&k4:,u w. BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF 1S9X AUAASLI-. ^^^^a.3.. 5474 D 378 C98 '"*" ""'*'*'*">' '-'''™'^ Russia in central Asia in 1B89 & the Ana 3 1924 027 822 422 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027822422 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA rmsTRn by sro'n'iswooDE axd co., n-e^v-stjieet square RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA IN 1889 AND THE ANGLO -EU SSI AN QUESTION BY THE HON. GEOEGE N. CUEZON, M.P. PEHOW OP ALL SOULS COLLEQE, OXFORD Kt^ gippcnbias, Paps, |Unstraticns, anb an |)tbij£ 'Upon the Bussiau frontier, where The watchers of two armies stand Near one another ' Matthew Abnold The Sick King in Bokhara LONDON LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST IG'" STEEET 1889 All rijhls reserved TO THE GREAT AEMY OP RUSSOPHOBES WHO MISLEAD OTHERS, AND RUSSOPHILES WHOM OTHERS MISLEAD I DEDICATE THIS BOOK WHICH WILL BE FOUND EQUALLY DISRESPECTFUL TO THE IGNOBLE TERRORS OP THE ONE AND THE PERVERSE COMPLACENCY OF THE OTHERS PEEFACE Tpie nucleus of this book — less than one- third of its present dimensions — appeared in the shape of a series of articles, entitled 'Eussia in Central Asia,' which I contributed to the ' Manchester Courier ' and other lead- ing English provincial newspapers, in the months of November and December 1888, and January 1889. These articles were descriptive of a journey which I had taken in the months of September and October 1888, along the newly-constructed Transcaspian Eail- way, through certain of the Central Asian dominions of the Czar of Eussia. Exigencies of space, however, and the limitations of journalistic propriety, prevented me from including in my letters a good deal of information which I had obtained ; and were, of course, fatal to the incorporation with the narrative of illustrations or maps. Written, too, at a distance from works of refer- ence, and depending in some cases upon testimony which I had no opportunity to verify or support, my former articles contained errors which I have since been viii RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA able to correct. These considerations, and the desire to place before the public in a more coherent and easily accessible shape the latest information about the in- teresting regions which I traversed, have encouraged me almost entirely to rewrite, and to publish in a more careful and extended form, my somewhat fragmentary original contributions, to which in the interval I have also been enabled to add a mass of entirely new material. If the impress of their early character be in places at all perceptibly retained, it is because I am strongly of opinion that in descriptions of travel first thoughts are apt to be the best, and have consequently sometimes shrunk from depriving my narrative of such vividness or colour as it may have gained from being originally written upon the spot. Eeferences, figures, and statistics, I have subjected to verification ; while such sources of contemporary history as relate to my subject I have diligently explored. In the absence of any Eusslan pubhcations corresponding to the Blue Books and voluminous reports of the English Govern- ment Departments, it is extremely difficult to acquire full or precise information about Eussian afiairs. But such sources as were open to me in newspapers, articles, &c., I have industriously studied. I trust, therefore, that substantial accuracy may be predicated of these pages ; for, in a case where the inferences to be drawn are both of high political significance, and are abso- lutely dependent upon the correct statement of. facts, I should hold it a crime to deceive. PREFACE ix A few words of explanation as to wliat these chap- ters do, and what they do not, profess to be. Their pre- tensions are of no very exalted order. They are, in the main, a record of a journey, taken under circumstances of exceptional advantage and ease, through a country, the interest of which to English readers consists no longer in its physical remoteness and impenetrability, but rather in the fact that those conditions have just been superseded by a new order of things, capable at any moment of bringing it under the stern and immediate notice of Englishmen, as the theatre of imperial diplo- macy ; possiblj' — quod di avertant omen — as the thresh- old of international war. Travel nowadays, at least in parts to which the railway has penetrated, is unattended with risk and is relatively shorn of adventure — a de- cadence which separates my story by a wide gulf of division from that of earlier visitors to the Transcaspian regions. These pursued their explorations slowly and laboriously, either in disguise or armed to the teeth, amid suspicious and fanatical peoples, over burning deserts and through intolerable sands. The later traveller, as he follows in comparative comfort the route of which they were the suffering pioneers, may at once admire their heroism and profit by their experi- ence. "With such forerunners, therefore, I do not pre- sume to enter into the most remote competition. JSIor, again, can I emulate the credentials of others, who, without necessarily having visited the country itself, have yet, assisted by an intimate acquaintance X RUSSIA IX CEN2RAL ASIA witli the Eussian language, devoted years of patiei apiDlication to the problems which it unfolds, and, '< in the case of Mr. Demetrius Boulger and Mr. Charh Marvin in particular, have produced many valuab. works for tlie instruction of their fellow-countrymei I did not, however, start upon my journey withoi having made myself thoroughly acquainted with the opinions and researches ; nor have these pages bee written without subsequent study of every availab' authority. The one distinguishing merit that I can feai lessly claim for them is that of posteriority in poii of time. No work in the English language has a] peared on this branch of the Central Asian Questio for five years ; and those five years have marked a incalculable advance in the character and dimensior of the problem. With unimpeachable truth Skobele once wrote in a letter : ' In Central Asia the position ( affairs changes not every hour, but every minuti Therefore I say. Vigilance, vigilance, vigilance.' Tl title of my book, 'Eussia in Central Asia in 188£ will sufficiently indicate my desire that it should be ii terpreted as an account of the status quo brought up t date — i.e. to the autumn of the year 1889. One other claim I make for these pages — viz. th; they approach a problem, which in its reference 1 Englishmen is almost exclusively political, from a pol tical point of view. Central Asia has its charms f( the historian, the archaeologist, the artist, the man i science, the dilettante traveller, for every class, indeei PREFACE xi from the erudite to tlie idle. A wide field of research and a plentiful return await the explorer in each of these fields. Although I have not been entirely forgetful of their interests, and although references to these subjects will be found dispersed throughout the volume, I have preferred in the main to concentrate my attention upon such points as will appeal to those who, whether as actors or as spectators of public affairs, feel a concern in the foreign policy of the Empire. Earlier travellers, such as the Hungarian Vambery, the American Schuyler, the French Bonvalot, the Swiss Moser, the English Lansdell, have devoted themselves more closely to the customs, habits, and character of the natives — to what I may call the local colouring of the Central Asian picture. In these respects I have not aspired to follow in their footsteps. It is not my aim to produce a mag- nified Baedeker's Handbook to Transcaspia. I assume a certain foreknowledge on the part of my readers with the chronology of Eussian advance, and with the nature of the conquered regions ; and I endeavour only to place clearly before them the present situation of affairs as modified, if not revolutionised, by the construction of the Transcaspian Eailway ; and so to enable them to form a dispassionate judgment upon the achievements, policy, and objects of Eussia, as well as upon the becoming attitude and consequent responsibilities of England. In the three concluding chapters I enter upon a wider field and discuss the present aspect of the Central Asian problem — a question which no writer should xii IiU,S.SIA IN' GEXTEAL ASIA approach witliout a consciousness of its magnitude, o venture to decide without long previous study. Ill the interest of would-be travellers— speaking o Central Asia one may still decline to use the wore tourist — I would say in passing, that if they are fortu nate enough to obtain leave from St. Petersburg (nc mereljr formal undertaking, as the sequel will show) they will do wisely to make the journey as soon a they can. Let them not be deterred by exaggeratec accounts of the inhospitality of the region, or the hard ships of the road. There is enough to repay them fo: any personal inconvenience or material discomfort The present is a moment of unique, because transitory interest in the life of the Oriental countries throug] which the railway leads. It is the blank leaf betweei the pages of an old and a new dispensation ; the brie interval separating a compact and immemorial traditioi from the rude shock and unfeeling Philistinism of nine teenth-century civilisation. The era of the Thousani and One Nights, with its strange mixture of savager; and splendour, of coma and excitement, is fast fadin away, and wiU soon have yielded up all its secrets t science. Here, in the cities of Alp Arslan, and Timu] and Abdullah Klian, may be seen the sole remainin stage upon which is yet being enacted that expirin drama of realistic romance. I must acknowledge a weight of obligation in man quarters. To the Eoyal Geographical Society I am particularl PREFACE xiii indebted for the permission to reprint many of the details, contained in a paper on the Transcaspian Eailway, which I read before that body in March last, and which is published in their Proceedings for May ; and, stiL. more, for the loan of the map of Central Asia, executed under their instructions from the latest in- formation supplied by travellers, as well as from English andEussian official maps. For the frontier lines, as de- lineated therein, I am responsible ; but I believe them to be absolutely correct. M. Lessar, now Eussian Consul-General at Liverpool, and formerly political attache to the Eussian Staff on the Afghan Boundary Commission, has placed me under a great obligation by the loan of several of the photographs, which have been reproduced in this volume ; and by the kindness which induced him to peruse my original articles, and to supply me with the means of correcting sundry errors, as well as of amplifying the information, which they contained. For the remainder of the illustrations I am indebted to the courtesy of Major C. E. Yate, C.S.I., C.M.G., recently one of the English Boundary Commissioners in Afghanistan ; of Mr. Charles Marvin, who lent me some illustrations from Eussian newspapers, drawn by the clever pencil of the Eussian artist Karazin ; and of private friends. Of the whole of them I may say that, to the best of my knowledge, they are new to English readers, and have not previously appeared in any English work, or, in fact, in any work at all. xiv RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA I must also thank tlie Editor of the 'Fortnightly Eeview ' for permission to re-avail myself of some of the material contained in an article upon Bokhara, which I contributed to that magazine in January 1889. In the appendix I have included some directions for travellers ; a table of distances in Central Asia ; a chronological table, drawn up by myself, of British and Eussian movements in Central Asia in this century, which may help to elucidate the narrative ; and a Bibliography, which, without pretending to be exhaus- tive, claims to include the principal works to which a student will find it necessary to have recourse in follow- ing the history of British or Eussian advance in Persia, Afghanistan, Turkestan, and Transcaspia, and in ac- quiring some familiarity with the history of those coun- tries. I have compiled it with great care, and with much labour, seeing that many of the titles are included in no extant collection. Finally, let me say that I shall welcome with grati- tude any corrections that, in the event of a later edition, or of further publication upon the same subject, may redeem error or impart greater accuracy. GEOEGE N. CURZON. CONTENTS PAGE Memoranda ... xxiv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Eussian railways to the Caspian — Proposed Vladikavkas-Petrovsk line — Caucasus tunnel — Length of journey— Previous travel in Central Asia — Foreign travellers on the Transcaspian Eailway — Previous writers on the Transcaspian EaUway — Justification for a new work — Varied interest of Central Asia — Political in- terest — Eussian designs upon India — The Frontier Question . CHAPTER II FROM LONDON TO THE CASPIAN Journey to St. Petersburg — ^Difficulty in obtaining permission — Ob- servations on Eussian character — Hostility to Germany and the Germans — Policy of Alexander III. — Eussian feeling to- wards England — Eussian feeling towards Austria and France — Continuation of journey — -Permission granted — From St. Peters- burg to Tiflis — From Tiflis to Baku and the Caspian — Approach to Uzun Ada 15 CHAPTER III THE TRANSCASPIAN RAILWAY Origin of the idea of a Central Asian railway — Scheme of M. Ferdi- nand de Lesseps — Attitude of England — Idea of a Transcaspian railway— Adoption of the plan by Skobeleff— Completion to RUSSIA IX GENTUAL ASIA Kizil Arvat in December 1881— Ideas of further extension- Opposition to the Transcaspian scheme— Extension from Kizil Arvat to the Oxus— From the Oxus to Samarkand— Technical information about the line— Exclusively military character —Material of the Hne— Character and pay of the vi'orkmen— Method of construction- Cost — Facilities of construction — Difficulties of water — Difficulties of sand — Contrivances to resist the sands — Difficulty of fuel and lighting — Rolling-stock of the railway — Stations — Duration and cost of journey ... 34 CHAPTER IV FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV Uzun Ada, present and future — Start from Uzun Ada — Character of the scenery — The Persian mountains — The desert of Kara Kum —The fom- oases — Vegetation of the oases — The Akhal- Tekke oasis — Statistics of its resources — The desert landscape —Variations of chmate— G-eok Tepe, the old Turkoman fortress— Story of the siege of &eok Tepe —Preparations for assault — Assault and capture, January 24, 1881 — Pursuit and massacre of the Turko- mans — Impression left upon the conquered — Skobeleff and the massacre — His principle of warfare — Character of Skobeleff — His marvellous courage — His caprice — Idiosyncrasies — Anec- dotes of his whims — Story of the Persian Khan — Final criticism — Turkoman peasants — Askabad — Government of Transcaspia — Eesom'ces and taxation — Buildings of the town — Strategical importance of Askabad and roads into Persia — Use of the rail- way by pilgrims to Meshed and Mecca — The Atek oasis and Dushak — Refusal of permission to visit Kelat and Meshed — Kelat-i-Nadiri — The Tejend oasis 63 CHAPTER V FROM MERV TO THE OXUS Appearance of the modern Merv — The Russian town — History of the ancient Merv— British travellers at Merv — Russian annexa- tion in 1884— Fertility, resources, and popxilation of the oasis- Administration, taxation, and irrigation — Trade returns— Future development of the oasis — Turkoman character — Strateo-ioa! im- portance of Merv— Ferment on the Afghan frontier arising out of the revolt of Is-hal Klian — Movements of Is-hak and Ab- durrahman — Colonel Alikhanoff, Governor of Merv The Turko- CONTENTS xvii ., . . PAGE man militia— Possible increase of the force— The Turkoman horses— The Khans of Merv at Baku— The ruined fortress of Koushid Khan Kala— Old cities of Merv— Emotions of the traveller — Central Asian scenery — The sand-dunes again — Description of the ancients — Difficulties of the railway — The Oxus — Width and appearance of the channel — General Annen- koff's railway bridge — Its temporary character — The Oxus flotilla 105 CHAPTER VI BOKHARA THE NOBLE Continuation of the railway to Bokhara — Scenery of the Khanate — Approach to the city — Attitude of the Bokhariots towards the railway — New Eussian town — Political condition of the Khan- ate — Accession of the reigning Amir — Seid Abdul Ahad — Aboli- tion of slavery — Novel security of access — History of Bokhara — Previous English visitors to Bokhara — Road from the station to the city — The Eussian Embassy — Native population — Foreign elements — An industrial people — Bokharan vifomen — Religious buildings and practice — The Great Minaret — Criminals hurled from the summit — Assassination of the Divan Begi — Torture of the murderer — Interior of the city — The Righistan — The Citadel and State prison — The Great Bazaar — Curiosities and manufactures — Brass and copper vi^are — Barter and currency — Russian monopoly of import trade from Europe — Eussian firms in the city — Statistics of trade — Effects of the railway — Restric- tions on the sale of liquor — Mussulman inebriety — Survival of ancient customs — Dr. Heyfelder — The reshta, or guinea- worm of Bokhara — Bokharan army — Native court and cere- monial — Tendency to incorporation — Transitional epoch at Bokhara ........... 151 CHAPTER VII 8AMAEKAND AND TASHKENT The Zerafshan valley— Bokharan irrigation— Danger to the city- Possible reforms— Population and fertility of the Samarkand district— History of Samarkand— Description of monuments renounced— The Eussian town— Modern pubho buildings- Change wrought by the railway— Absurd rumour of restoration to Bokhara— The Citadel— Zmdan, or prison— The ancient city —Tomb of Tamerlane— The Eighistan - Leaning minarets— a EUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA Material of structure— Samples of the best Arabian style— Buins of Bibi Khanym— Shah-Zindeh— Need of a Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments— Sunset at Samarkand — Russian garrison- Population — Eefuge of political exiles — Journey to Tashkent — The tarantass — Stages of the route — Euins of Afrasiab— Bridge of Shadman-Melik— Gates of Tamer- ane — The Waste of Hunger — The Syr Daria and approach to Tashkent — Great fertility — The two cities and societies — Politi- cal banishment — General Kosenbach and the peace poHcy — Native education — Government House — Public buildings — Ancient or native city — General Prjevalski and Lhasa — Statis- tics of population — Eesomxes, manufactiu-es, and commerce — System of government — Eevenue and expenditure — Territorial expansion of Eussia 204 CHAPTER VIII EXTENSIONS AND EFFECTS OF THE TRANSCASPIAN RAILWAY Extension to Tashkent — Its advantages — Bourdalik and Karshi Line — Tcharjui and Kerki branch— Herat extension — Merv and Penjdeh branch — Proposed junction with the Indian railway system — Grave drawbacks : (i.) Fiscal, (ii.) Political — Favour- able estimate of the Transcaspian Eailway — Possible strain in time of war — Political effects of the railway — Absorption of Turkomania — Influence upon Persia — Increased prestige of Eussia — Commercial effects — Annenkoff's prophecies — Com- mercial policy and success of Eussia — Eussian economic policy of strict protection — Its operation in Central Asia — Russian trade with Afghanistan — Imports and exports — Anglo-Indian transit trade — British trade with Afghanistan — Quotation from Foreign Office Eeport — Eussian monopoly in Northern Persia and Khorasan — Destruction of British trade with Northern Persia — Commercial future of the Transcaspian Railway — Strategical consequences of the line — Shifting of centre of gravity in Central Asia — Greater proximity of base — Comparison of present with former facilities — Russian power of attack — Lines of invasion : (i.) Caspian and Herat Line — Strength and location of the Eussian forces in Transcaspia — Reinforcements from Europe — Ditiieulty of Caspian marine transport — Latest iicrures Difficulty of landing-places— Difficulty of supplies— Serious in Transcaspia — Importance of Khorasan — Complicity of Persia — Addition to offensive power of Eussia — (ii.) Strength and utility of Turkestan Army— Total Russian strength for inva- sion—Strength of Anglo-Indian Ar-my for offensive purposes CONTENTS PAOB British and Eussian reinforcements— The issue— Eussian views of the Transoaspian Eailway as a means of offence . . . 