhārā, of course, there has

never been any question of introducing reform. The Bokhāran cultivator

manures his fields heavily after harvest, and until they receive the

life-giving water. In the city streets, old men and boys may be seen

gathering every particle of refuse; and, in spite of the constant

supply, the hungry soil is still unequal to the incessant demands

upon it. Then the task of preparation begins. The fields are turned

up lengthways and again transversely by a plough clumsily built of

wood, its share only being tipped with iron. A pair of oxen can plough

rather more than one acre during the cool hours between midnight and

9 a.m.[690] The soil is then manured and drenched with water. Spots

which show effervescence, that curse of irrigated soil,[691] are dug

up by hand and dressed with lime picked out of the ruins which abound

in these ancient seats of population. The harrow, a plank two feet

wide studded with iron nails, is next passed over the sodden soil in

two directions. The enumeration of the crops thus raised would be as

tedious as Homer’s catalogue of men of war. The stand-by of the poor

is juwārī (_holcus sorghum vel saccharatum_), a species of millet

which yields two hundredfold of coarse grain. Cotton is amongst the

most lucrative; and a vast impetus has been given to its growth by

the railway, which carries the raw material to Russian mills. Wheat,

barley, and pulse are also staples, and the vine is made to produce

a heady fluid, like immature sherry, by Armenians and Jews, who have

the monopoly of a manufacture forbidden to true believers. The entire

cultivated area of Bokhārā is not much in excess of 8000 square miles,

and the population which it maintains is at least 2½ millions. Thus the

price of land is high, and it is much subdivided.[692]

When viewed from a height the country resembles a huge shawl of a

specially intricate pattern. The eight miles of dusty road which

separate the capital from the Russian quarter run through fields

which are exact replicas of those of Upper India, and the parallel

extends to the villages of flat-roofed houses with wooden verandahs,

and the shops displaying piles of sticky sweetmeats. The traveller’s

progress is impeded by rows of ponies tethered in the narrow streets.

In Bokhārā everyone rides. The poorest can afford the hire of a moiety

of a donkey, and beggars on horseback excite no remark. The approach

to the city is lined with the gardens in which Bokhāran citizens

delight. They are walled in or sheltered from the wintry blast by

rows of silver poplars. A quadrangular pond marks the centre of four

paths at right angles connected by smaller ones, and overshadowed

by fruit trees which are a mass of tender hues when spring showers

bring out the blossom. Flowers are few: the rose, the blue iris,

sunflower, and poppy well-nigh exhaust the list. The cultivation of

fruit is well understood. The melons have a more delicate aroma than

those of any Eastern country. Dried apricots are known in India as the

“Ālū-i-Bokhārā”; and every variety of fruit familiar to the European

palate is to be had in a perfection and at prices which would excite

wonder in Covent Garden.

This setting of brilliant vegetation adds dignity to the crumbling

ramparts of Bokhārā. The town-wall, 28 feet high and 7½ miles in

circuit, encloses an area of 1760 acres, which seems disproportionate

to the dwindling population, now amounting to no more than 65,000

souls.[693] Entering one of the eleven gates,[694] unchallenged by the

slouching sentry, the traveller finds himself in a dædalus of narrow

lanes, swarming with human beings more suggestive of the unadulterated

East than any other city in Asia can show. Sart is the Russian term for

the sedentary population throughout Central Asia; but the variety of

types which it includes is immense. The Tājiks are a tall well-favoured

race, with clear olive complexions and black eyes and hair.[695]

Their origin is the subject of much controversy; but, according to

a tradition among them, they migrated to Bokhārā from the west, and

reclaimed a reedy swamp which became the city’s site.[696] They were

subdued by the fierce Arabs in the eighth century, and adopted the

Mohammedan religion. As each tide of conquest swept the country the

Tājiks bent their necks, and acquired all the vices of a race inured

to foreign dominion. They are polished, laborious, and intelligent,

with a genius for commerce, but their greed and faithlessness are as

notorious as their cowardice.[697] Thus the Tājik is regarded with

supreme contempt by the Uzbegs, who for three centuries have been the

dominant race.[698] They are a stem of the great Turkish family which,

starting from the steppes north of the Gobi Desert, brought half the

world under their sway. They are middle-sized but sturdy, with high

cheek-bones, ruddy complexions, and dark auburn hair. In character

they resemble the Osmānlīs--not the scum of the Levant now encountered

at Constantinople, but the rude warriors who supplanted the Cross

by the Crescent there in the fifteenth century. They are brave and

independent, with the grossness of manners and something of the inborn

dignity of the unadulterated Turk. Like the Kirghiz, who are also met

with in Bokhārā,[699] and the Turkomans, Uzbegs are either sedentary

or nomads. The first class resemble the Tājiks in their greed for

gain, but they are not so civilised; the second tend their flocks and

herds, dwelling in tents of dark grey felt hung with bright carpets.

The reigning dynasty is of this race, and belongs to a division of the

Mangit, the chief of the 97 clans[700] into which Uzbegs are divided.

At the opposite pole stand the Jewish community, which is traditionally

believed to have migrated hither from Baghdād. Half a century ago they

numbered 10,000,[701] but they have dwindled to perhaps half as many

under the grinding persecution to which they have been subjected.

Bokhārā is not a whit in advance of mediæval Europe in its treatment of

this forlorn colony. The time, indeed, has gone by when Jews might be

savagely assaulted by a true believer, and even killed with impunity.

But they are still relegated to a filthy and crowded Ghetto. They are

forbidden to ride in the streets, and must wear a distinctive costume,

a small black cap edged with two fingers’ breadth of sheep-skin, a dark

dressing-gown of camels’ hair, and a rope girdle, a survival of a time

when it might at any moment be required for its wearer’s execution.

This tyranny, tenfold worse than that endured by the Tājiks, has ranged

the Jew on the side of the white man.

[Illustration: HINDUS OF BOKHĀRĀ]

In the earlier days of their empire in Central Asia the Russians

received a good deal of valuable information as to popular feeling from

these despised auxiliaries. The blind hatred which superiority excites

in minds of the lower type is universal in Bokhārā, and the Jews of

the Khānate still groan under disabilities which are more degrading to

their oppressors than to themselves. The Persian element is a strong

one, and the slim figures, dark eyes, and regular features of the

children of poor worn-out Irān are conspicuous in the motley crowd that

fills the streets. They are descended from slaves sold by Turkoman

raiders, or from 40,000 Persian families transplanted from Merv by

Amīr Murād in 1784. Being Shī`as, they cordially detest the Uzbegs and

Tājiks, who belong to the rival Sunni sect.[702] Under former Amīrs,

notably the treacherous Nasrullah, who murdered our countrymen

Stoddart and Conolly, the Persians gained commanding influence.[703]

They are now peaceable traders, whose patriotism stops at day-dreams

of reviving the glories of the greatest and most ruthless of their

royal line, Nādir Shāh. Broad-shouldered Afghans, lithe bright-eyed

Arabs, who have the secret of dressing the real Astrakhan lamb-skin,

and Indian subjects of Her Majesty, are common in Bokhārā. The latter

are styled by the natives Multānis, though most of them hail from

Haydarābād in Sindh. They are betrayed by their dark complexion and

the flame-shaped caste-marks on their swarthy brows. The Hindu shares

with the Jew the immense profits derived from money-lending, which is

forbidden to true believers, and they are eager and rapacious traders.

The large commerce in tea is in the hands of some wealthy Peshawar

Mohammedans. The Indian colony devote a few years to money-grabbing,

living the while in serais of their own, consisting of a courtyard

surrounded with unfurnished cells, in which the traveller spreads his

bedding, while his goods and camels occupy the centre of the square.

They profess to be well satisfied with the existing order of things at

Bokhārā, but have some reason to complain of the absence of any British

consular agency.[704]

The variety of features shown by a Bokhāran crowd hardly extends to the

costumes. The wealthier wear gorgeous khal`ats, or long dressing-gowns

of cashmere or cloth of gold. In the middle class the universal

garment is of coloured silk, with a curious pattern of concentric

lines; while the populace is content with blue or striped cotton. All

have huge turbans of white muslin, the size of which is an evidence

of their wearers’ rank. Sometimes as many as twenty yards are used.

It is a curious fact that, in spite of crushing protective duties,

the produce of Manchester looms is preferred by all who can afford

the luxury.[705] The feminine element, which gives the greatest charm

to the crowds of Western cities, is entirely absent in Bokhārā. Such

women as venture into the streets are muffled in a hideous smock[706]

and a thick horse-hair veil. It must be admitted that the beauties

thus concealed lie chiefly in splendid dark eyes, the lustre of which

owes much to the aid of henna, and arched eyebrows which are deemed

indicators of passion, and therefore heightened by artificial means.

The emancipation of women has not begun in Bokhārā. Marriage is a

sale conducted with as little delicacy as the cattle-dealer imports

into his transactions. The child-wife never gains her husband’s love

or confidence, and is deserted while her charms are at their zenith.

Custom, in fact, moulds the Bokhāran’s inmost being, and the degraded

position assigned to women by its teaching places him beyond the pale

of civilisation. Home-life in the Central Asian Khānates exists no more

than it did in ancient Rome. The citizens’ houses are ranges of dark

and cheerless cells surrounding a central courtyard, and presenting

blind walls to the street. The intense cold of the winter months is

mocked rather than mitigated by charcoal braziers.[707] Music is

unknown in the cheerless interior, and tobacco was till lately tabooed

by the arrogant priests. When an envoy of the Sultan of Turkey made his

state entry into the city his use of a long amber-tipped pipe caused

universal consternation. Nor do the pleasures of a refined table solace

the tedium of life. After attending morning prayers at his mosque the

citizen swallows a mess of tea boiled into the consistency of thick

soup, with salt and milk, and at his second meal, taken at 5 p.m.,

the standing dish is the pillau of mutton, rice, and vegetables. The

craving for amusement so deeply implanted in human nature finds an

outlet in the performances of _bachas_[708]--lads of between eight and

fifteen with long flowing locks, who dance, posture, and sing with a

_brio_ which excites frenzy in Bokhāran spectators. They supply the

place of our opera-singers, ballet-girls, and actresses. The names of

_bachas_ pre-eminent for beauty and languishing graces are as often

pronounced as those of the extinct race of Divas were by Englishmen

of the last generation. They sometimes rise to high positions in the

state, and oftener amass great wealth after a few years’ practice of

their degrading trade. The Amīr maintains a troupe of bachas; and

without their aid an entertainment of any description would be as a

performance of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. The European who

attends one of these ceremonies feels instinctively how wide is the

gulf between East and West, when he remarks the enthusiasm excited by

the phases of passion depicted by these children.

To Englishmen an exhibition of the national game of baigha is more

interesting. It is a scramble by mounted players for the carcass of a

goat. When all are ready for the fray, the umpire beheads the creature

and throws its bleeding body into the arena. Then follows a scrimmage

which reminds one of Rugby football. The goat’s remains become the

centre of a dense mass of men and horses locked in a desperate

struggle, in which, wonderful to relate, players are rarely unseated,

and still more seldom do the animals injure each other. The object of

each is to monopolise the Bokhāran substitute for a ball, and carry it

far from the scene of action, outstripping all competitors.