260 CHAPTER IX THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN QUESTION Existence of the problem — Personal impressions — Haphazard charac- ter of Eussian foreign policy — Arising from form of Govern- ment — Independence of frontier officers — Responsibility for Eussian mala fides — Compulsory character of Eussian advance ■ — Eussian conquest of India a chimera — Eussian attack upon India a danger — Candid avowal of Skobeleff^Evidence of past history — Schemes of Eussian invasion : (i.) 1791, (ii.) 1800, (iii.) 18C7, (iv.) 1837, (v.) 1855— Gortchakoff-GranviUe agree, ment of 1872-73— (vi.) 1878— Skobeleff 's plan for the invasion of India — MOitary operations — Later movements — Subsequent schemes — Civilian endorsement — M. Zinovieff — Eeality of Anglo-Eussian question now universally admitted — Eussian illusions about British rule in India — Evidence of Eussian generals — Eeal feeling in India — Eegrettable Eussian ignorance ' — Eussian lines of invasion : (i.) From the Pamir, (ii.) From Samarkand and the Oxus — New Eusso-Afghan frontier — (iii.) Upon Herat — Corresponding Indian frontier — Diagram of the two railway systems — Comparison of the rival advantages — England's obhgations to Afghanistan — Their right interpre- tation — Beductio ad absurdum — Counter obligations of Afghanistan — British relations with Afghanistan in the past — Synopsis of policy pursued — Character of Abdurrahman Khan — His health and the future — Suggested partition of Afghanistan — The Afghan army — Sentiments of the Afghans towards Eussia and England — The future of Ajfghan independ- ence — Prestige of Eussian numbers — Policy of appointing British officers in Afghanistan — Impending developments of the Anglo-Eussian question — (i.) Ba1kh -Kabul line of advance — (ii.) The Persian question — Eussian ascendency and Persian weakness — Eeal aim of Eussian policy in Persia — An eye upon the Persian Gulf — British pohcy in rejoinder — Opening up of Seistan — Effects of a Seistan railway — Summary of this chapter 313 CHAPTER X RUSSIAN EULE IN CENTKAL ASIJv Merits and demerits of Eussian rule— Abolition of raids and gift of security— Eussian power firmly established — Its ca,uses— RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA PAGE Meraory of slaughter — Overpowering military strength of Eussia — Certainty that she will not retreat — Popularity of • Eussia — Laissez-faire attitude — Treatment of native chiefs — Conciliation of native peoples — Defects of Eussian character — Low civilisation — Attitude towards Mahometan religion — Towards native education — Bravery and endurance of Eussian character — Mihtary ease of Eussian advance — Contrast be- tween English and Eussian facilities — Comparative security of dominions — Seamy side of Eussian civihsation — Bad roads — General conclusions as to Eussian Government — Schemes for regeneration of the country — Irrigation — Diversion of the Oxus to its old bed — Cotton plantation — Sericulture and viticulture — Colonisation — Attitude of Great Britain — Eesponsibilities of Eussia ........... 382 APPENDICES I. Table of Stations and Distances on the Teanscaspian Eailway 415 II. Table of Distances in Central Asia .... 417 III. Chronology of Events in Central Asia, 1800-89 . . 421 IV. Directions to Travellers in Transcaspia . ." . 429 V. Treaty between Eussia and Bokhara (1873) . . . 432 VI. Treaty between Eussia and Persia (1881) . . . 43G VII. Bibliography op Central Asia 440 INDEX 4Q9 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS FVLL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS Cleaeing away tse Sand To ft Landing-place and Teeminus of Uzun Ada The Turkoman Militia The Pour Khans of Meev The Beg of Tchaejci and his Coubt .... Opening of the Oxus Beidge. Panorama of Bokhara KusH Begi and Amir of Bokhaea The Great Minaret The Eighktan of Bokhara ... Inteeioe of the Tomb of Tamerlane . Medresse of Shir Dae at Samaekand . ... Medeesse of Ulug Beg Inteeioe of Medresse of Tillah Kari . Eomanoff Street in Russian Tashkent Panorama of Native Tashkent •■ 2). 56 62 128 132 144 148 152 158 178 184 218 220 222 224 240 248 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT PAGE Wharf at Baku — Persian Area — Persian Watee-oart — Oil-wells OF Balakhani 31 General Annbnkofp 39 Section of Working-teain on the Transcaspian Bailway . . 50 Laying the Bails 51 Fixing the Telegraph-wires near Uzun Ada 65 TJzuN Ada, the Sand-dunes, the Kopet Dagh, and the Kara KuM 67 Train of Watee-cisteens 70 The Persian Mountains and the Desert 71 Turkoman Ktbitkas 74 Turkoman Village and Oechaeds 93 Tekke Chiefs of the Tejend Oasis 103 Bridge over the Mueghab at Merv 107 Aksakals, or Elders of Merv 120 Turkoman Horsemen 130 The Foet of Koushid Khan Kala 134 Ruins of Bairam Ali 135 Tomb of Sultan Sanjue 137 Buined Caeavanserai at Bairam Ali 138 The Bailway and the Sands 143 The Oxus Flotilla 149 Gate and Wall of Bokhara 168 BussiAN Embassy at Bokhara 169 Jews of Bokhara 173 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii PAGE Medresse at Bokhaea 176 Main Street of Bokhara 181 LlABEHAUS DlYAN BeGI 182 Military Parade at Bokhara 198 Palace of the Amir 200 jovernor's House at Samarkand 214 jur Amir, or Tomb of Tamerlane 218 Ruins of Bibi Khanym at Samarkand 224 [nterior of the Medebsse of Bibi Khanym 225 Mausoleum of Shah Zindeh 227 TcHAESU, or Bazaar, at Samarkand 231 !^EW EussiAN Cathedral at Tashkent 246 Military Club at Tashkent 247 Beglee Beg Medeesse, Tashkent 250 MAPS. Russian Central Asia and the Teanscaspian Eailway To face p. 1 Skeleton Map of Railway Communication between Europe and Central Asia „ 313 MEMORANDA The dates in this book are reckoned by the English Calendar, New style, being twelve days in advance of the Greek and Russi, Calendar, or Old style. The rouble is computed as equivalent two shillings in English money. One verst = | mile. One poi (weight) = 36 English lbs. BUSSIA IN CENTIiAL ASIA CHAPTEE I INTEODUCTOEY ' No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of Truth.'— Bacon. Essay I. Of Truth. Russian railways to the Caspian — Proposed Vladikavkas-Petrovsk line — Caucasus tunnel — Length of journey — Previous travel in Central Asia — Foreign travellers on the Transcaspian EaUvifay — Previous writers on the Transcaspian Bailway — Justification for a new work — Varied interest of Central Asia — Political interest — Eussian designs upon India — The Frontier Question. I PEOPOSE in this book to narrate the impressions Eussian 11 1 11 railways derived from a journey along the newly- completed to the 1 /-i . Caspian Eussian line of railway from the Caspian to Samar- kand. On May 27, 1888, although the line was still in a backward condition, and could not certainly be described as available for general traffic, the long- expected ceremonial of opening took place ; and the name of General AnnenkofF was flashed to all quarters of the globe as that of the man who had successfully accomplished a feat till lately declared to be impos- sible, and had linked by an unbroken chain of steam ■2 RUSSIA IJ CENTRAL ASIA locomotion the capital of Peter the Great with the capital of Tamerlane. Along the most direct roiite from St. Petersburg to the terminus at Samarkand there exist now only two breaks to the through com- munication by rail, viz. the 135 miles of mountain road between Vladikavkas on the northern spurs of the Caucasus and Tifiis on the south, and the pas- sage of the Caspian. Proposed The former, it is said, will soon be obviated by a kavkas- railway, for which plans and surveys have already Petrovsk • i -r» • r^ Line been made, and which the Eussian Grovernment has been strongly petitioned to construct, from Vladi- kavkas to Petrovsk on the Caspian, a distance of 165 miles. The cost of this branch has been estimated at an average of 10,000/. a mile. From Petrovsk the line would be continued south along the western shore of the Caspian to Derbent and Baku, at an additional cost of 500,000/. Such a line, apart from its military advantages, might acquire great com- mercial importance, as affording an easy and un- interrupted entry into European Eussia from the Caspian, the port of Petrovsk being open to naviga- tion all the year round, while the Volga is closed by ice in the winter. It is a project which we may therefore expect to see carried out before long. Caucasus It has also been proposed, as an alternative, to Tunnel '- '- ' drive the railroad by a tunnel through the heart of the main Caucasian range, from Vladikavkas, or a point west of Vladikavkas on the northern, to Gori on the southern side, where it would join the Batoum- Tiflis line, the total distance from point to point being INTRODUCTORY 3 110 miles. Shorter and more expeditious as this route would be, it would involve long and laborious tunnelling, as well as a prodigious outlay, the official estimate being over 30,000^. a mile. It is accordingly extremely improbable that it will, for some time at any rate, be taken in hand. In any case, while either line remains unlaid, and the Kazbek range continues, as now, to be traversable by road alone, a supplemen- tary steam route is provided by the Black Sea Service from Odessa or Sebastopol to Batoum-, whence the railroad runs direct to Baku on the Caspian. The second interruption which I named to the through transit by rail from the western to the eastern terminus, viz. the Caspian, involves marine transport, and a short sea crossing of nineteen, which might easily be reduced to fifteen or sixteen, hours. Even under the present conditions, which in them- Length of selves are far from developed, the journey from St. Petersburg to Samarkand can be accomplished in ten or eleven days, and with a more apt correspondence of trains and steamers might easily be accelerated. When one or other of the afore-mentioned schemes has been carried into effect, two days at least may be struck off this total. Prior to the construction of this railway the op- previous T-1 1 ■ 1 «... -. travel in portunities enjoyed by Englishmen oi visitmg the central region which it now lays open had been few and far between. Since the intrepid Dr. "Wolff penetrated at the risk of his life to Bokhara in 1843, to clear up the fate of Stoddart and ConoUy in the preceding year, there was no English visitor to the city of the 4 ErSSJA IN CENTRAL ASIA Amir till the so-called missionary, Dr. Lansdell, in 1882. Similarly, before the publication of the latter 's book, we owed in the main such descriptions as we have in our own language of Samarkand to the pen of a Hungarian in the person of Professor Vambery, and of an American in that of Mr. Schuyler. As regards other parts of the till now forbidden region, Merv, though visited by Burnes, Abbott, Shakespear, Thomson, and Wolff between 1832 and 1844, relapsed after that date into obscurity, and was little more than a mysterious name to most Englishmen till the adventurous exploit of O'Donovan in 1881 ; and it is difficult to realise that a place which less than a decade ago was pronounced to be the key of the Indian Empire is now an inferior wayside station on a Eussian line of rail. Such elTorts as were made at different times by independent British officers, often in disguise and at the peril of their lives, to explore the terra incognita on the borders of Persia and Afghanistan, were sedulously discouraged by the Home or Indian Government, in nervous deference to Muscovite sensitiveness, ever ready to take um- brage at an activity displayed by others which it has ostentatiously incited in its own pioneers. Colonel Valentine Baker recalled from the Atrek region in 1873, Captain Burnaby from Khiva in 1875, Colonel MacGregor from Meshed in 1875, and Colonel Stewart from Persia in 1881, all attest the mistaken policy of abandoned opportunities, and the tactical blunder of allowing a rival mariner to steal your wind. Although the alniost insuperable difficulties INTRODUCTORY 5 hitherto connected with travel in these parts have Foreign now disappeared, it cannot be said that all impedi- on the Transcaa- ments to the iourney have ceased to exist; while, pi™ '' •' ' ' Eailway even if they had, the necessary resources of explora- tion are not such as any but a few individuals will in all probability possess. The Eussian Government, which has always looked with extreme irritation upon the intrusion of Englishmen into its Asiatic terri- tories, is not likely to have been converted ofF-hand by the cosmopolitan professions of General Annenkoff, and can hardly be suspected of such gratuitous un- selfishness as to be willing to turn a purely military line, constructed for strategical purposes of its own, into a highway for the nations. In the first flush of triumphant pride at the completion of the under- taking, foreign journalists were, it was asserted, freely invited to take part in the inaugural ceremonies. But when the complimentary party assembled at Baku, it was found to consist, in addition to the relatives of General Annenkofi", of Frenchmen alone, who with one accord made to their host the becoming return of impassioned eulogies in the columns of the Parisian press, which in the summer of last year blossomed with the record of their festive proceedings. French- men have indeed for some time, owing to political considerations, been in high favour in Eussia, and have long found in their nationality an open sesame to the Eussian dominions in the east. Some of the best and most recent books of travel about Turko- mania and Turkestan, in a language intelligible to the average Englishman, have been by French writers. 6 JiUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA who may always, when treating of Eussian affairs, be trusted to be enthusiastic and entertaining, even though seldom profound. The ' Times ' corre- spondent at St. Petersburg received an invitation to join the same company; but owing to a difficulty in procuring the requisite official permission, found him- self a few days in arrear of the party, and the line in a state of disorganisation bordering on collapse, con- sequent upon a strain to which in those early days it was as yet unaccustomed. I had the good fortune to be a member of the next foreign party that travelled over the line, the origin of our enterprise being an agreement which was reported to have been entered into between General Annenkoff and the Compagnie Internationale des Wagon-Lits in Paris, and an intimation of which was published in the newspapers in the summer of 1888. No very precise intelligence about the nature of this agreement was forthcoming ; but upon the strength of its announce- ment would-be visitors to Merv and Samarkand were understood to be converging upon Tiflis shortly before the time when I left England in the first days of September 1888. Previous No English newspaper published a detailed ac- The Trans couut of the ucw railway except the ' Times ' ; but Railway the interesting letters of its correspondent, Mr. Dobson, which appeared between the months of August and October 1888 inclusive, written as they were from the point of view of a tourist narrating his personal experiences rather than of a politician endeavouring to form some estimate of the situation, left an unoccu- IXTRODUCTORY 7 pied field for later travellers with a more ambitious aim. Two short papers on the Transcaspian Eailway appeared in the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' in the month of May 1888, written by the editor of that journal from St. Petersburg. Chapters and pamphlets on the railway in its earlier stages are to be found among the works of Mr. Charles Marvin.^ Major C. E. Yate, who travelled over the line, while part of it was yet in process of construction, from Tcharjui to the Caspian in February 1888, on his return from the Afghan Boundary Commission, appended a chapter on his experiences to his excellent book entitled ' Northern Afghanistan.' Professor Vambery also contributed an article to an English magazine on the subject in 1887.^ An abridged translation of a Eussian pam- phlet on the railway has recently appeared in India from the pen of Colonel W. E. Gowan.^ To the best of my knowledge these are the only descriptions pub- hshed in the English language of General Annenkoffs scheme ; and of their number not one, with the excep- tion of the 'Times ' letters, has been penned since its completion. In the French tongue, as I have indicated, there has been a more luxuriant crop of descriptive literature. One special correspondent has since given to the world a substantial volume, the quality of which may be fairly inferred from the fact that out of 466 pages in the entire work, he does not land his readers at Uzun Ada, the starting point of the railway, till the 1 Vide the Bibliography at the end of this volume. * Fortnightly Beview, Febraary 1887. ^ The Transcaspian Bailway, its meaninij and its future. Trans- lated and condensed from the Bussian of I. Y. Vatslik. 8 RUSSIA IX CENTRAL ASIA 185tli page, or start them on his journey from there till page 807.^ Another correspondent sent a batch of singularly flimsy letters to the ' Temps.' A third, with far superior literary pretensions, the Vicomte Emile de Vogile, a French Academician and brother- in-law of General Annenkoff, published his own expe- riences in the ' Journal des Debats.' But his articles, though characterised by an agreeable fancy and by all the picturesqueness of the Gallic idiom, added nothing to our previous stock of knowledge on the subject. A young French officer, the Comte de Cholet, who travelled over the line in 1888, and in the disguise of a Cossack officer, accompanied Ali- khanofF, the Governor of Merv, upon an interesting tour of inspection along the Afghan frontier, has lately written a book, which, though it repays perusal, is devoted to his personal adventures rather than to popular instruction.^ juBtifica- A later writer may find some excuse, therefore, HJW work for gleaning in a field from which so scanty a harvest has already been garnered ; and although the ground which he traverses will be to some extent familiar to the more advanced students of Central Asian politics and topography, there will be many who have not access to the proceedings of Geographical Societies, or who have not explored the writings of specialists, to whose concern he may justifiably appeal. ' En Asie Centrale a la Vapeur. Par Napoleon Ney. Paris. 1888. '' Excursion en Turkestan et sur la Fronliere Busso-Afghane . Par Lieut, le Comte de Cliolet. Paris. 188'J. INTRODUCTORY 9 It is scarcely possible indeed to imagine a region Varied •' ^ O to interest of of the world at aU accessible that opens out so wide Central ■"• Asia and manifold a horizon of interest. The traveller who has made a periplus of the universe, and, like Ulysses, Much lias seen and known ; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, may yet confess to a novel excitement as he threads the bazaars of remote Bokhara, or gazes on the coronation stone and sepulchre of Timur at Samar- kand. He will not look for the first time without emotion on the waters of the Oxus, that famous river that, like the Euphrates and the Ganges, rolls its stately burden down from a hoar antiquity through the legends and annals of the East. In the Turkoman of the desert, andthe turbaned Tartar of the Khanates, he will see an original and a striking type of humanity. Something too of marvel, if not much of beauty, must there be in a country which presents to the eye a succession of bewildering contrasts ; where, in fine vicissitude, grandeur alternates with sadness ; where the scarp of precipitous mountains frowns over an unending plain ; where spots of verdure lie strewn like islets amid shoreless seas of sand ; where mighty rivers perish in paarsh and swamp ; where populous cities are succeeded as a site of residence by tents of felt, and sedentary toil as a mode of life by the vagrant freedom of the desert. The lover of ancient history may wander in the footsteps of Alexander or retrace the scorching track of Jenghiz Khan ; may 10 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA compare his Herodotus with his Marco Polo, and both with facts ; may search for some surviving relic of a lost European civilisation, of the Bactrian or Sogdian kingdoms, or for the equally vanished mag- nificence of the Great Mogul. The student of modern history wiU welcome the opportunity of renewing his acquaintance on the spot with the successive steps of Eussian advance from the first colony on the Caspian to the latest acquisitions on the Murghab and the Heri-Eud; and will eagerly pause at Merv, the dethroned 'Queen of the World,' or inspect the mouldering ramparts of Geok Tepe, where the Akhal Tekkes made their last heroic stand against Skobeleff and the legions of the Great White Czar. Before his eyes the sands of an expiring epoch are fast running out ; and the hour-glass of destiny is once again being turned on its base. Political But the political problems which the route un- interest folds, and to which it may in part supply a key, will be to many more absorbing still. Is this railway the mere obligatory thread of connection by which Eussia desires to hold together, and to place in easy inter-communication, her loosely scattered and hete- rogeneous possessions in Asia ; or is it part of a great design that dreams of a wider dominion and aspires to a more splendid goal ? Is it an evidence of con- centration, possibly even of contraction, or is it a symbol of aggrandisement and an omen of advance ? Eussian expansion in Central Asia has, it is often said, proceeded in recent years in such inverse pro- portion, both to the measure of her own assurances INTRODUCTORY 11 and to the pressure of natural causes, that we are tempted to ask quousque tdndem, and may perhaps find in General Annenkoff's achievement the clue to a reply. Upon no question is there greater conflict of Russian ° _ designs opinion in England than Eussia's alleged designs upon India upon India. Are we to believe, as General Grodekoff (the hero of the celebrated ride from Samarkand to Herat in 1878) told Mr. Marvin at St. Petersburg in 1882, that ' no practical Eussian general believes in the possibility of an invasion of India,' and that ' the millennium will take place before Eussia invades India ? ' Or are we to hold with General Tchernaieff, a once even superior authority, that ' the Eussian invasion of India is perfectly possible, though not easy ? ' Or, rejecting the mean and the extreme opinion on the one side, shall we fly to the other, and confess ourselves of those who trace from the apocryphal will of Peter down to the present time a steadfast and sinister purpose informing Eussian policy, demonstrated by every successive act of ad- vance, lit up by a holocaust of broken promises, and if for a moment it appears to halt in its realisation, merely reculant pour mieux sauter, the prize of its ambition being not on the Oxus or even at the Hindu Kush, but at the delta of the Ganges and the Indian Ocean ? Or, if territorial aggrandisement appear- too mean a motive, shall we find an adequate explanation in commercial cupidity, and detect in Muscovite statesmanship a pardonable desire to usurp the hege- mony of Great Britain in the markets of the East ? 12 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA Or again, joining a perhaps wider school of opinion, shall we admit the act, but minimise the offensive character of the motive, believing that Eussia in- tentionally keeps open the Indian question, not with any idea of supplanting Great Britain in the judg- ment-seat or at the receipt of custom, but in order that she may have her rival at a permanent dis- advantage, and may paralyse the trunk in Europe by galling the limb in AsiaH Or, lastly, shall we affect the sentimental style, and expatiate on the great mission of Eussia, and the centripetal philan- thropic force that draws her like a loadstone into the heart of the Asian continent? All these are views which it is possible to hold, or which are held, by large sections of Englishmen, and upon which a visit to the scene of action may shed some light. Such a visit, too, should enable the traveller to form some impression of the means employed by Eussia to reconcile to her rule those with whom she was so lately in violent conflict, and to compare her genius for assimilation with that of other conquering races. Is the apparent security of her sway the artificial product of a tight military grip, or is it the natural outcome of a peaceful organic fusion ? How do her methods and their results compare with those of England in India ? Very important and far-reaching such questions are ; for upon the answer to them which the genius of two nations is engaged in tracing upon the scroll of history, will depend the destinies of the East. There remain two other questions, upon each of IXTRODUGTORY 13 wliicli I hope to furnish some practical information. The The first is a comparison of the relative strength for Question offensive and defensive purposes of the Russian and British frontiers, now brought so close together, and the initial advantages enjoyed by either in the event of the outbreak of war. The second is the feasi- bility, and, if that be admitted, the likelihood or the wisdom of any future junction of the two railway systems wliose most advanced lines at Dushak and at Chaman, are separated by a gap of only 600 miles. General Annenkoff, we know, has all along advocated such an amalgamation; and although past history, the prejudices of the two countries, the intervention of Afghanistan, and a whole host of minor .contin- gencies are arrayed against him, the plan riiust not, therefore, be condemned offhand as chimerical, but is at least worthy of examination. In concluding this chapter, let me add that I shall endeavour to approach the discussion of political issues in as impartial a spirit as I can command. 1 do not class myself either with the Eussophiles or the Eussophobes. I am as far from echoing the hysterical shriek of the panic-monger or the Jingo as I am from imitating the smug complacency of the politician who chatters about Mervousness only to find that Merv is gone, and thinks that imperial ob- ligation is to be discharged by a querulous diplo- matic protest, or evaded by a hterary epigram. Whatever be Russia's designs upon India, whether they be serious and inimical or imaginary and fan- tastic, I hold that the first duty of Enghsh statesmen 14 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA is to render any hostile intentions futile, to see that our own position is secure, and our frontier impreg- nable, and so to guard what is without doubt the noblest trophy of British genius, and the most splendid appanage of the Imperial Crown. 15 CHAPTEE II FROM LONDON TO THE CASPJAN ' Eastward the Star of Empire takes its way.' Journey to St. Petersburg — Difficulty of obtaining permission — Ousef- vations on Eussian character — Hostility to Germany and the Ger- mans — Policy of Alexander III. — Eussian feeling towards England — Eussian feehng towards Austria and France — Continuation of journey — Permission granted — From St. Petersburg to Tiflis — From Tiflis to Baku and the Caspian — Approach to Uzun Ada. In the summer and autumn months an express train joumeyto leaves Berlm at 8.30 m the mornmg, and reaches buig St. Petersburg on the evening of the following day. A traveller from England can either catch this train by taking the day boat from Queenborough to Flushing, and making the through journey without a halt, in which case he will reach the Eussian capital in sixty-one hours ; or by taking the night boat to Flushing, and reaching Berlin the following evening, he can allow himself the luxury of a night between the sheets before proceeding on his way. At 8.30 P.M. on the day after leaving Berlin he is deposited on the platform of the Warsaw station at St. Peters- burg. The journey vid St. Petersburg and Moscow is not, of course, the shortest or most expeditious route to the Caucasus and the Caspian. The 16 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA Difficulty in obtain- ing per- mission quickest route, in point of time, is via Berlin to Cracow, and from there by Elisavetgrad to Kharkov on the main Eussian line of railway running south from Moscow, whence the journey is continued to Vladikavkas and the Caucasus. A less fatiguing but rather longer deviation is the journey by rail from Cracow to Odessa, and thence by sea to Batoum, and train to Tiflis and Baku. A third alternative is the new overland route to Constanti- nople, and thence by steamer to Batoum. I travelled, however, via St. Petersburg and Moscow, partly because I wished to see those places, but mainly because I hoped at the former to obtain certain in- formation and introductions which might be useful to me in Georgia and Transcaspia. Moreover, the stranger to Eussia cannot do better than acquire his first impression of her power and importance at the seat of government, the majestic emanation of Peter's genius on the banks of the Neva. When I left London I was assured by the repre- sentatives of the "Wagon- Li ts Company that all neces- sary arrangements had been made, that a special permit, une autorisation speciale, to visit Transcaspia had been obtained, and that the rest of the party had already started from Paris. Not caring to share in the earlier movements of the excursion, which in- volved a delay in Europe, I proposed to join them at Vladikavkas. As soon, however, as I reached St. Petersburg I had reason to congratulate myself upon having gone to headquarters at once, for I found that matters had not been quite so smoothly FROM LONDON TO THE CASPIAN 17 arranged, and that there were formidable obstacles still to be overcome. The Eussian Government is a very elaborate and strictly systematised, but also a very complicated, piece of machinery ; and the motive power required to set its various parts in action is often out of all proportion to the result achieved. It would not seem to be a very serious or difficult matter to determine whether a small party- — less than a dozen — of tourists should be allowed to travel over a line, the opening of which to passenger traffic had been trumpeted throughout Europe, and an invitation to travel by which had originated from the director-general of the line him- self. However, things are not done quite so simply at St. Petersburg. It transpired that for the permis- sion in question the consent of five independent authorities must be sought: — (1) The Governor- General of Turkestan, General Eosenbach, whose headquarters are at Tashkent ; (2) the Governor - General of Transcaspia, General KomarofF, who resides at Askabad ; (3) the head of the Asiatic department of the Foreign Office at St. Petersburg, M. Zinovieff; (4) the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. de Giers, or his colleague, General Vlangali ; (5) the Minister for War, General Vanoffski ; the last named being the supreme and ultimate court of appeal. All these independent officials had to be consulted, and their concurrent approval obtained. My first discovery was that not one of this number had yet signified his assent, and very grave doubts were expressed by General Vlangali, in answer to c 18 nUSSIA IX CENTRAL ASIA inquiries, as to the likelihood of their doing so. I even heard that the Italian Embassy had applied for leave for an officer in the Italian army, and had been point blank refused. The only Englishmen — in addition to two or three Indian officers, who, joining the railway at Tcharjui or Merv on their return from India, had travelled by it to the Caspian — to whom official permission had so far been granted were the ' Times ' correspondent ; Dr. Lansdell, who had recently started upon another roving expedition of mingled Bible distribution and discovery in Central Asia ; and Mr. Littledale, a sportsman, who had with great difficulty obtained leave to go as far as Samar- kand with a view of jDroceeding from there in quest of the oris poli in the remote mountains of the Pamir. In this pursuit I record with pleasure the fact that the last-named gentleman was entirely successful, being the first Englishman who has ever shot a male specimen of this famous and inaccessible animal. Matters were further complicated by the absence of the Minister for War, who was accompanying the Czar in his imperial progress through the south. One of my earliest steps was to seek an interview with the representative at St. Petersburg of the Compao-nie des Wagon-Lits, and to inquire w^hat steps he had taken or proposed to take. I found that he had as yet obtained no assurance of official ratification, but was relying upon the patronage and promises of General Annenkoff, who was absent andbeheved to be in Nice. I was, however, recommended by him to call upon M. Mestcherin, the resident eno-ineer to FROM LONDON TO THE CASPIAN 19 the railway, who had greatly interested himself in the expedition and was doing his utmost to further its success. The first item of reassuring news that I had received fell from his lips. A telegram had been received from General Eosenbach, to whom the names of the proposed party had been submitted, signifying his approval ; and another of a similar character was hourly expected from General Komaroff. This intelligence was the more satisfactory, because I heard from M. Mestcherin that it was upon General Eosenbach's supposed objections that the authorities at St. Petersburg had principally based theirs ; the General's hostility being attributed to his unwilling- ness to have a party of foreigners anywhere near the frontier, pending the unsettled rebellion of Is-hak Khan against the Afghan Amir in a quarter of Afghan Turkestan at so short a distance from the Eussian linds. I confess I regarded this as a plausible objec- tion, though I hardly thought that the situation would be much aggravated by the casual and almost meteoric transit of a harmless party of polyglot tour- ists over the railway line. However, these scruples, if entertained, had now been abandoned, and the hope presented itself that the confidence displayed by General Eosenbach might awake a similar gene- rosity in the breasts of his official superiors in the capital. M. Mestcherin had no doubt whatever that this would be the case. Of certain information which he gave me on the subject of the railway I shall speak in a subsequent chapter. I left his apartments in a more sanguine frame of mind than I had yet c 2 20 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA ventured to indulge. Nevertheless, the fact that there had lately been an accident on the line, owing apparently to its imperfect construction, in which more persons than one were said to have been killed, and the rumoured total breakdown of the bridge over the Oxus at Tcharjui, were discouraging omens, and suggested a possible explanation for the reluctance of the Eussian official world to admit the inquisitive eyes of strangers. These were arguments, however, which could have no weight with General AnnenkofF, who was credited with an absolute confidence in the capacities of his staff, and whose cosmopolitan sympathies I had no reason to question, observa- Passiug tlirougli St. Petersburg, and being brought tions on . . . Eussian mto communicatiou with residents there, as well as character with Eussians in other parts of my journey, there were certain impressions upon the more superficial aspects of Eussian politics which I could not fail to derive. Among these the strongest was perhaps the least expected and the most agreeable. If it is an exaggeration to say that every English- man enters Eussia a Eussophobe, and leaves it a Eus- sophile, at least it is true that even a short residence in that country tempers the earlier estimate which he may have been led to form of the character of the population and its rulers. This is mainly attributable to the frank and amiable manners and to the extreme civihty of the people, from the highest official to the humblest moujik. The Russian gentleman has all the pohsli of the Frenchman, without llie vague suo-o-es- tion of Gallic veneer ; the Eussian lower class may FROM LONDON TO THE CASPIAN 21 be Stupid, but they are not, like the Teuton, brusque. The stranger's path is smoothed for him by everyone to whom he appeals for help, and though manners do not preclude national enmities, at least they go a long way towards conciliating personal friendships. A second reason for the altered opinion of the Hostility Englishman is his early discovery that there is no many ana . ° ^ , ■' the Uer- widespread hostility to England in Eussia ; and that "^^^ he and his countrymen are by no means regarded as a German, for instance, or more latterly an Italian is regarded in France, or as an Austrian used to be regarded in Italy. Nothing can be more clear than that the main and dominating feeling of the Eussian mind in relation to foreigners is an abiding and overpowering dislike of Germany. This is a chord upon which any Eussian statesman, much more any Slavophile, can play with absolute certainty of re- sponse, and which rings even to the touch of a pass- ing or accidental hand. Dislike of German manners, distrust of German policy, detestation of German individuality, these were sentiments which I heard expressed on all sides without a pretence of conceal- ment, and which I believe have grown into an intuitive instinct with this generation of the Eussian people. I could give several instances of this ani- mosity, but will content myself with two or three which came under my own notice. A Eussian officer explained to me an alleged case of brutal treatment of a child by its parents by the remark ' Que voulez- vous? C'estun Allemand ! ' From another Eussian official, whose opinion I elicited in conversation, I 22 HUSSIA IX CENTRAL- ASIA received the emphatic declaration ' Ce sont des bar- bares.' A Eussian gentleman and large landed pro- prietor volunteered the information, in which he saw nothing remarkable, that he so abhorred Germany that if passing through that country nothing would induce him even to spend a night at Berlin. A feeling so deep as this and so widespread cannot be without serious and solid foundation any more that it can be ignored in casting the horoscope of Eussia's future. To trace the sources of this anti-Teuton feeling would lead me too far from my subject, and would require a digression that might easily swell into a treatise. But it is not difficult to discover on the surface of Eussian life, both public and private, a score of points at which German contact or competition means friction, and may readily generate hatred. Por not only is this sentiment a political sentiment, arising from the near propinquity and overwhelming prepon- derance of German power in Europe, from the usur- pation in Continental politics by a new-fledged empire of the military ascendency claimed by Eussia at the beginning of this century, and from the belief that Eussia has been thwarted at every point of the inter- national compass, and has suffered, instead of gaining, b\' the Berlin Treaty alike in Servia, Bulgaria, and' Eoumania, owing to the dark macliinations of Bis- marck alone ; — not only, I repeat, is this a popular impression, but the individual German is brought into constant and disagreeable collision with the Eussian in the relations of ordinary life. An aristo- cracy and landed proprietary largely German, a FROM LONDON TO THE CASPIAN 23 bureaucracy and official clique stocked with German names, a reigning dynasty that is of German extrac- tion ; German monopoly of business, trade, and bank- ing on the largest scale, and formidable German competition in the more humble spheres of industry ; the preference given by men of business and owners of estates to German managers, stewards, or agents, whose thrifty and trustworthy capacities render them an infinitely preferable choice to the corrupt and careless Eussian ; above all, the overwhelming anti- thesis between German and Eussian character, the one vigilant, uncompromising, stiff, precise ; the other sleepy, nonchalant, wasteful, and lax ; — all these facts have branded their mark on Eussian opinion with the indelible potency of some corrosive acid, and have engendered a state of feeling which a prudent fear may temporarily disguise but will not permanently mitigate, and which the mutual amenities of emperors may gloss over but cannot pretend to annul. In the present rei^n this anti-German feeling has Policy of -^ ° ° . Alexandei- reached a climax. Naturally a man of conservative m- instincts, and driven partlj' by circumstances, partly by irresponsibility, into illiberal and reactionary ex- tremes, Alexander III. has for some time devoted himself to stamping out of Eussia all non-Eussian elements, and setting up an image, before which all must fall down and worship, of a Eussia, single, homogeneous, exclusive, self-sufficing, self-contained. Foreign names, foreign tongues, a foreign faith, particularly if the one are Teuton, and the other is Lutheran, are vexed, or prohibited, or assailed. 