The great bazaar of Bokhārā makes some amends for the dulness long

drawn out of domestic life. It is, indeed, a relief to pass from the

garish sunshine into the cool gloom of these lofty arcades, which

extend for at least seven miles in all their ramifications. The roof

is generally of beaten clay, laid upon undressed timber; and on

either side is an endless vista of booths, displaying every article

of luxury and use in demand among Asiatic people. Carpets and rugs of

harmonious tone, piles of gaudy shawls and dress pieces, snuff-boxes

of polished gourd to hold the pungent green powder affected by the

Bokhārans, and cutlery and trinklets of every description. Europe here

struggles with Asia for mastery, and seems about to gain the battle;

for though all the European goods bear Russian labels, the great bulk

is the produce of German workshops. The stimulus given to the trade of

the Fatherland by the payment of the French indemnity in 1871 has led

to a constant movement of Teutons across the Russian frontier. They

retain their German citizenship, while they turn out cheap and nasty

wares under the ægis of a protective fiscal system. One section of

the vast bazaar, roofed by a dome of ancient brickwork, is sacred to

literature, and the counters of its shops are piled high with standard

works in lithograph editions, and here and there a manuscript.

Great bargains may sometimes be obtained by connoisseurs, though

there are still enough native bibliophils in Bokhārā to render good

finds by Europeans exceptional. Money-changers’ stalls are frequent,

with tempting heaps of silver and copper discs for exchange against

Russian money. The state has been allowed to retain its own coinage,

a prerogative more valued than any other by Eastern sovereigns. The

unit is the tanga, a silver piece which fluctuates as violently as did

the Indian rupee before Sir David Barbour closed the mints. It is at

present worth 15 kopeks, but sudden oscillations of a kopek and even

more are common.[709] The gold coin in circulation is styled tilā,

and is of unusual purity. It is worth 21 tangas. For the needs of the

proletariat there are tiny brass dumps, 44 of which go to the tanga.

Another quarter of the bazaar displays the silks and velvets for which

Bokhārā was once so famous. The trade is a dwindling one, owing to the

prevalence of disease among the worms; and the chief beauty of the

fabrics lies in their faintly stamped, flowered patterns.[710] The

vast crowd of loungers in these arcades shows none of the loathing

for the Giaur which the appearance of one in this hotbed of fanaticism

once excited. They civilly make way for the European’s droshky,

and his eyes rarely encounter an unfriendly glance in those of the

shopkeepers squatting impassively in a setting of rich carpets and

dazzling weapons, or the throng of customers who watch every phase

of the bargaining. But the old spirit has been scotched, not killed,

by Russification. The European who allows his shadow to flit on a

mullā lolling on his pile of cushions will be roundly cursed for his

impudence. The crowd intent on buying and selling find the wherewithal

to assuage their hunger in the eating-houses, which exhibit huge

caldrons of bubbling pillau, flat cakes of unleavened bread, and heaps

of coarse sweetmeats made from Russian beet-sugar. The samovar, which

hisses in every eating-house, reveals the Bokhāran’s predilection for

tea. The green variety is alone consumed, and it retails at 2s. 10d.

per pound, in spite of a Russian import duty of 1s. 10d. In pre-railway

days it was imported through Afghanistān, but the line connecting

Bokhārā with the Caspian has superseded the old camel caravans, with

their leisurely movements and liability to pillage and exactions. Tea

now comes into Bokhārā by way of Bombay and Batum. China still supplies

the great bulk of the demand; but Indian and Ceylon teas are slowly

making their way even in remote Bokhārā. Their progress would be far

more rapid but for the crushing import duty levied by the Russian

Government. The Transcaspian Railway has, in point of fact, robbed

Peter to pay Paul. Russians and Russo-Germans find a ready sale in

Central Asia for their wares, but Bokhārā is no longer a great centre

for the distribution of English and Indian goods, as it was a quarter

of a century back. They will live in the memory of the denizen of the

prosaic West, those Bokhārā bazaars, with their long lines of shops

rich in dazzling colours, the blue sky peeping through rents in the

time-worn vaulting, and the sunshine flecking the kaleidoscopic crowd

in the galleries below. Though the chief interest of Bokhārā centres

in its bazaars, it has many public buildings which repay examination.

In the north-west quarter is the Rīgistān, a market-place surrounded

by shops which are cleared of their contents at nightfall. On its west

side is a tank overshadowed by trees, which are as rare in Bokhārā as

in the city of London, and surrounded by tea and barbers’ shops, the

resort of a host of idlers during the daylight hours. One side of the

Rīgistān is occupied by the Ark, or citadel, which stands on a vast

artificial mound, and is walled by crenellated ramparts forming a

square of 450 yards. It dates from the era of the Sāmānides. The great

gate, built by Rahīm Khān in 1742, is flanked by towers 100 feet high

showing traces of faience; and opens on a vaulted corridor leading to

the Amīr’s palace, treasury, and state prison. In old days this was a

loathsome dungeon full of ticks and other vermin; but the story so oft

repeated, that the insects received rations of raw meat in the absence

of human victims, is probably untrue.[711] Here dwells the Kushbegi,

or prime minister, of whom more anon; but the buildings of the citadel

are by no means imposing in size or architectural merit. In a shed on

the right of the gateway is the Artillery Park, containing about fifty

pieces, all of antiquated make. A smaller market-place, which serves

for dealings in raw cotton, is surrounded by the most imposing of

Bokhārā’s public edifices.

On one side is the great mosque, called the Masjid-i-Jāmi`, as are

those of Delhi and Agra, because it was built to hold the immense crowd

attending a Jum`a, or Friday service. The front is a vast recessed

portal covered with arabesques in faience; its gates give access

to a courtyard spacious enough to contain 10,000 worshippers,[712]

surrounded by a vaulted cloister. Near it is the Minār Kalān, or Great

Minār, a round tower 36 feet at the base, and tapering upwards to a

height of 210. The whole surface is covered with beautiful designs in

carved brick, which show that it dates from Bokhārā’s golden age. From

the summit criminals were precipitated into the market-place beneath;

but access to it is now forbidden, lest curious visitors should pry

into the scores of courtyards which it commands. Opposite to the city

mosque is the Madrasa Mīr-i-`Arab, a stately college with a tall

recessed gateway, which ranks first among the 103 of which Bokhārā

boasts. The entrance is through a door on the left, which opens on a

vaulted corridor leading to a quadrangle surrounded by a double tier

of cells, called _hujrats_, in which the pupils reside. Each has its

bed-place on a dais spread with carpets and pillows, and niches in

the wall for his books and clothes. Here the more promising lads from

the elementary schools spend fifteen or twenty years in mastering

the legal and religious system of Islām. This education is so alien

to all that is associated with the process in Western countries, and

its results are so far-reaching, that a description of its mysteries

will interest those who aim at reading aright the signs of the times

in Central Asia. Primary schools are to be found in every Bokhāran

village, and they abound in the capital. They may be known from afar by

the hum of childish voices, which resounds from morn till dewy eve in

the narrow sunless streets. The course of teaching embraces the Koran,

the _Farz-i-`Ayn_, and other books of a religious tendency, written in

Tājikī, a dialect of Persian, and Turkī, the language of the Uzbegs.