24 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA Foreign competition in any quarter, commercial or otherwise, is crushed by heavy deadweights hung round its neck. Foreign concessions are as flatly refused as they were once eagerly conceded. The Government even dechnes to allow any but Eussian money to be invested in Eussian undertakings. Foreign managers and foreign workmen are under a bureaucratic ban. German details are expunged from the national uniform; the German language is for- bidden in the schools of the Baltic provinces ; German fashions are proscribed at court. ' The stranger that is wnthin thy gates ' is the bug-bear and hete noire of Muscovite statesmanship. There is no cosmopoli- tanism in the governing system of the Czar. What Eussians call patriotism, what foreigners call rank selfishness, is the keynote of his regime. ' Eussia for the Eussians,' has been adopted as the motto, not of a radical faction, but of an irresponsible autocracy, and is preached, not by wild demagogues, but by an all-pow^erful despot. Russian While tliis attitude is universally exemplified in towards the relations between Eussia and Germany, and is also typical of the commercial and imperial policy Avhich she adopts towards this countrj'', it is not in the latter case accompanied or followed by any personal or national antipathy. Of political hostility to Great Britain there may be a certain amount, particularly in the governing hierarchy and in the army, arising from the obvious fact that the interests of the two nations have long been diametrically opposed in the settlement of FROM LONDON TO THE CASPIAN 25 Eussia's cliief end of action, the Balkan Peninsula, and from the strained relations between the two countries springing out of the events that so nearly culminated in war in 1885. This feeling, however, is accompanied by a candid respect for the confidence, and what Carlyle somewhere called ' the silent fury and aristocratic impassivity ' of the English character, while in its most aggravated form it is wholly divorced from any dislike to the individual or repulsion to the race. SkobelefT, though he used to say 'I hate England,' and undeniably looked upon it as the ambition of his life to fight us in Central Asia — an action by the way in which he had not the slightest doubt of success — was on friendly terms with many Englishmen, and had been heard to say that he never met an Englishman who was not a gentlem.an. In externals, indeed, there is much in common between the Russian and the Briton, exhibiting, as both do, along with the temperament, the physique, the com- plexion and colour of the north, a unity of qualities that make for greatness, viz. self-reliance, pride, a desperate resolve, adventurousness, and a genius for discipline. Further than this I would not push the resemblance. A Eussian wiU tell you that to judge the two people by the same moral standard is as un- fair as to submit to the same physical test a child and a grown man. Eussia is understood to be working out her own salvation. If she repudiates the accepted canons of regeneration, she may perhaps claim, in self-defence, to civilise herself in her own way. The prevailing friendliness in Eussia towards 26 RUSSIA IX CENTRAL ASIA Russian Eiiglislimeu is a factor not unworthy of note in framing feeling , towards any induction as to tlie future ; tlie more so as the same Austria n t i andFrauce canuot be saicl of licr attitude towards other people with whom she is supposed to be on more intimate terms than with ourselves. Austria she regards with undisguised hostihty, not free from contempt. A political system so heterogeneous she credits with no stability. The military power of her southern rival she derides as a masquerade. To use a phrase I heard employed by a Eussian, ' Austria stings like a gnat and bites like an adder ; ' and ought, in the opinion of many ardent Muscovites, to be crushed like the one, or stamped under heel like the other. Her alleged sympathy with Prance is a tie of a more artificial character than is often supposed, and is the outcome not of national affinities, but of political needs. It is the necessary corollary in fact to her detestation of Germany. French politics are followed with absolute indifference in St. Petersburg, except in so far as they relate to Berlin ; and there is probably no country in Europe where there is a heartier pre- judice against music-haU statesmanship and a see-saw constitution, or a more masculine contempt for the refinements of an epicene civilisation. It is noteworthy that in the journalistic and literary amenities, which writers of the two nationalities interchange, while the Prenchman plunges at once into headlong adula- tion, a discreet flattery is the utmost as a rule that the Eussian will concede. The doubts which had arisen as to the prospects of my journey were still unsolved when I left Si. FROM LONDON TO THE CASPIAN 27 Petersburg ; while at Moscow they were yet further continua- aggravated by the information which I received from journey ; ^ ... permission headquarters. I was advised on the highest authority granted not to persevere in the attempt, and was warned that in any case an answer could not be expected for a considerable time. Subsequently to this I even heard that our names had been submitted to the War Minister, who had declined to sanction them, which refusal was further declared to be irrevocable. In spite of this ominous dissuasion, which I had some ground for believing to be due to a jealousy between the departments of the Foreign Office and War Office at St. Petersburg, I decided to start from Moscow, and did so after waiting there for six days. It was not till I reached Vladikavkas, on the Caucasus, three days later, that a telegraphic despatch conveyed to me the unexpected and welcome tidings that permis- sion had after all been conceded, and that the entire party, the rest of whom were now assembled in a state of expectancy at Tiflis, might proceed across the Caspian. All is weU that ends well ; and I am not any longer concerned to explore the tortuous wiiid- ings of diplomatic policy or official intrigue at St. Petersburg. ■ General Annenkoff had assured us that we should be allowed to go, and leave having been given, with him undoubtedly remained the honours of war. Later on we heard that the Minister for War, upon seeing the permission of Generals Eosenbach and KomarofF, had at once given his consent without even informing the Foreign Office. Conceive the feelings of the latter ! 28 BUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA From St. "Were I writing a narrative of travel, I miglit Petersburg . , ^ . ^ ^^ r^ to Tiflia mvite my readers to halt witli me lor a tew moments at St. Petersburg, at Moscow, at Nijni-ISrovgorod, in the Caucasus, at Tiflis, or at Baku. I stayed in each of these places, exchanging the grandiose splendour and civilised smartness of the capital — with its archi- tecture borrowed from Italy, its amusements from Paris, and its pretentiousness from Berlin — for the Oriental irregularity and bizarre beauty of Moscow, an Eastern exotic transplanted to the West, an inland Constantinople, a Christian Cairo. No more effective illustration could be furnished of the Janus-like cha- racter of this huge political structure, with its vast unfilled courts and corridors in the east, and, as Peter the Great phrased it, its northern window looking out upon Europe, than the outward appearance of its two principal cities, the one a Western plagiarism, the other an Asiatic original. Through the Caucasus we drove, four horses abreast attached to a kind of family barouche, by the famous Dariel Eoad. Piercing one of the finest gorges in Europe, it climbs a height of 8,000 ft., and skirts the base of a height of 16,000 ft. This is the celebrated pass that drew a line to the conquests alike of Alexander and Justinian, the Caucasian Gates of the ancient world, which shut off the East on this side from the West, and were never owned at entrance and exit by the same Power till they fell into Eussia's hands. Above them tower the mighty rocks of Kazbek on which the tortured Pro- metheus hung, and away to the right is Elbruz, the doyen of European summits. This road is for the FROM LONDON TO THE CASPIAN 29 present at any rate, and will probably long remain, of tlie liigliest military importance, as it is the first line of communication both with Armenia and the Caspian ; and its secure tenure dispenses with the delays of transport and navigation by the Black Sea. Though skilfully engineered, substantially metalled, and con- stantly repaired (relays of soldiers being employed in the winter to cut a passage through the snows), it cannot be compared for evenness or solidity with the roads which the British have made in similar sur- roundings in many parts of the world. It debouches 135 miles from Vladikavkas upon Tiflis, where the traveller begins to realise that though still in the same country he has changed continents. There I found the rest of the party assembled, consisting of two Englishmen, three Frenchmen, an Italian, and a Dutchman. With an Englishman, a Pole, and a Mingrelian, to whom was subsequently added a Tajik of Bokhara, as our guides and conductors, we con- stituted about as representative a body as General Annenkoif in his most cosmopolitan of moments could have desired. At Tiflis we received from General SheremetiefF, From Tif. acting governor in the absence of Prince DondoukofF and the KorsakoiF, who had gone to meet the Emperor, the official document, or ohtriti list, authorising us to cross the Caspian and to travel in the Eussian dominions in Central Asia. The ordinary passport though viseed and counter- viseed is useless east of the Caspian, and many a traveller, straining its limited sanctity, has been turned back from the lis to Baku and the Caspian 30 BUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA regions to wliicli tlie oktriti list alone will procure admission. With this magical piece of paper in our possession we started without any further delay by the single daily train, that leaving Tiflis at ten in the evening arrives at Baku between four and five on the following afternoon. There we spent a day inspect- ing the peculiar features of the place and visiting the works of Balakhani, some eight miles from the town, where a forest of tall wooden towers like chimney- stacks marks the site of the deep wells from which the crude naphtha either springs in spontaneous jets from hidden subterranean sources, or is drawn up by steam power in long cylindrical tubes, and despatched to the distilleries in the town. Of this petroleum industry which has reached the most gigantic pro- portions, I will say nothing here ; because I should only be repeating secondhand what is already to be found in works specially devoted to the subject.^ I have the further incentive to silence that of previous visitors who have described their journey to Transcaspia scarcely one has resisted the temp- tation to speech. At 5.30 in the afternoon we put off from the wharf in the steamboat ' Prince Baria- tinski,' belonging to the Caucasus and Mercury Company, which was frequently impressed by Skobe- leiF and his troops in the Turkoman campaigns of 1879, 1880, and 1881. As we steamed out on the placid waters of the Caspian, whose surface far out to sea gleamed dully under the metallic lustre of the ' Vide a new edition of The Begion of Eternal Fire. Bj' Charlef! Marvin. London, 1888. WHARF AT BAKU- PERSIAN AEBA- PERSIAN WATKR-CAIiT-riL WELLS OF BALAKUANI. 32 BUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA floating oil, the setting sun lit up an altar of fire beliind the pink cliffs of the Apsheron peninsula, which would have turned to ridicule the most prodigal devotion, even in their palmiest days, of the defunct fire-worshippers of Baku. On the other side a leaden canopy of smoke overhung the petroleum works, and the dingy quarters of the manufacturing town. Approach At suurlsc ou the next morning rocky land was Ada^™ visible to the north-east. This was the mountainous background to Krasnovodsk, the first Eussian settle- ment twenty years ago on the eastern shore of the Casj)ian, and the original capital of the province of Transcaspia. Thither the terminus of the railway is likely to be transferred from Uzun Ada, on account of the shallow and shifting anchorage at the latter place. Later on low sandhills, clean, yellow, and ubiquitous, fringed the shore or were distributed in melancholy islets over the surface of the bay. The whole appearance of the coast is strikingly reminis- cent of a river delta, a theory which is in close harmony with the admitted geological fact that the Oxus once emptied itself by one at least of its mouths or tributaries into the Balkan Bay. Soon we entered a narrow channel, at the extremity of which the masts of ships, the smoking funnels of steamers, and several projecting wooden piers and wharves indicated a position of considerable commercial activity ; and at 2.30 P.M. were moored to the landing stage of Uzun Ada, on which appeared to be gathered the entire population of the settlement, whose sole distraction FROM LONDON TO THE CASPIAN 33 the arrival and departure of the steamer must be. This is the present starting point of the Transcaspian Eailway ; and here accordingly I pause to give a historical retrospect of the origin, raison d'etre, con- struction and character of this important undertaking. Let any reader who revolts against dull detail omit the next chapter. U nUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA. CHAPTER III THE TRANSCASPIAN RAILWAY I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes. Shakspeake, Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii. sc. i. Origin of the idea of a Central Asian railway — Scheme of M. Ferdinand de Lesseps — Attitude of England — Idea of a Transcaspian railway — Adoption of the plan by Skobeleff — Cbmpletion to Kizil Arvat in December 1881 — Ideas of further extension — Opposition to the Transcaspian scheme — Extension from Kizil Arvat to the Oxus — From the Oxus to Samarkand — Technical information about the line — Exclusively military cliaraoter — Material of the line — Character and pay of the workmen — Method of construction — Cost ^Facilities of construction — Difficulties of water — Diffioidties of sand — Contrivances to resist the sands — Difficulty of fuel and lighting — Boiling stock of the railway — Stations — Duration and cost of journey. Origin of Very early after the Eussiaii occupation of Turkestan of Vein- in 1865 — I must ask my readers to bear very closely Eaiiway''" in mind the distinction between Turkestan, or Central Asia proper, the capital of which is Tashkent, and Turkomania, or the country of the Turkomans, which extends from the Caspian to Merv — and its conversion into a Eussian possession, administered by a Governor-General, in 1867, the question of more rapid communication with Europe was raised. For a time the idea was entertained that the streams of THE TRANSOASPIAN RAILWAY 35 the Syr Daria or Jaxartes, and, after the conquest of Khiva and practical absorption of Bokhara in 1873, of the Amu Daria or Oxus, would provide the requisite channels of connection ; and a great deal was heard of the future Aral flotilla. But the dif- ficulties arising from the river navigation, which have not to this day been successfully surmounted, speedily threw these schemes into the background, and the plan of a Central Asian Railway began to take definite shape. In 1873 a Eussian official was entrusted with the duty of preparing a report on the feasibility of constructing a line from Orenburg to Tashkent ; and early in the same year, M. Cotard, who had been one of the engineers employed upon the Suez Canal, meeting M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, whose hands were for the moment empty, at Con- stantinople, suggested to him this fresh field of conquest. M. de Lesseps was nothing loth. He at once put Scheme of pen to paper, and in a letter dated May 1, 1873, to nandde Lesseps General Ignatiefi", then Eussian Ambassador at Con- stantinople (followed later on by one to the Emperor Alexander 11.), he unfolded the details of his scheme, which was no less than the recommendation of a through railway from Calais to Calcutta, a distance of 7,500 miles — the portion from Orenburg to Samarkand to be laid by Eussia, and from Samarkand to Peshawur by England. General IgnatiefF replied with ready enthusiasm, welcoming the idea because of its commercial and political importance, and not least because it would show to the world ' the 36 BUS SI A IN CENTRAL ASIA essentially pacific and civilising cliaracter of Eussian influence in those regions.' He further declared his ' intimate conviction that this grandiose enterprise, though it might appear at first sight both risky and chimerical, was yet destined to be realised in a future more or less near.' The indefatigable M. de Lesseps then went to Paris, where a small society was formed to undertake the preliminary topographical surveys. These were to be submitted to a committee of experts, who were to report upon the technical feasibility of the enterprise, and on its future commercial and fiscal advantages. Definite local surveys were next to be made, backed by a financial company ; and, finally, the work of construction was to commence, and to last for six years. Attitude oi Meanwhile, however, the consent of another high England . . contractmg party was required ; and M. de Lesseps had in the interim opened communications with Lord Granville. In England the project was not received with much alacrity ; and when certain of the French engineers, who had been despatched to India to reconnoitre the ground, arrived upon the Afghan frontier, permission was refused to them to advance beyond, on account of the difficulties in which England might thereby be involved with those turbulent regions. After their return to Europe, the project languished ; and before long M. de Lesseps, scenting a more favourable spoil in another hemi- sphere, withdrew his attention and his patronage to the Panama Canal. Since then the idea, in its original shape, has not again been heard of. THE TRANSGASPIAN RAILWAY 37 For some time afterwards tlie design of a Central Heaofa ... Trans- Asian Eailway slumbered. But the commencement Caspian ^ Railway of the series of Eussian campaigns against the Turko- mans in 1877, and the gradual shifting of the centre of political gravity in Central Asia from Turkestan to Transcaspia brought about its revival in another shape, and has since ended in its realisation, not, however, by a line over the steppes from the North, but by one from the Caspian and the West. It was in 1879, while General Lomakin was prosecuting his series of iU-adventured expeditions against the Akhal Tekkes that mention was first made of a Trans- caspian Eailway (his successor, General Tergukasoff laying stress upon the idea in a report upon the un- successful campaign of that year, and upon the proper means by which to subjugate the Akhal Oasis) ; and in 1880, after Skobeleff had been appointed Com- mander-in-Chief, in order to retrieve the Eussian laurels, that the work was actually taken in hand. At that time it was supposed that the subjugation Adoption of the Turkoman steppes would entail a much more ty skobe- arduous task than subsequently proved to be the case, the disastrous defeat of Lomakin at the Tekke fort of Denghil Tepe, more commonly known as Geok Tepe, in September 1879, having profoundly discouraged the Eussians. Skobeleff was accord- ingly given carte hlanche in his selection both of the manner and means of operation. He was commis- sioned to conquer and to annex ; but was allowed to do both after his own fashion. Now the main difficulty in the preceding campaign had arisen 38 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA from the scarcity and loss of transport animals. During the expedition of 1879, 8,377 camels had perished out of a total of 12,273 employed; and at the end of Skobeleff's own campaign, a year and a half later, only 350 remained out of a total of 12,596.^ To meet this initial drawback, it was suggested to Skobeleff that he should employ a light railroad. While his base still remained at Tchikishliar, near the mouth of the Atrek Eiver, on the Caspian, a service of traction engines was projected by General Petruse- vitch, and subsequently a tramway to the edge of the Akhal Oasis. But Skobeleff having almost imme- diately resolved to shift his main base northwards to Krasnovodsk, opposite Baku, a new set of proposals saw the light. A genuine railroad was now spoken of. A proposal made by an American contractor named Berry, who offered to construct a line from the Caspian to Kizil Arvat, a distance of 145 miles, at his own expense, with material brought from some disused railroad in the States, and upon completion, either to hand it over to the Government, or to con- tinue its working with an annual state guarantee of 132,000^., was refused; and General Annenkoff, formerly military attache at Paris, and at that time Comptroller of the Transport Department of the Eussian Army, who had been entrusted in 1877 with the transport arrangements in the Turkish war, and had had considerable experience of military railwaj^s since, was invited by the Commander-in-Chief to his ' Vide The War in Turkoniania. By General N. I. Grodekoff. Chaps, ii. and xi. THE TRANSCASPIAN RAILWAY 39 aid. He recommended tlie use of 100 miles of steel rails that had been purchased for use in the Balkan peninsula in 1878, in the event of the collapse of the Congress at Berlin, and had been lying idly stored ever since in European Piussia. These were at once GENERAL ANNENKOFF. transhipped to Michaelovsk, a point on the coast considerably to the south of Krasnovodsk ■which was selected by Annenkoffas the starting point of the line ; but even so, no decision was yet arrived at as to a permanent broad-gauge line, orders having been given 40 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA to the Decauville and MaltseiF firms for the supply, of small locomotives and wagons, and of 66 miles of light movable narrow-gauge rails.