Those who wish to pursue their studies further pass into the Madrasas,

which are maintained from the rents of great landed estates assigned

to them by rulers of past ages. The curriculum here embraces theology,

Arabic, law, and “worldly wisdom.”[713]

[Illustration: THE MINAR KATAN AT BOKHĀRĀ]

Students who are conscious of a vocation for the priesthood are

subjected to a probation severer than that which is prescribed to

candidates for admission to La Trappe or Chartreuse. They must obey

all the precepts of Mohammed’s code, and learn by long and painful

practice to pronounce the shibboleth, _Lā Allāh ill Allāh_, thousands

of times without drawing breath. Thus they attain to the coveted

degree of Ishān, are qualified to instruct others, and receive the

blindest devotion from the lower orders. No training can be conceived

which is more calculated to inspire self-conceit and fanaticism. Now

the priesthood of Bokhārā and the other cities of Central Asia have

all been subjected to these sinister influences at a period of their

lives when the plastic mind receives impressions which can never be

effaced; and the schools and colleges are officered exclusively from

the sacerdotal caste. Before the advent of the Russians to power, the

mullās directed the whole mechanism of government. The most cruel and

treacherous of the old Amīrs respected their lives and liberties and

shaped his conduct on their counsels. The mullās’ political influence

has been destroyed by the Russians’ advent to power, for the theory

on which Mohammedan states are ruled is utterly at variance with

Western conceptions; and the insidious energies of the priesthood

are restricted to education and religious observances. There can be

little doubt that the wave of sedition which is sweeping over Central

Asia[714] is due to the teachings of men who desire the restoration

of Islām as a predominant factor in government. The Russian masters

of Central Asia, like we ourselves in India, are stepping _per ignes

suppositos cineri doloso_, and a mistaken educational policy is, in

both cases, at the bottom of the mischief that is brewing. The other

Madrasas of Bokhārā are more remarkable for size than architectural

merit. One of them was erected at the end of last century, at the cost

of the Empress Catherine of Russia, who came under Voltaire’s influence

and displayed a catholicism which outran that of the philosopher of

Ferney.[715] Adjoining the Great Minār is the only public building in

Bokhārā which has not seen the march of centuries--the Baths of the

Chief Justice, thrown open to the public in 1897 by the generosity

of the official who held that rank. The innermost chamber is a huge

oven surrounded by marble divans, on which the bather reclines while

an attendant cracks every joint in his body, scours him with a piece

of hair-cloth, and sluices him with cold water. Thence he passes to a

room heated to a temperature of about 80 degrees, where he dresses and

proceeds to a spacious hall opening on the street. Here, reclining on a

dais spread with carpets and pillows, he sips his tea in the blissful

lassitude which follows the Turkish bath. The Zindān, or state jail,

is a dilapidated structure of brick, perched on a mound to the east of

the citadel. The entrance is through a dirty guardroom which gives on a

courtyard. A door to the left leads to the abode of petty offenders--a

smoke-stained shed, tapestried with bundles containing the property

of the inmates. The latter squat on the floor apparently in good

health and spirits, albeit that their rations would not be approved of

at Wormwood Scrubbs. They receive from Government 1½ pounds of bread

every other day, but visitors are allowed to distribute as much food

as they please. On the right of the courtyard is a vaulted room lit by

a barred opening in the ceiling, which serves as a ward for heinous

offenders. Here will generally be found twenty or thirty wretches

fastened together by a heavy chain attached to an iron ring on the neck

of each. They are all murderers or banditti under trial or awaiting the

Amīr’s confirmation of the death sentence; and their sullen despair is

but too evident. Punishments were terribly severe in pre-Russian days.

Prisoners were riveted to the wall by iron collars for years together,

and shrunk under the torture to living skeletons. Twice a week they

were dragged to the Rīgistān, where the Amīr in person pronounced

sentence; and the spectacle of the poor half-naked wretches shivering

in the snow was piteous indeed.[716] Happy were those condemned to

decapitation, which was always performed with the knife, to the

gratification of the market crowd. Empalement and flinging from the

summit of the Great Minār were usual forms of destruction, and women

taken in adultery were stoned. The prison, bad as it is when judged

by European standards, is an abode of bliss when compared with those

of the native régime. Beneath the Zindān is a deep vault, now filled

up, which hardly a decade back served as an _oubliette_ for human

beings condemned to a lingering death, attended by horrors which no pen

can describe. Truly, these dark places of the earth owe much to the

softening influence of a higher civilisation.