^ It was thought that these might be used for the immediate convey- ance of stores to the front, and that the success or failure of the smaller experiment would then deter- mine the policy of extending the broad-gauge hne, which from motives of economy it was decided to lay at once through the belt of sandhills contiguous to the shore. For the purpose of the campaign SkobelefF from the beginning regarded the line as a purely secondary and accessory means of transport,^ though his eyes were speedily opened to its future possibilities and importance. So confident, however, was he of swift success, that, having completed his own preparations, he announced his intention of finishing the campaign before the railway, which it was only intended to construct as far as Kizil Arvat, 145 miles from the Caspian, was ready to be placed ' Fifty miles of light steel rails, to be laid upon a 20-inch gauge, and 100 trucks were ordered, from the Bussian firm of Maltseff ; 16 miles of rails and 500 trucks from the Decauville works in France. Only two locomotives were ordered (from the latter firm) ; as it was intended to work the railroad by horses, 1,000 Kirghiz animals being bought for the purpose in Transcaspia. '' At the first Military Council held at St. Petersburg, as early as January 1880, to discuss the forthcoming campaign, Grodekofif relates that Skobelefi^, who had already been designated though not appointed Commander-in-Chief, ' declared that a railway alone could not be trusted to bring the expedition to a successful issue, and accordingly heproposed to employ camels principally, treating the railroad as a secondary line of communication.' — The War in TurJcoma?iia, chap. iii. Again, in June 1880, he wrote : ' It is evident that the railway now being con- structed can of itself be of no importance for the narrow aims of the Akhal Tekke expedition ' (chap, v.) He continually repeated the same opinion. THE TRANSCASPIAN RAILWAY 41 at his disposal — a boast which, as a matter of fact, he triumphantly carried out. Meanwhile General Annenkoff, though beaten in Compie- the race of trnie, had not been idle. A railway KiziiArvat, -. „ Deo. 1381 battalion of 1,500 men, with special aptitudes or of special experience, was recruited in successive com- panies as required from European Eussia ; skilful engineers were engaged ; a credit was opened by the Eussian Government ; and the pick and shovel were soon at work upon the virgin sandhills of the Caspian littoral. Geok Tepe was carried by storm in January 1881, and General Annenkoff, having been wounded in one of the earlier reconnaissances, was compelled to return to St. Petersburg. But in his absence the labour was not allowed to slacken ; the Decauville line had already been abandoned as the main system, and was used to assist in laying the broader gauge. In December 1881 the latter was completed, and the first locomotive steamed into Kizil Arvat. From these small and modest beginnings, undertaken with a purely strategic object, and for the attainment of a particular end, viz. the pacification of the Aklial Oasis, have grown the 900 miles of steel that now unite the Caspian with Samarkand. The success of this preliminary experiment, and Heaaof the comparative facility and economy with which the extension obstacles of drought and desert had been overcome, encouraged General Annenkoff to meditate an expan- sion of his scheme. With this object in view, the engineer Lessar, who subsequently became well known in this country from his connection with the Afghan 42 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA Boundary Commission, and tlie Mussulman officer Aliklianoff, -were despatched in tlie years 1881, 1882 and 1883 to conduct a series of explorations in the terra incognita that laj^ towards Merv and Herat ; while at St. Petersburg Annenkoffhimself published a brochure entitled ' The Akhal Tekke Oasis and the Eoads to India,' in which he advocated, chiefly on commercial grounds, an extension to Herat, and even a junction with the Indian Eailway system at Quetta. Eussian officers and statesmen thought fit to pooh-pooh the sug- gestion in their public utterances, General GrodekofT, in an interview with Mr. Marvin in February 1882, ridiculing the idea of an extension of the line beyond Kizil Arvat, and even SkobelefT declaring his total dis- belief in its continuance beyond Askabad. It is de- monstrable that these protestations were merely a part of that policy of glib assurance, that has so often been employed by Eussia to calm the awakened suscepti- bilities of England. For in Grodekofi"s history of SkobelefF's campaign we read that the latter took the keenest interest in the development of the railway ; that from the earliest date he recommended its extension ; and that as far back as June 1880, a year and a half before his disavowal of further advance to Mr. Marvin, he had expressed himself in a letter as follows : — When peace is restored in the Steppe, the line must be prolonged, either to Askabad, or, as seems to me more urgent, to Kunia Urgenj or to the Amu Daria. We shall thus have steam communication between St. Petersburg and Samarkand. I am certain that a cheaper or shorter way THE TRANSCASPIAN RAILWAY 43 cannot be found of uniting Turkestan with the rest of the Empire, and of ensuring its safety and the development of its trade. If we intend to get any return from our present enormous expenditure, we must popularise the Steppe route between the Caspian and the basin of the Amu. Here, as elsewhere, the initiative rests with the Government.' Though the Transcaspian Eailway was under Opposition such distinguished patronage, it was not without Trans- 1 . , .,. . -, . -p^ . Caspian enemies, even m high mihtary circles m Eussia. scheme General Tchernaieff, the original conqueror of Turke- stan, who was appointed Governor General of the Central Asian Dominions in 1882, foreseeing the supercession of Turkestan by Transcaspia which Annenkoff's railway would entail, and having always contended for a more northerly approach to his pro- vince, urged an extension from Kizil Arvat to Khiva, which might in turn be connected with the Caspian, and whence the waterway of the Oxus would provide an approach to Bokhara. These projects met with little support except from the Turkestan partisans, and were not rendered more palatable by the scarcity of commercial inducements. When the Transcaspian programme had finally won the day, TchernaiefF, piqued at his failure, exploded his irritation in a letter to the .' ISTovoe Vremya' in the summer of 1886, entitled ' An Academic Eailway,' in which he threw a parting douche of very cold water upon General Annenkoffs scheme, and declared his own preference for a line from Saratov on the Volga to Kungrad on the Amu Daria, between Khiva and the Aral Sea. In ' Grodekoff 's War in Turlconiania, chap. v. 44 BUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA Extension from KizU Arvat to the Oxus the meantime, however, he had himself ceased to be a persona grata with the powers that be in Eussia ; his name was no longer one to conjure with in the controversy ; and the star of Transcaspia continued in the ascendant. Though projects of advance had undoubtedly- been formulated as well as entertained, Kizil Arvat remained the terminus till the famous affray on the Kushk between General Komaroff's troops and the Afghans on March 30, 1885, that so deeply stirred public opinion in this country, and all but embroiled the two nations in war. From that moment the character and conception of the railway changed. No longer the prudent auxiliary to a single cam- paign, it became the mark of a definite policy, imperial in its quality and dimensions. Till then the Eussians themselves had regarded the line as an iso- lated and limited undertaking, rather than as part of a great design. It now emerged as a menace to England and a warning to Asia. On June 2, 1885, within two months of the Penjdeh affair, appeared the Czar's ukase entrusting Annenkoff with the con- tinuance of the line towards the Afghan frontier. A second railway battalion of picked men was enrolled at Moscow. Eeaching Kizil Arvat on July 3, they began work on July 13 ; and while the British forces were engaged night and day upon the analo- gous railways of Hurnai and the Bolan in Beluchistan, the Eussians were as steadily pushing forward their hostile parallels from the opposite direction. On December 11, 1885, the first train ran into Askabad THU: TRANSCASFIAN RAILWAY 45 (136 miles from Kizil Arvat), whicli had in 1882 been made the capital of the newly constituted province of Transcaspia, and the residence of a Governor- General. Meanwhile, in February 1884, Merv had been quietly annexed, and the prolongation of the line to that place was an inevitable corollary of what had already been done. On July 14, 1886, the whilom ' Queen of the "World ' was reached, 500 miles from the Caspian, the lines actually cutting the walls of the great fortress of Koushid Khan Kala, built with such sanguine anticipations only five years before as an inexpugnable barrier to Muscovite advance. But Merv could no more be a halting- place than Askabad ; and, after a pause of six weeks, to recruit the energies of the railway battalion, the same year witnessed the extension of the line to Tcharjui and the Oxus, a further distance of 150 miles. General Annenkoff's employes having now reached such a pitch of mechanical proficiency in their labours that the last 500 miles had been con- structed in seventeen months, or at the rate of from a mile to a mile and a half in a day. There remained only the bridging of the Amu oxuTto^ Daria, a work of which more anon, and the comple- ta™' tion of the line to Samarkand. The imperial ukase authorising the latter was issued on February 7, 1887. This work was nominally completed in time for the ceremony of inauguration in May, 1888, and on the 27th of that month a triumphal train, decked with flags, and loaded with soldiers, steamed, amid the roar of cannon and the music of bands, into the 46 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA ancient capital of the East. Some time previously the starting point of the railway had been shifted from Michaelovsk to what was considered the supe- rior landing-place of Uzun Ada, on an island 15 miles to the north-west, where it remains for the present. The through communication thus estab- lished has been continued and perfecte'd since, and a page of the Eussian Bradshaw testifies to the regu- larity, though at present it does not say much for the speed, of the Transcaspian service. The entire dis- tance is 1,342 versts, or not far short of 900 miles. Such was the origin and such has been the history up to the present date of this remarkable under- taking. Technical Ncxt iu ordcr I propose to give some details tionaboat about the construction, the material, the resources, and the personnel of the Transcaspian Eailway. More minute information upon these points can be obtained from either of two publications which have appeared abroad. The first is a brochure of 160 pages, entitled ' Transkaspien und seine Eisenbahn,' pub- lished at Hanover in 1888, and written by Dr. 0. Heyfelder, who was surgeon-in-chief to SkobeleiF's expedition in 1880, and has since been chief of the medical staff to General Annenkoff's battalions. This book is, as one might expect of the writer, whom I had the good fortune to meet in Transcaspia, a capable and excellent production, distinguished by scientific as well as local knowledge, and by broad sympathies. The second publication is in the shape of two articles which were contributed bv M. Edijar THE TRANSCASPIAX RAILWAY 47 Boulangier, a French engineer, to the 'Eevue du Genie Militaire,' at Paris, in March-June 1887. This gentleman visited the hne while in course of construction, was treated with characteristic friendli- ness by the Eussian officials, and on his return wrote the reports to which I allude, and which are marked by technical accuracy and diligent observation. It is to be regretted that the temptations of authorship subsequently persuaded him to dilute and reproduce his original compositions in the form of a discursive volume, entitled ' Voyage a Merv,' published in 1888. To both these writers I am indebted for many facts and figures, verified and sometimes corrected by per- sonal investigation, and supplemented by private inquiries on the spot. In the first place, it must be borne in mind that excIu- tlie railway has been in its execution and is in its mmtLy immediate object a military railway ; and that all the labour which we associate at home with co- operative industry or private effort has here been undertaken by an official department, under the con- trol of the War Minister at St. Petersburg. To us who in England are not only unacquainted with military railways, but even (except in such cases as India) with Government railways, the idea may appear a strange one. But in a world where any- body who is not an official is a nobody, and where military officials are at the head of the hierarchy of powers, it is less surprising. Not only was the con- struction of the line entrusted to a lieutenant-general (General AnnenkofF having . since been reappointed 48 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA for two years director-in-cliief of the railway), but the technical and, to a large extent, the manual labour was in military hands. The same may be said of the working staff at this moment. Civilians have been and still are employed as surveyors, architects, and engineers ; but the bulk of the staif is composed of soldiers of the line. The engines are in many cases driven by soldiers ; the station-masters are officers, or veterans who have been wounded in battle ; and the guards, conductors, ticket-coUectors, and pointsmen, as well as the telegraph and post- office clerks attached to the stations, are soldiers also. It cannot be doubted that this peculiarity contributed much to the economy of original construction, just as it has since done to the efficiency of daily admin- istration. Material of Tlic line Itself is on a five-foot gauge, which is uniform with the railway system of European Eussia, but not with that of British India. The rails, which are all of steel, were made, partly in St. Petersburg, partly in Southern Eussia, and were bought by the Government at rather high prices in order to en- courage native manufacture. They are from 19 to 22 feet long, and are laid upon wooden sleepers, at the rate of 2,000 sleepers for every mile, being simply spiked down, after the universal Eussian fashion, without chairs or bolts. Every single piece of timber, iron, or steel employed was brought from the forests or workshops of Eussia, for the most part down the Volga and across the Caspian. The sleepers cost 8J/ 77/ A' CAS/'/AX To AIKTIY 93 l)earskin, oversluulowino- Ins duyky features, lie does not perliaps look like a ci^•ilise(l being, kut still less would YOU take hiiu for a eonverled Diek. Turpin or Claude Duval. Excellent agriculturists tliese ancient ]noss-troo})ers are said to be, and now tliat the lie_\-day of licence and war and plunder has faded into a dream, they settle down to a peasant's exis- TUKKOMAN VILLAGE AND ORCHARDS. tence with as nuich coutentnient as the_v fornierh^ leaped to saddle for a foray on the frontiers of Khorasan. Askabad, which we next reach, has all the ap})ear- ance of a large and flourishing place. Its station is of European proportions and appointment. Ninnbers of droshkies attend the arrival of the trains ; and the crowded platform indicates a consi(leral)le population. Askiiljiul 94 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA I was informed tliat the present figures are 10,000 ; but these, which I believe to be an exaggerated estimate, include the troops, of which there are three rifle battalions and a regiment of Cossacks in or near the town ; while two batteries of artillery are, I believe, stationed further south, at Arman Sagait. Askabad is the residence of the Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief (the two functions in a military regime being united in the same individual), and the administrative centre of Transcaspia. The present Governor is General KomarofF,^ a man whose name is well known to Englishmen as the Eussian commander in the famous affair on the Kushk, on March 30, 1885, which we have named from the contiguous and dis- puted district of Penjdeh. Into the question at issue between him and Sir Peter Lumsden I do not wish to re-enter. I afterwards met General Komaroff, and enjoyed an interesting conversation with him, to which I shall have occasion further to allude. He is a short, stout, middle-aged man, with a bald head, spectacles, and a square grizzled beard, and cannot be described as of dignified appearance. Indeed he reminded me of a university professor dressed up in uniform, and metamorphosed from a civilian into a soldier. To administrative energy he adds the tastes of a student and the enthusiasm of an antiquarian ; having, as he 1 Alexander Komaroff was born in 1830, entered the army at the age of nineteen, being gazetted to the Imperial Guard, was sent to the Caucasus in 1855, served under General Mouravieff at Ears, was sub- sequently appointed Governor of Derbent and chief of the military administration of the native tribes of the Caucasus ; was made a Lieutenant-General in 1877, and Governor-General of Transcaspia in 1883. caspia FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV 95 informed me, amassed a collection of the antiquities of Transcaspia, including a statuette, apparently of Athene, of the best Greek period, some ornaments in the style of the beautiful Kertch collection at St. Petersburg, and no less than forty specimens of coins not previously known. The Government of Transcaspia has, during the Govern- last live years, reached such dimensions that rumours Trans- have been heard of its approaching declaration of independence of the Caucasus, by the Governor- General of which it is still controlled ; while a short time ago General KomarofT is said to have defeated a scheme to render it subordinate to the Governor- General of Turkestan, hitherto the greatest potentate of Central Asia, and to have sought from the Emperor the privilege of responsibility to him alone. If sub- ordination to the Caucasus is perpetuated, it will only be because of the easy and uninterrupted com- munication between Transcaspia and that part of the empire, in contrast to European Russia, and because in time of war the Caucasus would be the base from which reinforcements and supplies would naturally be drawn. If, on the other hand, it is placed under Turkestan, it will be because of the danger of divided military action in a region so critical as the Afghan border. In any case, the increasing importance of Transcaspia affords a striking illustration of a fact, to which I shall frequently revert, viz. the shifting from east to west of the centre of gravity in the Central Asian dominions of the Czar, with its consequent bear- ings, of incalculable importance, upon the relations 96 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA of Eussia and Great Britain in the East. Transcaspia, with an inhabited area of 13,000 square geographical miles, now consists of three districts and two sub- districts, each governed by a colonel or lieutenant- colonel, viz. Mangishlak with its capital Fort Alex- androvsk on the Caspian, Krasnovodsk, Akhal Tekke with its capital Askabad, Tejend, and Merv. To these are added the two territories, administered by com- missioners, of Yuletan and Sarakhs. Its population has been ludicrously exaggerated in all extant English works, and consists, according to the latest returns, of 311,000 persons (exclusive of the Eussian army and administration), of whom the Turkomans of Merv number 110,000 ; and it includes all the four prin- cipal oases already named, besides the Atrek region which was joined to Akhal Tekke in 1886, and the minor oases inhabited by the Sarik and Salor Turko- mans of Yuletan, Sarakhs, and Penjdeh. Of the en- tire population So per cent, are Turkomans, 14 per cent. Kirghiz (of the Mangishlak peninsula), and the remaining 3 per cent., or 9,000, Eussians, Armenians, Persians, Jews, and Bokhariots. Resources lu 1885 the wcaltli of Transcaspia in animals was Son*" computed as follows : 107,000 camels, 68,000 horses, 22,000 asses, 47,000 horned cattle, and 1,400,000 sheep. Of natural resources, 8,064 tons of salt were reported to have been extracted in the Krasnovodsk district, and 120,000 gallons of petroleum from the wells of Bala Ishem. In the same year, i.e., before the extension of the Transcaspian Eailway, the im- ports were roughly estimated at 300,000/., the exports FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV 97 at 77,300/., figures whicli would be completely dwarfed by the present returns. In 1885, the following sums were said to have been raised in taxation : 91,000 roubles house-tax, or rather tent-tax, levied on each hihitka, 15,000 roubles customs or caravan-tax, 1,200 roubles house-tax levied in the cities. On the other hand, in 1887 the State and Land Taxes combined are said to have produced a revenue of 27,400/. from Transcaspia. These totals, again, supply an imperfect basis for more recent computations. Askabad itself has a printing-press, a photographic Buildings of the establishment, and European shops and hotels. The