[Illustration: PRISONERS OF THE AMIR OF BOKHĀRĀ]

Slavery is another practice which has lost its terrors since the

advent of the Russians. Bokhārā was once the greatest market in Asia

for the produce of Turkoman and Kirghiz raids. Eighty years ago 40,000

Persians and more than 500 subjects of the Tsar were detained there in

bondage. There was a regular tariff for these human cattle. A labourer

fetched £29, a skilled artisan £64, and a pretty girl nearly £100. The

treatment meted out to them by Bokhāran taskmasters was more atrocious

than anything recorded by Mrs. Beecher Stowe. Meyendorff met a Russian

who had endured unheard-of tortures, inflicted in order to make him

reveal the route by which a comrade in affliction had escaped.[717]

Half a century later the effect of European precept and example

was already evident. Mr. Schuyler found the traffic in human flesh

conducted with some approach to secrecy, but, after much bargaining

and intrigue, he was able to purchase the freedom of a Persian lad for

a sum equivalent to £25. It would be saying too much to aver that the

“peculiar institution” is extinct in Bokhārā. The needs of the harem

and the profound mystery with which wealthy families enshroud their

domestic life render it impossible that slavery should be stamped

out in any Mohammedan country. India itself is not free from the

canker-spot, though every possible means have been taken to eradicate

it. But the great source of supply was cut off when the Turkomans were

forbidden to raid into Persia, and the lot of those who have been

held in slavery is rendered endurable by the vigilance of the Russian

Resident. His influence has been limited to the correction of flagrant

abuses, and Bokhārā is the only Mohammedan state in Russian Asia which

has been permitted to retain intact its own system of administration.

The sovereign, whose official style and title is Khān of Bokhārā and

Commander of the Faithful,[718] is nominally absolute master of his

realm and of the lives and fortunes of his subjects. In practice his

power is subject to considerable limitations. As a Mohammedan prince

he is bound to obey the injunctions of the Koran and the canonical law

of Islām.[719] The clergy were all-powerful under the last independent

Amīr, and their influence is still widely felt, the more so in that

it is occult. The ruler is surrounded by greedy and venal followers,

and his Court is a centre of intrigues. His prime minister, answering

to the vezīr of the Turkish monarchy, is here styled Kushbegi, and

stands next in rank to the sovereign. He is official guardian of the

state jewels, which, to judge by the display made by the Amīr on state

occasions, must rival the figments of the Arabian Nights.[720] He is

responsible for the collection of taxes and customs duties, and is

master of the palace, where he always resides, and keeps the keys of

the city gates. Beneath him is a vast hierarchy of executive and Court

officials, whose rank is bestowed by patents under the Amīr’s seal,

or symbols such as horse-tails, hatchets, flags, and maces.[721] The

struggle for these baubles amongst the crowd of courtiers versed in all

the arts of fawning and flattery would arouse our pity and contempt,

were we not conscious that such sordid aims are still the levers of

human action nearer home.

[Illustration: A BOKHĀRĀN BEAUTY AND HER TWO CHILDREN]

For administrative purposes the Khānate is divided into thirty-six

provinces, each under its governor, called Beg, who is intrusted with

the collection of revenue and the execution of judicial decrees.

He reports as to the state of his charge weekly, and submits death

sentences for the Amīr’s confirmation. Below the Beg are the Amlākdārs;

who exercise similar functions in the amlāks, or districts. The state

is, in theory, the owner of the soil, and the bulk of its revenue is

derived from the land tax, an impost which has many features common

with feudalism. Estates belong to four categories. _Milk_ lands are

free of rent, because they were originally bestowed by the sovereign in

fee simple on successful generals. _Milk-i-Khārāj_ are tenures which,

at the period of conquest, were owned by non-Mohammedans, and remained

in their possession subject to the payment of a land tax. This, in

the case of irrigated soil, amounts to one-fifth, and in that of dry

fields to one-tenth of the gross produce. The third description is

_Dash Yak_, so styled because one-tenth of the produce is set apart for

the support of a mosque; and the fourth _Vakf_, which is an endowment

wholly devoted to religious uses. The Amīr’s proportion of the fruits

of the soil is assessed by the Amlākdārs and their underlings, after

actual inspection of each field just before the harvest is gathered in.

If the cultivator objects to the Government estimate he may demand a

re-measurement. The other sources of revenue are one-fortieth of the

value of goods exposed for sale; and the jazya, or infidel tax, from

which Russian subjects are exempt, ranging, according to the assessee’s

wealth, between one and four tangas. The administration of justice

is in the hands of Kāzīs--native judges appointed by the Amīr after

an examination in the laws of Islām, who are assisted by Muftis, or

registrars in charge of the Court’s seal. The Kāzī posted at Bokhārā

has two of these subordinates, and is styled _Kalān_, or chief, though

he has no power to revise his colleagues’ decisions. Legal procedure

is cumbrous and ineffectual, and litigants in Bokhārā learn by sad

experience what “hell it is in suing long to bide.” Public morals and

the due observance of religious rites are supposed to be safeguarded

by an official styled _Rā´īs_. This censor’s insignia of office are a

scimetar-shaped strip of leather, with which he is legally empowered to

administer “forty stripes save one” to evil-doers, without, however,

raising his arm above the shoulder. He drives the faithful to public

prayers like a flock of sheep, meddles in family affairs, levies

blackmail, and has elevated delation to the rank of a science. With the

Kāzī he serves as a spy on the executive officers, and is an object of

universal dread. These social pests have been abolished by the Russians

in the districts under their administration, and they have won more

gratitude by this obvious measure than by any of their reforms. It has

been often said that an Eastern prince’s rule is tempered by the fear

of assassination. In Bokhārā the permanent army was once the skeleton

at the Amīr’s banquet. In order to maintain his authority and overawe

turbulent neighbours he was compelled to pay a large standing force, of

which he stood in as much dread as the Cæsars did of their Pretorian

Guard. In the days of independence the regulars mustered 10,000 men,

armed with matchlocks, and there were about 40,000 men on an irregular

footing, of whom perhaps a third carried serviceable weapons.[722] At

the present time the army is little more than a plaything, for the

“Great White Tsar” has garrisons at the principal strategic points, and

Bokhārā under his ægis is secure from foreign aggression. The troops

now number only 10,000 men, of whom 1000 are armed with Berdan rifles,

presented to the Amīr some years ago by the Russians, and the rest

with percussion muskets. They are drilled and clad on European models,

but here the parallel ceases. Inefficient as is the Bokhāran army,

the paramount power is anxious to effect a deduction in its strength,

which will ultimately not exceed 3000 men. It is a significant fact

that while the civil officers, from the Kushbegi down to the Amīn

who measures the crops, receive no remuneration beyond what they can

squeeze from the people, the Amīr’s forces are well and regularly paid.

The company officers draw about £5 per mensem; the private soldiers,

6s. 6d. in our money. In the official intercourse between the Amīr and

his suzerain we detect the influence of Anglo-Indian example. For many

years the Khānates were represented at Tashkent, the administrative

capital of Turkestān, by envoys selected from their own subjects;

but the growth of commerce with Russia, and the necessity of drawing

closer the bonds uniting the protected state with its master, led to

the appointment of a Russian officer of rank as Resident with the

Amīr. His political relations with the latter are nominally confined

to tendering advice in administrative matters. When, some years

back, frauds were prevalent in the packing of cotton for export to

Russia,[723] the Resident approached the Amīr through an unofficial

channel as to the means of checking practices ruinous to trade. The

outcome of these negotiations was the appointment of three cotton

inspectors, whose function it is to visit the markets and report to the

Kāzī all cases in which they suspect that rubbish is inserted in bales

exposed for sale. Again, the Russians have deemed it to be their duty

to foster the production of wine. The grapes of Bokhārā are as fine

as her peaches and apricots--which is saying a good deal--and a potent

fluid resembling Amontillado, with a pleasant sub-acid after-taste,

is retailed at fourpence a bottle. But intoxicants are denounced in

the Koran as things accursed, and the prohibition has much worldly

wisdom, because Asiatics drink, not in order to cheer the heart of

man, but to drown the senses in brutish oblivion. A compromise between

religious duty and worldly interest has been arrived at. Bokhārans

may not make wine themselves, but they are at liberty to sell the

grapes to Armenians and Jews, who have a monopoly of the manufacture.

A dealer vending wine or spirits to a Mohammedan is punished with a

fine of 1000 roubles. The Resident has a court of his own for the

decision of civil and criminal cases in which the injured party is a

foreigner. His jurisdiction is unlimited, and his sentences without

appeal. Documentary evidence is insisted on as a basis of money

claims. The Russian law is administered, as modified by local custom,

and no advocate is allowed to intervene between the tribunal and the

parties. Where the defendant belongs to that category, the case comes

before a judge of the peace, who is independent of the Resident and a

subordinate of the Ministry of Justice at St. Petersburg. His sentences

run through a gamut of appeals, precisely as those tried by the courts

of the mother country. This alien jurisdiction is highly popular, and

subterfuges are adopted in order to bring cases triable by the native

judges within its purview. The post and telegraph services are in

Russian hands; and a hospital is maintained, under European management,

which costs the Amīr £2000 annually. Those who are cognisant of the

perennial friction between Chief and Resident at many Indian courts

will be surprised to learn that the relations between suzerain and

vassal in Bokhārā have invariably been cordial. The Amīr, Sayyid

`Abd ul-Ahad, is now in his thirty-seventh year.[724] He is tall and

muscular, and would be handsome but for growing corpulence, that

curse of Eastern princes. He is still devoted to hawking and other

forms of sport, affable and dignified. Every year he visits one of

the hot springs in the Caucasus, and often winters in the Crimea. The

heir-apparent, Sayyid Mīr `Alīm, has been educated in St. Petersburg,

and holds the rank of lieutenant in a Cossack regiment. In early youth

the Amīr had convincing proof of the resistless power of Russia. He saw

his haughty father die broken-hearted of the humiliation entailed by

his abortive effort to roll back the tide of European aggression. He

knows, too, that the capital is at the Russians’ mercy, for they own

the rich province of Samarkand, through which the Zarafshān flows to

fertilise his thirsty fields, and that it would be an easy matter to

divert its course; and so he is always ready to anticipate his master’s

wishes. There was a spice of truth in the late governor-general’s

remark, “the Amīr of Bokhārā is the most zealous of my lieutenants.”

While a ruler so pliant continues to sit on the throne of Bokhārā he

need not fear annexation. The Russians are well aware that the people

of the Khānate prize the measure of national life allowed them, and

prefer the rough-and-ready methods of an Amīr of their own race to

the highly developed mechanism imported from the West. They dread the

responsibility of granting citizenship to two and a half millions of

Asiatics, spread over an area of 80,000 square miles, which costs them

nothing to administer, while its products swell the growing volume of

the empire’s commerce.

CHAPTER X

SAMARKAND

Samarkand is 150 miles by rail from Bokhārā. The line follows the

course of the Zarafshān, and passes through a carefully tilled country,

a large proportion of which is under cotton.[725] Rather less than

two-thirds is grown from acclimatised American seed (_gorsypium

hirsutum_) introduced by the Russians, whose persistent aim it has been

to render their mills independent of the United States. The seed is

sown in April, on soil which has been well ploughed and harrowed, the

proportion allowed being 21 pounds per acre. The fields are irrigated

thrice and kept scrupulously free from weeds. Towards the end of

September the ripe pods are picked and exposed in heaps for sale. In

average years an acre yields 1400 pounds, and gives a net return of

£5, 10s., considerably more than other crops. But the cultivator has

to face extraordinary fluctuations in market prices. In 1895, though

the harvest was exceptional in bulk and quality, the price advanced

to 4d. per pound, and the acre yielded £8. This flood of wealth thus

poured into the cultivator’s lap was the better appreciated because

the lowering of railway rates has rendered the production of bread

stuffs unremunerative. In point of fact, the Central Asian farmer is

suffering, like his comrade of the West, from the effect of free-trade

dogmas. The Russian Empire is a world within itself, blessed with

every variety of soil and climate, and gives ample scope for Cobden’s

theories. But cotton is essentially an object for _petite culture_.