town houses are for the most part of one storey, and are freely bedaubed with white. A small fortified enceinte supplies a reminder of the days, not yet ten years gone by, when the Eussians were strangers and sus- pects in the land. In the centre of the town is an obehsk erected in memory of the artillerymen who were killed in the siege and capture of Geok Tepe, and at its base are planted the Afghan guns which were captured in the skirmish on the Kushk. The town is a purely Eussian settlement, though the busi- ness quarter has attracted a large number of Ar- menians, Persians, and Jews. City life is avoided by the Turkomans, who prefer the tented liberty of the steppe. Askabad is also a place of high strategical signi- strategical „ , y-r-. . importance ficance, as being the meetmg-pomt oi the Jihivan oj Askabad 1 T p -r> ■ ^•"'^ roads and Persian roads. Already the north oi Persia into Persia and Khorasan are pretty well at Eussian mercy from a military point of view; though there is H 98 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA some bravado in talking, as the Eussians always do, of the Shall as a vassal, and of Persia as in a parallel plight to Bokhara or Khiva. Since the occupation of Transcasjsia the Eussians have rendered an advance still more easy by constructing a military road from 20 ft. to 24 ft. broad, and available for artillery, from Askabad over the Kopet Dagh to the Persian frontier, where at present it terminates abruptly at one of the frontier pillars placed by the Commission near the hamlet of Baz Girha. The distance is thirty miles from Askabad. At present there is nothing better than a mountain track, descending upon the other side to Kuchan and the high road to Meshed ; a contrast which is due to the failure of the Persians to fulfil their part of the bargain, Eussia havins; undertaken to construct the first section of the chaussee to the frontier, while the remaining portion of forty miles to Kuchan was to be laid by General Gasteiger Khan for the Government of the Shah. To this co-operate roadway was to be joined a steam tramway originally projected by a merchant named Nikolaiefi", which was to cover the remaining 100 miles to Meshed, and, under the guise of commercial transit, to provide Eussia with a pri- vate way of entry into Khorasan. There is reason to believe that, elated with its recent successes in the matter of a Eussian consul at Meshed, the Imperial Government is urgently pressing for the execution of this project ; and at any moment we may find that the centre of interest has shifted from the Afghan to the Persian frontier. This is a question of which I shall have something to say later on. In any case. FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV 99 whether a future movement upon Kliorasaii be forcible or pacific, this road will without doubt afford the main and a most effective line of advance. Already it has been announced in the press that it is beginning to be used by Bokharan merchants, in connection with the caravan routes through Persia from the ports of Bender- Abbas or Bushire, for merchandise from India, in preference to the shorter but less safe and more costly routes through Afghanistan.^ A politic act on the part of General Annenkoff was Use of the 1 . . . IT railway by the issue of a proclamation pomtmsr out the advan- pilgrims lo ^ _ . . Meshed tages of his railway, in connection with the Askabad- and Mecca Kuchan road, to pilgrims of the Shiite persuasion, both from Western Persia and from the provinces of the Caucasus, desirous of reaching the sacred city of Meshed — advantages by which I was informed that they already profit in considerable numbers. Not that the orthodox Sunnite is without his equal consolations from the line. It is, in fact, becoming a popular method of locomotion, on the first part of the way to Mecca, for the devout hadji of Bokhara, Samarkand, and the still further east. Six thousand such pilgrims travelled upon it in 1887 ; and it was 1 Vide the following extract from the journal of the Eussian Ministry of Finance (No. 19, 1889) : ' Some successful attempts have recently been made to introduce certain goods (chiefly green tea) from India into Bokhara by the roundabout way of Bender-Bushire, Persia, Askabad, and beyond by the Transcaspian railway. This route has been chosen by Bokharan merchants, according to the testimony of the chief official of the Bokharan Customs, in consequence of the facilities offered by the railway for the transport of goods, and also because merchandise brought thereby escapes the exorbitant transit dues imposed by the Afghans.' n2 100 RUSSIA IN- CENTRAL ASIA estimated that the total would reach ten thousand in 1888. The Atek Amoug the stations passed after leaving Askabad oasis and " t i r ^ • ^ Dushak are Gyaurs and Baba Durmaz, both oi which were familiar names during the epoch when Eussian diplo- macy averred and British credulity believed that the limit of Eussian advance could be drawn somewhere or anywhere between Askabad and Merv. The former is generally recognised as the commencement of the Atek or mountain-base oasis, in which horticulture and agriculture continue to prevail, and which is pro- longed as far as the rich pastures of Sarakhs. The greater part of it was acquired by treaty with Persia in 1881. Artik, the next station to Baba Durmaz, is only a few miles from Lutfabad, a Persian town on the near side of the mountains, round which a loop was thrown, leaving it to Persia, in the delimitation that followed upon the treaty of that year. The oasis ends at Dushak, a place of considerable importance, inasmuch as it is the present southernmost station of the line, where the rails run nearest to Afghanistan, and the consequent starting-point for Sarakhs and the frontier at Zulfikar, from which it is distant only 130 miles. Wlien any extension of the line in a southerly direction is contemplated — a subject of which I shall have more to say — it might possibly be from Dushak (a Persian name with the curiously apt signification of Two Branches) that it would start ; and should the idea of an Indo-Eussian railway ever emerge from the limbo of chimeras in which it is at present interned, it would be from Dushak that the FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV 101 lines of junction with Chaman, Quetta, and the Bolan would most naturally be laid. Some of my friends on our return journey con- Eefusaiof ITT- T1 ■ -r\in permission templated makmg a little excursion from Dushak over to visit . . . . Kelatand the Persian frontier to the native Khanate of Kelat-i- Meshed Nadiri and possibly even as far as Meshed, a distance over a very rough mountain road of eighty miles ; but on telegraphing to the Eussian authorities at Askabad for permission to pass the frontier and to return by the same route, we were peremptorily for- bidden, the officer who dictated the despatch subse- quently informing me that the frontier was not safe in these parts, a murder having recently been committed there or thereabouts, and that the consent of the Per- sian authorities would have had to be obtained from Teheran, as well as a special authorisation from St. Petersburg — an accumulation of excuses which was hardly wanted to explain the refusal of the Eussians to allow three Englishmen to visit so tenderly nursed a region as the frontiers of Khorasan. Kelat, indeed, is understood to be the point of the Persian frontier where Eussian influence, and,' it is alleged, Eussian roubles, are most assiduously at work ; and where the troubles and risk of future conquest are being anticipated by the surer methods of subsidised conciliation. I should greatly like to have seen Kelat-i-JSTadiri, Keiat-i- T 1 p 1 ■ 1 Nadiri which IS a most interesting place, and oi wnicn more will be heard in the future. Visited, or mapped, or described, by Sir C. MacGregor ('Journey through Khorasan '), Colonel Valentine Baker (' Clouds in the 103 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA East'), O'Donovan ('The Merv Oasis'), and Captain A. C. Yate ('Travels with the Afghan Boundary Commission '), it is known to be one of the strongest natural fortresses in the world. An elevated valley of intensely fertile soil, irrigated by a perennial stream, is entirely surrounded and shut out from external communication by a lofty mountain barrier, from 800 to 1,200 feet high, with a precipitous scarp of from 300 to 600 feet. The cliffs are pierced by only five passages, which are strongly fortified and impregnable to attack. The entire enclosure, which O'Donovan very aptly compared with the Happy Valley of Easselas, and which is a kingdom in miniature, is twenty-one miles long and from five to seven miles broad. Its value to Eussia lies in its command of the head-waters of the streams that irrigate the Atek. In the spring of this year (April 1889) it was rumoured that Kelat had been ceded by Persia to Eussia ; but en- quiries very happily proved that this was not the case. The Te- From Dushak, where we finally lose sight of the jend oasis . ^ - great mountam wall, under the shadow of which we have continued so long, the railway turns at an angle towards the north-east and enters the Tejend oasis. Presently it crosses the river of that name, which is merely another title for the lower course of the Heri Eud, where it emerges from the mountains and meanders over the sandy plain (the oasis is a thing of the future rather than of the present) prior to losino^ itself in a marshy swamp in the Kara Kum. Among the rivers of this country, none present more strikino- contrasts, according to the season of the vear, than the FROM THE CASPIAX TO MERV 103 Tejeiid. At time of liigii -water, in April and lilay, it lias a depth of forty feet, and a widtli, in diflerent parts, of from eiglity yards to a quarter of a mile. Later on, under the evaporation of the summer heats, it shrinks to a narrow streamlet, or is utterly exhausted by irrigation canals. The Tejend swamp is over- grown by a sort of cane-brake or jungle teeming with wild fowl and game of every description, particularly TEKKE CHIEFS OF THE TE.JEND OASIS. wild boars. General Annenkoffs fii'st bridge crosses the river at a point where it is from 80 to 10(1 j'ards wide. Then follow the sands again ; for wherever water has not been conducted there is sand, and the meaning of an oasis in these parts is, as I have said, simj)ly a steppe rendered amenaljle to culture l)y arti- ficial irrigation, there beini;' no reason whv, if a more 104 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA abundant water supply could either be manipulated or procured, tbe whole country should not in time, if I may coin the word, be oasified. The sands continue for nearly fifty miles, till we again find ourselves in the midst of life and verdure, and on the early morn- ing of our second day after leaving the Caspian glide into a station bearing the historic name of Merv. 105 CHAPTER V FEOM MEET TO THE OX US But I have seen Afrasiab's cities only, Samarkand, Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste. And the black Toorkmun tents ; and only drunk The desert rivers, Moorghub and Tejend, Kohik,' and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep. The Northern Sir, and the great Oxus stream. The yellow Oxus. Matthew Arnold, Sohrab and Buslam. Appearance of the modern Merv — The Bussian town — History of the ancient Merv — British travellers at Merv — Eussian annexation in 1884 — Fertility, resources, and population of the oasis — Adminis- tration, taxation, and irrigation — Trade returns — Future develop- ment of the oasis — Turkoman character — Strategical importance of Merv — Ferment on the Afghan frontier arising out of the revolt of Is-hak Khan - Movements of Is-hak and Abdurrahman — Colonel Alikhanoff, Governor of Merv — The Turkoman militia — Possible increase of the force — The Turkoman horses — The Khans of Merv at Baku — The ruined fortress of Koushid Khan Kala — Old cities of Merv — Emotions of the traveller — Central Asian scenery — The Sand-dunes again — Description of the ancients— »Dif&culties of the r.'iilway — The Oxus — Width and appearance of the channel — General Annenkoff's railvifay bridge — Its temporary character — The Oxus flotilla. When O'Donovan rode into Merv on March 1, 1881, Appear- after following on horseback much the same route mo'dern from the Persian frontier as we have been doing by ' The Kohik is the modern Zerafshan, which waters Samarkand and Bokhara. Merv 106 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA rail, lie confessed to a sense of disappointment at finding the domes and minarets of the great city of his imagination dwindle into a couple of hundred huts, placed on the right bank of a scanty stream. The visitor of to-day, who, though he be, thanks to O'Donovan and others, better informed, yet still expects some halo of splendour to linger round the ancient Queen of the World, suffers an almost similar disenchantment. He sees only a nascent and as yet very embryonic Eussian town, with some station buildings, two or three streets of irregular wooden houses, and of generally inchoate appearance, and that is all. No ancient city, no ruins, no signs of former greatness or reviving prosperity. It is true that on the other side of the Murghab — at the season of the year when I saw it a slender but very muddy stream, flowing in a deep bed between lofty banks, and here crossed by a wooden pile bridge, fifty-five yards long — he sees looming up the earthen walls of the unfinished fortress of Koushid Khan Kala, upon which the Mervi were so busily engaged during O'Donovan's stay in 1881. But these have to a large extent been pulled down or have fallen into decay ; and the romance is not restored to them by the dis- covery that they now contain several unimpeachable whitewashed dwellings of European structure and appearance, which are in fact the Eussian official quarters, and edifices, and comprise the residences of Colonel AlikhanofF, Governor of Merv, General Annen- koff, the colonel commanding the garrison, and others, as well as public gardens and a small Eussian church. FROM MERV TO THE OX US 107 The fact is tliat tins Merv never was aii. important city, or even a city at all. It is merely a site, first occnpied by the Tckke Tnrkomans Avhen nnder their famous leader Koushid Khan they swept up the valley of the Murghab in the year 1856, driving the Sariks or previous settlers before them, and oustin"- them BiiiLGE u\i-;k the jiuughab at mi:i;\'. from their city of Porsa Kala, the ruins of which still stand twenty miles to the south. Xot that the Sarik city itself had any closer connection with the Merv of anticpiity, the Merv or Maour ^ or Merou of which Arab scribes wrote so lo^'ingly, and of which Moore sang : — ' Merv was the Persian, Maour the Tartar name. 108 BUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA And fairest of all streams the Murga roves Among Merou's bright palaces and groves. The real and ancient Merv or Mervs — for there were three successive cities — are situated ten miles across the plain to the east, and will be mentioned later on. The It was only after the youngest of these was sacked town at the end of the last century, and the irrigation works, upon which its life depended, were destroyed, that the Turkomans moved westwards and made the western branch of the Murghab their headquarters. Of a people who led so unsettled a life, and whose largest centre of population was not a city but a camp, it would be useless to expect any permanent relics ; and therefore it is not surprising that the present Merv consists only of the rickety town which the Eussians have built, and which is inhabited mainly by Persians, Jews, and Armenians, and of the official quarter before alluded to within the mouldering walls of the never-completed Tekke fortress. The town itself, so far from increasing, is at the present moment diminishing in numbers. A visitor in 1886 describes its population as 3,000 ; but it cannot now be more than one-third of that total. The reason of the diminution is this. From the time of the annexation in February, 1884, and while the railway was being pushed forward to Amu Daria, Merv was the head- quarters of General Annenkoff and his staff. There was a sudden inflation of business, shops were run up, merchants came, and the brand-new Merv fancied FROM MERV TO THE OXUS 109 that it had inherited some aroma of the ancient re- nown. A club-house, open, as the Eussian miUtary clubs always are, to both sexes, provided a centre of social reunion, and was the scene of weekly dancing and festivity. Tor the less select, a music-hall re- echoed on the banks of the Murghab the airs of Oifenbach and the melodies of Strauss. The Turko- mans, attracted by the foreign influx, flocked in large numbers from their settlements on the oasis, and drove an ephemeral but thriving trade. But with the forward movement of the railway battalion, and stiU more with the occupation by the line of Bokhara and Samarkand, this fictitious importance died away, most of the shops were shut, the town now contains only 285 houses, numbered from one upwards, and except on bazaar days, which are twice a week, and when a dwindling crowd of natives col- lects in the open air on the other or right bank of the Murghab, very little business appears to be done. Whether or not the glory of Merv may revive wiU depend upon the success or failure of the schemes for the regeneration of the surrounding oasis, which are now being undertaken. Of the ancient history of Merv, it will be sufficient History of . ancient here to say that it has been one of even greater and Merv more startling vicissitudes than are common with the capitals of the East. Its glories and sieges and sacks excited the eloquence of chroniclers and the wonder- ment of pilgrims. Successively, a satrapy of Darius (under the name Margush, whence obviously the Greek Margus (Murghab) and Margiana) ; a city and 110 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA colony of Alexander ; ^ a province of the Partliians, whither Orodes transported the 10,000 Eoman soldiers whom he took prisoners in his famous victory- over Crassus ; the site of a Christian bishopric ; ^ an Arabian capital (where, at the end of the eighth century, Mokannah, the veiled prophet of Khorasan, kindled the flame of schism) ; the seat of power of a Seljuk dynasty, and the residence and last resting- place of Alp Arslan and Sultan Sanjur ; a prey to the awful scourge of the Mongol, and an altar for the human hecatombs of Jenghiz Khan ; a frontier out- post of Persia ; a bone of armed contention between Bokhara and Ehiva ; a Turkoman encampment ; and a Eussian town, — it has surely exhausted every revolu- tion of fortune's wheel, and in its last state has touched the expiring chord of the diapason of ro- mance. For English travellers and readers, its interest lies less in the faded tomes of the past than in the records of the present century, during which several visits to it, or attempts to visit it, have been made by the small but heroic band of British pioneers in Central Asia. British Dr. Wolff, the missionary, was twice at Merv, in atMeiT 1831 and again in 1844, upon his courageous errand of enquiry into the Stoddart and ConoUy tragedy at Bokhara. Burnes halted on the Murghab, but did ^ The city was known as Antiooteia Margiana, from Antiochus Soter, who rebuilt it ; and it was the capital of the Grseoo-Syrian pro- vince of Mars;iana. ' Christianity was introduced at Merv about 200 a.d., and Jacobite and Nestorian congregations flourished there as late as under Arab rule. FROM ME RV TO THE OX US 111 not see Merv itself, on his way from Bokhara to Meshed in 1832. Abbott and Shakespear were there in 1840 on their journey to Khiva. Thomson, in 1843, was the next, and Wolff was the last English visitor for nearly forty years ; MacGregor and Burnaby being both recalled in 1875, when about to start for Merv, from the West and North respectively. At length, in 1881, the curtain of mystery, torn aside by the ad- venturous hand of O'Donovan, revealed the Tekke Turkoman clans existing under a tribal form of go- vernment, regulated by a council and presided over by khans, and debating with feverish anxiety the impending advance of the terrible ' Ouroussi.' The circumstances of the later and pacific an- Russian ^ -ijr n 1 1 • annexation nexation of Merv are well known, having been debated m i884 in Parliament, discussed in Blue Books, and enshrined in substantial volumes. '^ There can be no doubt that immediately after the victory of Geok Tepe the thoughts of the Russians were turned in the direction of Merv, and Skobeleff was bitterly disappointed at not being allowed to push on so far. Prudence, how- ever, and still more the desirability of calming the suspicions of England, suggested a temporary delay,^ and the employment of more insidious means. ^ Vide especially The Russians at the Gates of Herat. By 0. Marvin. London, 1885. ^ On March 25, 1881, in the debate on the evacuation of Kandahar in the House of Commons, Sir Charles DUke (then Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs) gave the following enigmatic assurance : ' He ■wa.s able to make this statement, that the very first act of the nev7 Em- peror, upon ascending the throne, vi'as to recall General Skobeleff to St. Petersburg, and to put a stop to all operations which that general had been conductimg in Asia.' 112 BUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA Accordingly, commercial relations were opened with the inhabitants of the Merv oasis ; surveys of their country, and even of their encampment, were obtained by Alikhanoff, who under the guise of a merchant's clerk accompanied a trading caravan thither in February 1882, and conducted secret negotiations with the more propitious chieftains ; the rouble was plentifully distributed ; ^ and finally, in the spring of 1884 — while British hands were full in Upper Egypt and no untimely interference was to be expected — the same Alikhanoff, reappearing upon the scene, enforced, by significant allusions to a Eussian detachment in the immediate neighbourhood, his demand for a surrender of the tribe and their oasis to the Czar. The chiefs acquiesced and took the oath of allegiance. Koma- rofT's troops advanced at full speed, before the Anti- Eussian party, under the lead of Kadjar Khan and one Siakh-Push, an Afghan fanatic who seems to have exercised an extraordinary influence over the Tekkes, could organise a serious resistance. A few shots were exchanged, and a certain number of Turkoman saddles emptied ; the fortress of Koushid Khan Kala was occupied ; the hostile leaders fled or were cap- tured ; a shower of stars and medals from St. Peters- burg rewarded the services of conquest or sweetened the pains of surrender ; and Merv was at last made part and parcel of the Eussian Empire. The flame of diplomatic protest blazed fiercely forth in England ; but, after a momentary combustion, was, as usual, 1 Vide Parliamentary Papers, ' Central Asia,' No. 2, 1885, pp. 118, 129. I'LOM MERV TO THE OX US 113 extinguislied by a flood of excuses from the inex- haustible reservoirs of the Neva. The oasis of Merv, vfhich owes its existence to Fertility, the bounty of the river Murghab and its subsidiary and popu- _ _ _ lation of network of canals and streams, is said in most works tiie oasis on the subject to consist of about 1,600 square miles ; though at present but a small fraction of this extent is under systematic or scientific cultivation. Its natural fertility is greater by far than that of any of the three oases hitherto encountered. As early as the tenth century the Arab traveller, Ibn Haukal, affirmed that ' the fruits of Merv are finer than those of any other place, and in no other city are to be seen such palaces and groves, and gardens and streams.' Vanished, alas ! is aU this ancient splen- dour ; but stiU the cattle of its pastures, the fruits of its orchards — grapes, peaches, apricots, and mulberries — and the products of its fields — wheat, cotton, barley, sorghum, sesame, rice, and melons, yielding from twenty-fold to one hundred-fold — are superior to those of any other district between Khiva and Khorasan.