Plantations have been tried without success, and few who raise this

lucrative crop devote to it more than one-eighth of their farm; in

other words, a plot of three-fourths of an acre. The intense pressure

of population on the soil causes a keen demand for cotton lands, and

speculators take advantage of the limited supply to engross large

areas, and sublet them in plots to tenants who agree to bring them the

whole produce. The profits are supposed to be divided equally, but

the landlord of course retains the lion’s share. The raw cotton is

sold in open market, and is either exported in the pod or purchased by

capitalists owning cotton-cleaning mills.[726] Speaking generally, the

prospects of the cultivator in the rich valley of the Zarafshān are not

very promising. The soil is a yellow loam of great natural richness,

but the incessant demands of a teeming population, continued for

hundreds, nay thousands, of years, have brought it within measurable

distance of exhaustion. Manuring is an imperative necessity, but cattle

are few owing to the absence of grazing grounds and fodder; and the

process can be repeated only once in three, or even six years. Thus

corn shows an ominous decrease in weight; a pound now contains only

16,800 grains, compared with nearly 20,000 a couple of decades back.

The Russians have to face a problem as difficult in its degree as that

which will one day cause a cataclysm in British India, the ever-growing

tendency of population to outstrip the means of subsistence.

Soon after passing the spick-and-span Russian town of Katta Kurgān,

the growing freshness of the air proclaims a higher level; and, in

point of fact, Samarkand is more than 2000 feet above the sea. At

last the eye, which so eagerly scanned the eastern horizon, lights

upon a sea of verdure, from which a fluted dome rises just as St.

Paul’s seems to float like a vast balloon over London fogs. There are

a few cities which touch a chord in him who sees them for the first

time. The glamour of their fallen majesty is heightened rather than

destroyed by the railway; for it brings before us, as if by magic, a

panorama often seen in spirit, and its prosaic surroundings serve as

a foil to the halo of romance which still lingers over the seat of

a vanquished empire. Who will ever forget the flood of associations

that overpowered him when he first heard “Roma” shouted by a railway

porter, or when he exchanged the roar of the train for the peace

which broods over the vista of palaces on the Grand Canal? The famous

city is, as in other cases, at a distance of several miles from the

railway station, the environs of which are crowded with the mean shops

and drinking-dens usually found in such places. The road thither,

as all the chief thoroughfares, is of great width, and overshadowed

by splendid trees. It is this feature of Samarkand landscapes, not

less than the innumerable gardens and vineyards in which one treads

knee-deep in luscious grapes, that stirred the imagination of Eastern

poets. In melodious strains the eternal city is styled the “Mirror of

the World,” “the Garden of Souls,” “the Fourth Paradise.” But Samarkand

was great and glorious ages before the good Hārūn er-Rashīd reigned in

Baghdād, or Sa´adi planted flowers of poesy in his Garden of Roses.

At Maracanda, in Transoxiana, Alexander of Macedon paused in his mad

career, and there he slew his faithful Clitus. Centuries glided by,

and it became Sa-mo-kien, the most western province of the Celestial

Empire. Then the tide of Mohammedan conquest rolled over Samarkand;

followed by the rule of the Seljūk Turks, destined five centuries later

to extend their sway from Mongolia to Constantinople. The old city now

became what Moorish Spain was--a chosen abode of all the arts that

adorn and sweeten life. The whole fabric of civilisation was drowned in

blood by the ruthless Chingiz Khān, and the ruin of Samarkand seemed

irretrievable. It was lifted from the dust by a greater genius than

Chingiz. Tīmūr made Samarkand the “eye and star” of an empire which

extended over a third of the known world; and to his loving care belong

the works of art which, in hopeless ruin, still excite the admiration

of mankind. Their glories were soon obliterated by the uncouth Uzbegs;

and 150 years ago the city site was a waste scored with mounds and

caverns from which the ruined churches and colleges of a happier age

soared heavenwards in desecrated majesty. It became a province of

Bokhārā and the residence of the Amīrs during the summer heats, and

commerce slowly revived. The story of the last wave of invasion which

swept over Samarkand has already been told in these pages.

Chief among the monuments of this war-worn city is the tomb of Tīmūr,

spoken of throughout Central Asia as _Gūr Amīr_--the Amīr’s sepulchre,

just as our fathers styled Wellington “the Duke.” It is approached

through a double avenue of poplars, which terminates at a gateway

ornamented with faience and flanked by ruined minarets. Behind these

stands an octagonal structure with a deeply fluted dome. The entrance

on the left of the tomb leads to a vaulted corridor, and then to a

chamber 35 feet square, with a cupola 115 feet from the floor. On

each side there is an arched recess with Alhambresque mouldings, and

the walls are covered with six-sided plates of transparent gypsum.

The interior is severely simple, as becomes the last resting-place of

so great a man. “Only a stone,” whispered the dying emperor; “and my

name upon it!” And so he rests beneath a block of dark-green jade--the

largest in the world.[727] On the right of the conqueror’s memorial

stone is one of grey marble commemorating his grandson Ulugh Beg, a

distinguished astronomer, who compiled tables showing the position of

the fixed stars, admitted to be the best which have come down to us

from Mohammedan times. In the recess facing Mekka there hangs a large

standard with a pendant of horse-hair, emblem of a militant faith; and

between it and Tīmūr’s tomb is a grey marble slab dedicated to his

friend and tutor, Mir Sayyid Barākā, for whom he built this mausoleum

in 1386.[728] The recess in the east contains a slab of granite

erected to a descendant of the Prophet, named Hājjī Imām `Umr. The

central group of cenotaphs, numbering eight in all, is surrounded by

a balustrade in fretwork of transparent gypsum. The actual tombs are

in a crypt of exquisite proportions, which is reached by a flight

of steps. Here lies all that is mortal of one whose empire extended

from the Vistula to the China Seas, who in the brief intervals between

his conquering expeditions found time to embellish his capital with

structures which, even in their decay, rank among the wonders of the

world.