-' Linked to it in a chain of fertilised tracts towards the south and south-west are the minor oases of Yuletan, Sarakhs, and Penjdeh, inhabited by the Sarik and Salor Turkomans, living in scattered encampments or aouls, whose joint numbers are about 60,000 souls, as compared with the 110,000 Tekke Turkomans of Merv. Of the extraneous ' The rainfall at Merv is fifty days in the year. The mean annual temperature is 18° (Reaumur) ; that of the hottest momh is 34°, nail of the coldest month 4°. I 114 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA population, 3,500 are Persians and Tartars, nearly the same number Armenians, over 2,000 Eussians and Poles, 1,000 Kliivans and Bokhariots, 300 Jews, and a residuum of Caucasians, Greeks, Germans, Hungarians, Afghans, and Kirghiz. These figures, derived from the latest available returns, are greatly inferior to the estimates published in all extant English works, which have ludicrously over-estimated the totals. The wealth of the oasis, other than in the products of agriculture, sericulture, and horti- culture, is expressed in flocks of sheep and goats, of which there are 700,000 head, horses 20,500, asses 21,500, cattle 44,000, and camels 16,500. Its principal manufacture is that of the now renowned Turkoman carpets, of close velvety texture and uniform pattern, made by the women, and exported to Europe at the present rate of 4,000 a year, with a value of 32,000^. I take the following extract verbatim from one of the letters of the St. Petersburg correspondent of the ' Times,' to whom also I am in- debted for the above figures : — ■ Adminis- There are forty volosts, or sub-districts, in the Merv circuit, taxation With four to nine aouls in each . Each volost elects an elder, ™^ '^g"^" and each aoul an aJisakal. These all report to their khans, or pristavs, who, in their turn, report to the chief of the territory, AlikhanofF. The alisakal and three elders form a court for the trial of small offences entailing up to five roubles' fine, or three days' arrest. The khan has the right of sentencing to twenty -five roubles' fine and seven days' arrest. Delegates from each tribe, under the presidency of the pristav, with the assistance of a huzi, or religious member, may inflict a fin- of fifteen roubles, and a punishment of four tion FROM MERV TO THE OX US 115 montts' imprisonment. Other and more important cases are decided by Colonel AlikhanofF, with representatives from alt the sections. The taxes paid amount to five roubles per JiibitJca — namely, four roubles forty kopecks for the Exchequer, and half a rouble for local needs, or the zemstvo. In return, all caravans entering or passing through Merv pay one-fortieth of their goods. This was established in 188G, because the Bokhariots and Khivans made the Eussian caravans pay. In 1886 this duty produced 30,293 roubles 69 kopecks. The crops for the same year were : Sown. — Wheat, 450,000 pouds ; ' barley, 150,000 pouds ; rice, 60,000 pouds. Eeaped. —Wheat, 29,700,000 pouds; barley, 4,398,000 pouds; rice, 2,400,000 pouds. The cotton grown by the Turkomans is very small, and only for their own use. About eighteen miles above Merv the Koushid Khan Bend, or dam on the Murghab, sends an equal flow of water into the two halves of the oasis by means of two principal canals, the Otamish and the Toktamish. These in their turn supply the many smaller canals of the tribes. This water arrangement is looked after by an official called the mirab, elected annually. Each district is subdivided into Jcelemes, and each Iteleme consists of twelve proprietors. Two Ttelemes make an atahjlc, or sarkar, and enjoy water for twenty-four hours in turn. Yuletan is watered in the same way from the Murghab dam, Kasili Bend. Penjdeh is the worst irrigated district of all, as the Sariks have destroyed many of the canals. The import and export trade through Merv and the Trade overturn altogether are estimated at five millions of roubles. The figures in 1886 were : — Import from Bokhara 585,144 roubles „ Khiva . 62,568 „ „ „ Dereguez 60,172 „ „ „ Meshed . 371,690 „ „ „ Afghan Turkomania 58,879 „ „ „ Tashkent and Askahad 740,050 „ Total . 1,878,503 „ The poud = 36 English lbs. 116 BUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA Export into Bokhara and Khiva . 328,632 roubles „ Persia .... 280,000 „ Total . . . 608,632 „ Kussian articles sold in the shops at ilerv came to about 719,765 roubles. Bokharan goods now enter free of duty by special favour, so that there is no means of judging their value. There are also no regular statistics of goods entering by railway. Altogether the overturn is reckoned at five millions, which is putting it at its very highest figure. Future de- III Speaking, however, of the resources of the of the oasis Metv oasis, I am referring to that wliich is still in a back-\vard condition, and is capable of immense development. The soil is well adapted to the growth of cotton, though little is at present produced, the Turkomans apparenth" not having taken very kindly to the industry, though after the Eussian occupation several tons of American cotton-seed were distributed gratis among the inhabitants.^ Here, however, as well as along the equally suitable banks of the Oxus, improvement may be exjjected. The growth of timber, so necessary in these parched regions, has also been taken in hand. General Komaroff told me that the planting of the oasis had been commenced in real earnest, and that in time there would be growing there not less than sixty million of trees. Three million young saphngs were already to be seen at the height of several feet from the ground at Bairam Ah, ten miles to the east. At the same time the work of 1 The faihu-e of the first attempts is attributed to the fact that the imported seed came from plantations lying near the sea coast. Since it has been brought from the interior the experiment has proved more successful. FROM MERV TO THE OX US 117 scientific irrigation, hitherto neglected, has been begun — the repair of the great Sultan Bend Dam, fifty-three miles further up the course of the Mur- ghab, by which alone its distribution over the lower surfaces can be properly regulated, having been com- mitted to a 3'oung Polish engineer named Poklefski, and the entire district having been made over to the private purse of the Czar — a guarantee that its development wiU not be allowed to slacken, or its revenues to result in loss to the exchequer of so economical a monarch.'^ When the new system of ' The following interesting description of the Sultan Bend works in 1888 is translated from the Comte de Cholet's book, Excursion en Turlcestan, pp. 202-3 : ' An embankment of concrete 58 feet high, acting as a dam, will completely bar the ooiirse of the river from bank to bank. Its waters, thus driven back, will form an immense lake 375 acres in extent, out of which fom- sluices will be constructed, at a height exactly calculated beforehand, so as to allow of the water being distributed into big canals, carrying it into the interior of the country. Special dredging machines, invented by M. Poklefski, will be employed to stir up the waters of the lake, and to prevent the alluvium from settling ; and as the velocity of the stream, the moment the sluices are opened, will be greater than that of the original current, only an insig- nificant portion will sink to the bottom of the canals. The latter, which are also to be intersected with sluices, and are carried forward with a regulated fall, will be subdivided into smaller canals, gradually dimin- ishing in size, and sjireading fertihty and riches among the Turkomans far beyond Merv. Even in flood-time, the top of the dam being much above the normal level of the river, only an insignificant quantity of water will pass over. The lake alone will be considerably swollen, but without serious consequences, since its waters will be confined between the hills that border the Murghab both on the right and left, at a dis- tance of several versts, and converge exactly at this spot, leaving only a narrow passage between, which wUl be barred by the dam. The small amount of water that may succeed in escaping over the embank- ment will fall into the old bed of the river, and be hemmed in between its banks ; so that it will not be able to repeat the serious damage to the country that was caused by the floods of two years ago (1886), which all but swept away the new town of Merv, and destroyed at its outset the excellent handiwork of Alikhanoff. Small dams, made only 118 RUSSIA IN' CENTRAL ASIA canalisation is in working order, it is anticipated that it will subdue to cultivation a territory of some 200,000 acres, upon wliicli it is proposed to plant Eussian peasants as colonists in equal number with the Turkomans. If we add to this that Merv is the very central point of the trade routes from Bokhara and the Oxus to Eastern Persia, and from Central Asia to India through Afghanistan, we can believe that there yet may rise on the banka of the Murghab a city worthy of the site and of the name. Turkomfn Wlieu AlikhauoiF, in the disguise of a clerk, visited character Merv in 1882, his report to the Eussian Government contained the following not too flattering account of his future subjects : ' Besides being cruel, the Merv Tekkes never keep a promise or an oath if it suits their purpose to break it. In addition to this they are liars and gluttons. They are frightfully envious ; and finally, among all the Turkomans there is not a people so unattractive in every moral respect as the Tekkes of Merv.' ^ We may conjecture that this of fascines and sacks of earth, because they will only have to resist a slight pressure, will stop up the old canals which are no longer to be used ; whilst all the other constructions, whether dams or sluices, will be made of concrete, manufactured and cemented on the spot. Two years hence (i.e. 1890) the whole of this work, in the competent hands of M. Poklefski, will be completed. Every aoiil, every hamlet, every single proprietor will know exactly the period of the year at which to irrigate his fields. The surface of arable land will be multiplied almost tenfold. The whole country v.i]l be covered with marvellous crops ; and the market of Merv will be able to send to Kussia and the Caucasus an immense quantity of first-rate cotton, which has cost nothing to produce, and, being subject to no duty, can be sold at prices of extra- ordinary cheapness.' The estimated cost of the new dam was 24,000L ' The general reputation of the Turkoman as a savage and a bandit may be illustrated by Turkoman proverbs : — FROM MERV TO THE OXUS 119 is a verdict wliicli he would not now endorse with- out qualification ; and though the broad features of the national character may remain stereotyped — though Turkoman morals are indubitably coarse, and their standards of honesty low, yet later travellers Avho have resided in their midst, or have had occasion to employ their services, have testified to the posses- sion of good qualities on their part, such as amiability, frankness, hospitality, and a rough code of honour. M Bonvalot, the French traveller, who was at Merv in 1886, wrote a letter to the Journal des Debats, in which he said, ' The Eussiaus are of opinion, and I agree with them, that the Tekkes are worthy people, very aiFable and mild, and with a frankness that is both astonishing and delightful after the rascality of the Persians and the platitudes of the Bokhariots.' Their behaviour is largely dependent upon the hand- ling of the Russians, which has so far been eminently successful. As the same authority very truly re- marked in his latest work,^ ' So long as they can get ' The T\u-)iomari neither needs the shade of a tree nor the protection of man.' ' When the sword has been drawn, who needs another excuse ? ' ' The Turkoman on horseback knows neither father nor mother.' ' Where there is a city there are no wolves ; where there are Turko- mans there is no peace.' The prodigious prestige enjoyed by the Turkoman brigands is amiis- ingly illustrated by the story told by Grodekoff (chap, i.) of a Persian who enjoyed a great reputation for bravery, and was attacked in the ■ night by a Tekke. The Persian, being the stronger of the two, soon threw his assailant to the ground ; but just as he was taking out his knife to cut the latter's throat, the Tekke called out : ' What are you doing ? Do you not see that I am a Tekke ? ' The Persian at once lost his presence of mind and dropped the knife, which was seized by the Tekke and plunged into his opponent's heart. ' Through the Heart of Asia to India. By G. Bonvalot. 1889. 120 RUSSIA IX CENTRAL ASIA water, toleration, speedy, stern, and eqnilable jnstice, and have their taxes levied fairly, the people of Central Asia do not as a rnle ask for anything more.' strategical The overwhehiiiug strategical importance of Merv importance . . . ^-., ^ of Merv ui relation to India is a diet nm which I have never AKSAKALS, OR ELDKKS OF MERV. been able lo nndei'slaii(b I liave seen it argned with irreproachable logic, in magazine articles, tliat Merv is tlie key to Herat, Herat the key to Kandahar, and Xandidiar the key to India. Ihit the most scientific FROM MERV TO THE OXUS 121 demonstrations of a priori reasoning must after all yield place to experience and to fact. Eussia holds Merv ; and she could to-morrow, if she chose to bring about a war with England, seize Herat ; not, however, because she holds Merv, but because she holds the far more advanced and important positions of Sarakhs and Penjdeh.^ But even if she held Herat she would not therefore imperil Kandahar, while even if she held both Herat and Kandahar, she would not be much nearer the conquest of India. A great deal of nonsense has been talked in England about these so- called keys to India, and Lord Beaconsfield never said a truer thing, though at the time it was laughed at as a sounding platitude, than when he declared that the keys of India are to be found in London, and consist in the spirit and determination of the British people. The political benefits to Eussia resulting from the annexation of Merv were very considerable, and ought not to be underrated. They were three- fold, having an easterly, a westerly, and a local application. It set the seal upon the absorption of the Khanates, by establishing Eussia upon the left ' Vide the prophetic opinion of Sir 0. MacGregor on the strategical importance of Sarakhs expressed in 1875 {Life and Ojnnions, vol. ii. p. 15) : ' Placed at the junction of roads of Herat and Meshed by the Heri-Bud and Ab-i-Meshed valleys respectively, and at the best en- trance to the province of Khorasan from the north, it cannot fail to exercise a very serious influence on the momentous issue of the Eusso- Indian Question. This must happen, whether it falls into the hands of the friends of England or into those of her foes. Whether Russia uses Sarakhs as a base for offensive measures against Herat, or England as a defensive outpost to defeat any such operations, that position vs'ill be heard of again. And if my feeble voice can effect a -warning ere it is too late, let it he here raised in these words : " If England does not use Sarakhs for defence, Eussia will use it for offence ! " ' 122 EUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA as well as upon the right of Bokhara, and leaving that country very mu.ch in the position of metal be- tween the hatamer and the anvil, to be moulded or flattened at will. It completed the flank circum- vention of Khorasan, by the erection of a powerful military post on its eastern or Afghan quarter. And finally it rounded off the conquest, and centralised the administration of the Turkoman oases and deserts, the bulk of which passed straightway, and the residue of which will ultimately pass, beneath Eussian rule. Nor is the immediate value of Merv to Eussia by any means to be despised, both because of its trading position, and because, being the centre of a large oasis, it could sustain a numerous army at a distance from its base through one or more winters. These are advantages on her side which it woiild be foolish to ignore, but which it is still more foolish to magnify into a real peril to our Indian possessions. Ferment When WG rcaclied Merv I had hoped to find on the Afghan Colouel Alikhauoff, the celebrated governor of the frontier _ _ _ ^ _ arising out district, to whom I had a letter of introduction. But of the re- ^fl°l he was absent, and the most mysterious and conflict- ing rumours prevailed as to his whereabouts. I ascertained afterwards, however, that he had left suddenly for the frontier with a Eussian battalion and a squadron of the Turkoman cavalry ; and the fact that a Cossack ofiicer, travelling in our company to rejoin his regiment at Merv, was abruptly ordered to follow in the same direction showed that something was on the tapis in that quarter. I mentioned in my first chapter that the revolt of Is-hak Khan in Is-hak Khan FBOM MERV TO THE OXUS 123 Afghanistan had. been alleged in St. Petersburg as a reasonable excuse for the prohibition of our journey to Transcaspia ; and I had been much interested at reading in the Eussian journals, which are, as is well known, subject to official supervision, the most exaggerated and fantastic estimates of the Afghan Pretender's chances of success. These reports were so absurdly biassed as to leave no doubt, not merely that Is-hak Khan had the clandestine sympathy of the Eussian Government, but that he was publicly regarded as the Eussian candidate to the Afghan throne. Upon arriving at Merv we heard a rumour that Abdurrahman was dead, and that Is-hak, who had been uniformly successful, was marching upon Kabul. This single item of false information will give some idea of the inferiority under which Eussia seems to labour as compared with ourselves in point of news from Afghanistan. Her intelligence comes in the main vi^ Balkh and the Oxus to