[Illustration: THE SHĪR DĀR MADRASA, SAMARKAND]

The centre of Samarkand life is the great open market-square called

the Rīgistān. Its southern side is open to the street, and the other

three are occupied by as many great colleges, or madrasas. That which

stands on the east side was built in the time of Imām Kulī Khān (1648),

and is known as the Shīr Dār (or the Lion-bearing), from uncouth

representations of the Lion and Sun of Persia on the four corners above

its gigantic recessed portal. At either extremity of the façade rise

melon-shaped domes and tall minarets leaning outwards. That nearest

the street exhibits a frieze of dog’s-tooth mouldings, resembling

those which occur in our oldest Norman churches. A cloister-like

passage gives access to an immense courtyard surrounded by cubicles and

classrooms in two storeys, each pair under an enamelled arch. A flight

of brickwork stairs leads to the summit of the lofty gateway, whence

one has a view which is second to none in Asia. The eye ranges over a

leafy sea, from which vast raised arches and domes emerge, and rests on

snow-clad mountains which close the horizon on the north and east. The

madrasa of Tilā Kārī, on the north side, is so styled from a plating

of gold-foil under translucent enamel which covers the holy place of

a mosque on the left of its courtyard.[729] That founded by Tīmūr’s

astronomer grandson, Ulugh Beg, is opposite Shīr Dār, and is the

smallest but most beautiful of the group. Unhappily, it has suffered

even more than the others from earthquakes. Of the five minarets

which once adorned its angles, that on the south-east has fallen, and

the rest are much out of the perpendicular. This universal tendency

of Samarkand minarets is a standing enigma to visitors. That these

minarets are out of the perpendicular may be easily proved by ascending

one of them and lowering a plumb-line; but it will probably continue

to excite controversy till these forlorn towers have crumbled into

ruins. Such has already been the fate of the grandest of Samarkand’s

monuments, the Bībī Khānūm, which stands on rising ground north-east

of the Rīgistān. Like the Tāj Mahāl of Agra, it records a widowed

husband’s passionate sorrow; for she who sleeps below was Tīmūr’s most

loved wife, the daughter of the emperor of China. The actual tomb is

a mass of shapeless ruins, for centuries of gross neglect have done

their work, and a climax was given to the work of Time’s destroying

hand by an earthquake which shook Samarkand on the 5th November 1897.

The approach lies through a gateway which scarcely retains a trace of

the original design. This opens on a garden with a mosque on either

side, while the front is occupied by a building which still inspires

awe by its grandeur and perfect proportions. The front exhibits a

recessed portal, sixty feet wide and higher than that of Peterborough

Cathedral, and an octagonal minaret at either extremity. Between

them rises a stupendous dome, with a double frieze of blue, green,

and yellow enamel, on which texts from the Koran gleam brightly in

gold lettering. The interior is a square of fifty feet, adorned with

arabesques. In the centre once stood a colossal _rahla_, or lectern

of white marble, which once held a Koran, spreading over fifty-four

square feet when open. A tradition has it that Bībī Khānūm, who founded

this noble mosque, was wont to read it from a window set high in

the wall.[730] The _rahla_ is supported by nine pillars just high

enough to admit of a man crawling under it--a painful process often

undergone as a cure for lumbago and sciatica. It has now been removed

to the courtyard, to avert the destruction which would result from a

collapse of the entire structure. For the blue sky is seen through a

rent extending over a third of the surface of the mighty dome; and a

side view reveals an outer and an inner skin, like those of St. Paul’s,

with the staircase leading to the summit. The portal is in worse

plight; but so solid was the old builders’ handiwork that the arch is

still intact though the brickwork is a mere shell. The Russians must

be held responsible for the forlorn state of the Bībī Khānūm. When

they entered on their glorious inheritance the power of disintegration

might have been arrested. But they were content to see the stately

mosque degraded to the base uses of a cotton-market and a stable,[731]

and the vast revenues bequeathed by the piety of another age diverted

from their proper uses by a horde of greedy and callous priests. They

may, however, plead in mitigation of the world’s censure, that lack of

funds has impeded their efforts to preserve these relics of a mighty

past.[732] If Generals Kauffman or Abramoff had been asked to vouchsafe

a grant for archæological purposes they would doubtless have replied,

as William Pitt did to Benjamin Haydon’s suggestion that a national

gallery of paintings should be established: “We want all the money we

can scrape together to buy powder and shot with.”

[Illustration: THE BĪBĪ KHĀNŪM, SAMARKAND]

In a suburb half a mile north-east of the Bībī Khānūm stands a

sepulchre of a different type. It is that of Kāsim ibn `Abbās, a saint

who endured martyrdom in an attempt to convert the fire-worshippers

of Samarkand. Tradition adds that he picked up his severed head,

like St. Denis, and retired with it to a well, whence he is destined

to emerge in the hour of Islām’s triumph. The Shāh Zindah, “Living

Saint,” has a tomb erected by Tīmūr,[733] which is entered by a brick

gateway rich in blue and white faience, opening on a street of tombs

with some resemblance to the Appian Way. On either side of a flight

of steps, which once were of marble, ascending the side of a ravine,

are a series of mausolea erected in honour of members of Tīmūr’s

family, his generals, and trusted servants. The gates and façades are

encrusted with glorious faience. A photograph might convey a faint

impression of the exquisite form of pillars shaped like palm-trees,

the artistic design of the scrollwork and tracery. A consummate

master of colouring alone could reproduce the harmony in dark blue,

turquoise, yellow, and green of this unrivalled panelling. The common

belief is that the porcelain which is seen in such perfection at the

Shāh Zindah was evolved in ancient Persia. It was undoubtedly brought

by the Mongols from China.[734] The decoration of the Constantinople

mosques, especially those dating from the golden age of Sulaymān the

Magnificent, is similar to the specimens so much admired at Samarkand.

The vista closes with the holy man’s tomb, which is approached by a

suite of halls adorned with arabesques and beautifully carved wooden

pillars. It is a mosque hung with offerings from the faithful. Visitors

are allowed by the attendant priests to peer through a carved screen

into a sombre vault, in which the faint outline of a funeral stone

is seen, covered with costly shawls. Shāh Zindah has suffered less

than its unfortunate neighbours owing to its smaller dimensions; but

systematic repairs carried out by experts are urgently needed. All that

has been done by the present masters of Samarkand is to prevent the

wholesale pilfering of coloured tiles.