Bokhara, and appears to be as unreliable as is the news from Bok- hara commonly transmitted to the British Govern- ment through Stamboul. However, this news, false though it was, had been enough to throw the Eussian military authorities into a ferment ; and what I after- wards heard at Tashkent made it clear that there was a considerable massing of Eussian troops upon the Afghan frontier, and that a forward movement must even have been contemplated. I asked a Eussian diplomatist what excuse his country could possibly have for interfering in Afghanistan at this juncture, even if Is-hak Khan were successful ; and he wisely 124 HUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA professed an ignorance on tlie subject equal to my own. But tlie fact remains that the troops were so moved, and that at Kerki, the Eussian frontier station on the Amu Daria, there was collected at this time a body of men, enormously in excess of garrison require- ments, and therefore of threatening dimensions. In Tashkent I was informed by an officer that the talk was all of an invasion of Afghanistan and of war ; and though 1 do not desire to attach any importance to the military gossip of a place where bellicose ideas have always ^arevailed, and where there is no lack of spirits who care little about morality, but a great deal about medals, — still I must place on record the fact that, in a time of absolute peace and with no possible provocation, the Eussians considered them- selves sufficiently interested in the internal status of Afghanistan, a country which they have a score of times declared to be outside the sphere of their legiti- mate political interference, to make a menacing dis- play of military force upon her frontier. Move- There was not at that time the provocation which Siak and tlic Amir Abdurrahman is since alleged to have given rahman by the fermcut arising out oi his vindictive punisn- nient of the rebels and suspects in Afghan Turkestan, and which was followed in February of this year by much larger Eussian concentration on the boundary. In neither case was any legitimate excuse likely to be forthcoming for advance. For in the former in- stance the success of Is-hak Khan would not have justified a violation of the frontier by Eiissia, any more than his defeat was likely to lead to its violation FROU MERV TO THE OXUS 125 by Afghanistan ; whilst in the latter, the proceedings of Abdurrahman, though perhaps well calculated to cause a great local stir, admitted of no aggressive interpretation as regards either Eussia or Bokhara, into whose territories so calculating a ruler was not in the least likely to rush to his own perdition. The Eussian movements on both occasions, if they illus- trate nothing more, are at least noteworthy as testify- ing to the anxiety with which they regard the Oxus frontier, and to the watchful, if not covetous, eye which they direct upon Afghan Turkestan. Though the war-cloud has for the present happily rolled by in that quarter, we must not be surprised if before long its horrid shadow reappears. When I afterwards heard at Tashkent of the collapse of Is-hak, the rumour prevailed that he had fled to Bokhara, and from there had been removed to his old quarters at Samarkand. This last report was denied by the Eussian officials, who repudiated any desire to countenance the pretender by allowing him an asylum on Eussian soil. A significant commentary on their denial was aiForded by his subsequent retreat at their invitation to that very spot, where he now resides surrounded by a considerable retinue, a tool in the hands of his hosts, and whom we may expect at any moment to see re-emerge as a thorn in our side, in the event either of disaster or of death to Abdurrah- man Khan. I subsequently met Colonel AlikhanofF and was Coionei introduced to him by General ZomaroiF. Speaking of Governor the aptitude which Eussia has so often displayed for 126 RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA employing in her own armies those whom she has abeady vanquished as opponents, the general told me that Alikhanoff's father, who was now a general, had himself fought against Eussia in the Caucasian wars. This provoked the obvious rejoinder, that the way to become a Eussian general was clearly to begin by having been a Eussian foe. Of the personality of Alikhanoflf himself I believe that a somewhat mistaken impression exists in England. Those who are ac- quainted with the part that he played in the diplo- matic subjugation of Merv between the years 1882 and 1884, to which I have already alluded, or who have read of his great influence in the Turkoman oasis, and of his Mussulman religion, are apt to picture to themselves a man of Oriental habits and appearance. A greater mistake could not be made. Alikhanoff is a tall man, with ruddy complexion, light hair, and a prodigious auburn, almost reddish, beard. A Lesghian of Daghestan by birth, whose real name is Ali Khan Avarski, he has all the appearance of having hailed from the banks of the Tay or the Clyde. He has been in the Eussian army from early years, and served under SkobeleiF in the Khivan campaign. Already a major, he was degraded to the ranks in 1875 because of a duel with a brother officer, and served as a private in the Eusso-Turkish war. When the Turkoman ex- peditions began in 1879, he went to Asia, reached the highest non-commissioned officer's rank in the same year, and returned at the close of Skobeleff"s campaign in 1881. Promoted a captain after his reconnaissance of the Merv oasis in 1882, and a major after the annexa- FROM MERV TO THE OXUS 127 tiou of Merv in 1884, lie is now a full colonel in the Eussian army, Nachalnik or Governor of the Merv oasis, Warden of the Marches along the Afghan bor- der, and judge of appeal among the Turkoman tribes, and at the early age of forty, though reported to be a dissatisfied man, finds himself the most talked-of personage in Central Asia. His religion, no doubt, stands him in great stead. But I do not know what other special advantages he possesses beyond his own abihty and courage. As the central point between Turkestan and The Turko- man militia Transcaspia and as commanding the Eusso-Afghan frontier, Merv is an important garrison town. Ac- cording to the latest information, there are stationed here two battalions of the line, a regiment of Cos- sacks, a battery of artillery, and a company of sappers. Here too are always to be found some of the Turko- man militia, whom Eussia, abandoning her old policy of uon-employment of Asiatic troops, has latterly begun to enlist. There are at the present moment three sotnias, or companies, of Turkoman horse, with 100 men in each, which were constituted by a formal authorisation from the Minister of War in February 1885. To this number were added a few Caucasians who had already served in the Eussian militia on the other side of the Caspian, and several Eussian ofiicers. The Turkomans already enrolled are picked men, there being great competition to join the force, and the hst of candidates is overstocked with names. The more dangerous and turbulent characters were at first selected, in order to provide them with a legitimate 128 SUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA outlet for spirits trained in the love of horseflesh and adventure, but condemned to distasteful idleness since the abolition of the alaman or border-raid. In the ranks and among the officers are several men who fought against SkobelefT at Geok Tepe. They learned European drill and discipline very quickly, the move- ments being first explained to therii in Turki, while the; commands were subsequently,' and are still, given in Eussian. Their uniform is the national khalat, or striped pink and black dressing-gown, with sheep- ■ skin bonnet, a broad sash roiind the waist, and big Eussian top-boots. They are armed with the Berdan rifle and a cavalry sabre. The pay of the men is 25 roubles (2Z. 10s.) a month, and of the officers from 50 to 100 roubles {bl. to 10^.) ; but out of this- sum they are required to provide their own horse," kit, and keep, the Government supplying them only with rifle and ammunition. Already they have shown: of what stuff they are made in the afiray upon the' Kushk in 1885, when they charged down with ex- treme delight upon their hereditary foes, the Afghans, . and did creditable execution. I subsequently saw a small detachment of these troops, who had been brought over by Alikhanoff" to Baku, to greet the Emperor, and was struck with their workmanlike appearance. Possible Although the force is at present limited to 300- increase of . i i i • the force men, it may be regarded as being reinforced by a powerful unmobilised reserve. Nearly every Turko- man who can afi^ord it keeps a horse, and, unable to play the freebooter, is quite ready to turn free lance FEOM MERV TO THE OX US 129 at a moment's notice. General Komaroff assured me that the total under arms could without difficulty be increased to 8,000, and I afterwards read in the ' Times ' that Colonel AlikhanofFtold the correspondent of that paper that in twenty-four hours he could raise 6,000 mounted men — a statement which tallies with that of the general. If there is some exaggera- tion in these estimates, at least there was no want of explicitness in the famous threat of Skobeleff, who in his memorandum on the invasion of India, drawn up in 1877, wrote : ' It will be in the end our duty to organise masses of Asiatic cavalry and to hurl them into India as a vanguard, under the banner of blood and rapine, thereby reviving the times of Tamerlane.' Even if this sanguinary forecast be forgotten, or if it remain unrealised, there is yet sound policy in this utilisation of the Turkoman manhood, inasmuch as it may operate as an antidote to the deteriorating in- fluence of European civilisation, which, entering this unsophisticated region in its own peculiar guise, and bringing brandy and vodka in its train, is already beginning to enfeeble the virile type of these former dave-hunters of the desert. When General GrodekofF rode from Samarkand TheTmto- . r,i-r.n TTT'-n CI man horses ;o Herat m 18/8, he recorded his judgment oi the s^alue of the Turkoman horses in these words : ' If 3ver we conquer Merv, besides imposing a money contribution, we ought to take from the Tekkes all heir best staUions and mares. They would then at )nce cease to be formidable.' For the poHcy of con- iscation has wisely been substituted that of utihsing K 130 }tU,SSIA IX CKNTUAL A^IA tlie equine resources of tlie oasis. None the less it is open to question wlietlier the power find endurance of the Tarkonian horses, reputed thougli they are to be able to accomplish from 70 to 100 miles a day for a week at a time, have not been greatly exaggerated. TraA'ellers have related astonishing stories second- hand of their achievements ; but those who have had actual experience are content with a more modest TURKOMAN HORSEMEN. tale. Certainly the long neck, large head, narrow chest, and weedy legs of the TurktJinan horse do not correspond with European taste in horseflesh. But the English members of the Afghan Boundarv Commission thought still less of them in use. A few only were l)Ought at prices of froni 20/. to 20/. And Colonel Itidgeway, who was authorised by the Indian Govern- ment to ex})end 300/. upon lirst-class Turkoman FROM ME BY TO THE OX US 131 stallions for breeding purposes, did not draw one penny upon his credit.^ It was with perfect iustice that General Komaioff The Khans . . ofMervat boasted oi the facility with which Eussia succeeds in Baku enlisting, not only the services, but the loyalty of her former opponents. The volunteer enrolment of the Turkoman horse would be a sufficient proof of this, had it not already been paralleled in India and else- where. But I can give a more striking illustration still. On my return to Baku, I saw drawn up on the landing-stage to greet the Governor-General a number of gorgeously-clad Turkomans, robed in magnificent velvet or embroidered khalats, and their breasts ablaze with decorations. They, too, had come over to be presented to the Czar. At the head of the line stood a dignified-looking Turkoman, with an immense pair of silver epaulettes on his shoulders. This, the general told me, was Makdum Kuli Khan, son of the famous Tekke chieftain Nur Verdi Khan by an Akhal wife, the hereditary leader of the Vekhil or Eastern division of the Merv Tekkes, and the chief of the Akhal Tekkes in Geok Tepe at the time of the siege. Eeconciled to Eussia at an early date, he was taken to Moscow to attend the coronation of the Czar in 1883, and is now a full colonel and Governor of the Tejend oasis — where but lately, in the exercise of his » Vide Travels with the Afghan Boundary Commission. By Lieut. A. C. Yats. P. 457. 1887. Cf. also the remarks of Sir Peter Lumsden. Proceedings of the Boyal Geographical Society. Septem- ber 1885. It is only fair to state that Sir 0. MacGregor formed an opposite opinion when in Khorasan in 1875. Life and Opinions, vol. ii. p. 10. K 2 132 EUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA administrative powers, he, a Turkoman and an old Eussian enemy, arrested a Eussian captain serving under his command. And yet this was the naan who, in 1881, told Edmund O'Donovan that ' it was the in^ tention of himself and his staunch followers to fight to the last should Merv be invaded by the Eussians, and if beaten to retire into Afghanistan. If not well received there, they purposed asking an asylum within the frontiers of British India.' Adjoining him stood his younger brother, Yussuf Khan, son of ISTur Verdi by his famous Merv wife, Gur Jemal, a boy of fifteen or sixteen at the time of 'Donovan's visit, but now a Eussian captain ; Maili Khan and Sari Batir Klian, chiefs of the Sichmaz and Bakshi, two others of the four tribes of Merv ; old Murad Bey, leader of the Beg subdivision of the Toktamish clan, who conducted O'Donovan to the final meeting of the Great Council ; and, mirahile dictu, Baba Khan him- self, son of the old conqueror Koushid Khan, and hereditary leader of the Toktamish, the one-eyed Baba, who led the English party at Merv in 1881, and, in order to demonstrate his allegiance to the Queen, branded his horses with V.E. reversed and imprinted upside down. The three last-named are now majors in the Eussian service. Baba's colleague of the Triumvirate of 1881, Maz Khan, is also a Eussian ofiicer, but did not appear to be present. The old Ikhtyar at the date of O'Donovan's arrival, Kadjar Khan, who led the forlorn anti-Eussian move- ment in 1884, is detained in St. Petersburg. Gur Jemal, the elderly matron and former chieftainess, of FROM MERV TO THE OXUS 133 \'bom I have spoken, and whose potent influence was lO diplomatically enlisted by Eussia prior to the mnexation of Merv, was also in Baku, waiting to re- jeive the compliments, to which she was unquestion- ibly entitled, from the lips of the Emperor. There A^ere also present the Klians of the Sarik and Salor Curkomans of Tuletan, Sarakhs, and Penjdeh, and some mposing Kirghiz notabilities with gorgeous accoutre- nents and prodigiously high steeple-crowned hats. The delegation brought with them rich carpets and a collection of wild animals as presents to the Emperor, kvho in return loaded them with European gifts and irms, and said in the course of his speech that he loped to repay their visit at Merv in 1889 or 1890. I do not think that any sight could have im- Dressed me more profoundly with the completeness of Russia's conquest, or with her remarkable talents of Taternisation with the conquered, than the spectacle )f these men (and among their thirty odd compa- lions who were assembled with them, there were ioubtless other cases as remarkable), only eight )?ears ago the bitter and determined enemies of Eussia 3n the battlefield, but now wearing her uniform, standing high in her service, and crossing to Europe n order to salute as their sovereign the Great White Dzar. SkobelefF's policy of ' Hands all round,' when ;he fight is over, seems to have been not one whit ess successful than was the ferocious severity of the Dreliminary blow. If other evidence were needed of Eussia's triumph, t might be found in the walls of the great earthen 134 RUSSIA IX CEXTRAI ASIA The ruineci fortress of Kouslild Khan Kala, tlirono-li wliicli the lortress of Koushid Khan Kala locomotive steams immediately after leaving the station at Merv. Erected in 1881 by forced labour, 8,000 Tekkes being daily eufrag ed upon the enter- prise, its uufmished and dismantled raniparts are not less eloquent in their testimonjr than was the shattered emliankment of Geok Tepe. Sixty feet at their base, and twenty feet at the summit, and from thirty to ,-, r^'t THE FOKT or KOUSHID KHAN KALA. fortv feet high, and orio-inallv enclosino- a si^ace one and three-quartei'S of a mile long Ijy three-c[uarters of a mile lu'oad, these huge clay strnctui-es, which were intended finally and utterly to repel the Muscovite advance, have never eitlier sheltered besieged or with- stood besiegers. Like a great railway embankment they overtop the plain, and in their premature decay are imposing monuments of a bloodless victor}'. llic nnlitary and political questions arising out of FROM 2[EHV TO THE OXUS v:a the mention of Merv have ahnost teniijted me to for- oidcitief? '^ . ol Merv get my undertaking to make some alhision to the old cities that at dilferent times have borne the name. AVhen the train, however, alter traversing the oasis for ten miles from the modern town, pnlls up at the station of Bairam Ali, in the midst of an absolute wilderness of crumbling Ijrick and clay, the spectacle of walls, towers, ramparts, and domes, stretching in ETJIXS OF BAIEAJI ALL l)ewilderiug confusion to the horizon, reminds us that we are in the centre of bygone greatness. Here, within a short distance of each other, and covering an area of several square miles, in which there is scarcely a yard without some remains of the past, or with a single perfect relic, are to be seen the ruins of at least three cities that have Iseen born, and flourished, and have died. The eldest and easternmost of these is the city now called Giaour Kala, and variously 136 EUSSIA nv CENTRAL ASIA attributed by the natives, according to the quality of their erudition, to Zoroaster, or to Iskander, the local name for Alexander the Great. In these parts any- thing old, and misty, and uncertain is set down with unfaltering confidence to the Macedonian conqueror.'^ I was told by a long resident in the country that the general knowledge of past history is limited to three names — Alexander, Tamerlane, and Kaufmann ; the Eussian Governor-General, as the most recent, being popularly regarded as the biggest personage of the three. Giaour Kala, if it be the city of Alexander, is the fort said to have been built by him in B.C. 328, on his return from the campaign in Sogdiana.^ It was destroyed by the Arabs 1,200 years ago. In its present state it consists of a great rectangular walled enclosure with the ruins of a citadel in its north-east corner. Next in age and size comes the city of the Seljuks, of Alp Arslan, the Great Lion, and of Sultan Sanjur, so celebrated in chronicles and legends, who in the twelfth century ruled as lieutenant of the Khalif in the almost independent kingdom of Kho- rasan. Pillaged and destroyed with true Mongol ferocity by the son of Jenghiz Khan about 1220, it now consists of a heap of shapeless ruins, above which loom the still intact dome and crumbling Myalls of the ' The ubiquity and vitality of the Alexandrine legend is well illus- trated by the story, told by the Eussian traveller Pauhino, of an Afghan whom he met in a train in India in 1875, and who, in reply to the information that the reigning emperor of Russia was Alexander, or Iskander, by name, exclaimed : ' Dear me ! was it not he who con- quered India, and of whom a great deal is said in the Scriptures ? ' ^ This visit of Alexander rests, however, on insufficient authority, and cannot be accepted as historical. FllOM JJEA'V TO THE OJCS 137 touil) of tlie great Sultan himself. The sepulchre of Alp .Vrslau with its famous inscription — 'AH ye who have seen the p-lory of Alp Arslan exalted to the heavens, come hither to ]\IefV, and liehold it buried in the dust — lias long disappeared, gravestone as well as glory having perished in the same ruin. Thirdly comes the Persian city of Bairam Ali, from which the station on the new railway is named, and which took its own name from its last defender and Khan, who perished 100 years ago while resisting the successful assault of Amir j\Iaasum, otherwise known as Begi Jan or Shah Murad, of Bokhara. This was the final and last end of a real and visiLle Merv, which has since that date lieen a geographical designation instead TOMB OF SULT.iN S.VNJUR. of a liuilt town. Very decrepit and son-owful looked these wastinir walls of sun-dried clav, these hi-oken 138 nrS.S'IA IX CENTRAL ASTA arclies and tottering towers ; bnt there is magnificence in tlieir verj' extent, and a voice in the sorrowful &i