W i

gff

The Rfghan borderland.
T*rt T.
The. "Russian fr ant 'i>rr

/n^m iTe3.t f,

n ^^Pn&i geogr^ph^ magazine.
V. 2.Q} no- 9 } Se^. \9o9.

EXPLORATIONS IN CRETE

787

Mr Xanthondides, at Koremasa and
other sites ; of the English scholars from
the British school at Athens, at Zakro,
and Palaikastro, and lastly of the Amer
ican excavators, Mrs Harriet B. Hawes
and Mr R. B. Seager, the former at
Gournia, the latter at Pseira and Moch-
los. Between them they have excavated
palaces, towns, and cemeteries. The pal
ace of Knossos alone "is a more complex
and extensive series of courts, rooms,
and labyrinthine passages than has been
met with anywhere on Greek soil."
Further, the recent investigations in
Crete have evolved a system of chronol
ogy for this prehistoric era of 3500-1200
B. C. ; they have shown that a high de
gree of artistic skill in decorative art and
modeling had been attained in that re
mote epoch; that a system of writing
was in use ; that out of the hardest stones
graceful vases were cut; that jewelry no
less beautiful than that of the Alexan
drine period was made; that boats plied
frequently to and from Egypt, exporting
and importing wares; that men lived in
houses two and three stories high,
equipped with baths and drains, and
well-lighted rooms opening into sunny
courts and commanding pleasant views.
The results of these explorations are
adding a new chapter to history, or
rather they are turning legend to his
tory, for those who read the reports of
the Cretan excavators, especially those
of Doctor Evans, will not find them
selves involved in the dry and dusty dis
cussions of an antiquarian, but, as a
writer in Crete has recently said, they
will be carried back to the "glamour and
romance of first fairy stories" about the
Minotaur and the Labyrinth.
No better impression of the dramatic
quality and thrill of Cretan discoveries
can be given than by the following quo
tation. Doctor Evans has just discov-

A CRETAN MOUNTAINEER
ered the fresco of the Cupbearer in the
Knossos Palace, and writes in his first
report :
"The colors were almost as brilliant
as when laid down over three thousand
years before. For the first time the true
portraiture of a man of this mysterious
Mycenaean race rises before us. There
was something impressive in this vision
of brilliant youth and of male beauty re
called after so long an interval to our
upper air from what had been till yes
terday a forgotten world. Even our un
tutored Cretan workmen felt the spell
and fascination. They, indeed, regarded
the discovery of such a painting in the
bosom of the earth as nothing less than
miraculous, and saw in it the 'icon' of a
saint !"

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND
By Ellsworth Huntington
Part I: The Russian Frontier

AT the present day, in spite of the
/\ boasts of civilized man, five im-
X ^. portant regions of the globe
still remain practically closed to him.
Two are the cold polar regions ; a third
is the huge dry desert of southwestern
Arabia ; a fourth is the fever-stricken in
terior of the great island of New Guinea ;
while the other three are the countries of
Nepal, Tibet, and Afghanistan, among
the lofty mountains and cold plateaus of
the center of Asia.
In all seven cases extreme conditions
of geographic environment are the cause
of the exclusion of civilized man. In the
polar regions and in the vast unexplored
portion of Arabia extreme conditions of
temperature or of aridity are in them
selves enough to prevent the occupation
of the country by man. In the other
cases geographic environment accom
plishes its function of exclusion in part
directly, by making the regions difficult
to traverse, and in part indirectly, by fos
tering in the inhabitants a spirit of ex-
clusiveness and warlikeness, or by im
posing upon civilized nations certain pe
culiar political conditions.
Among the closed countries of the
world the degree of exclusiveness seems
to increase in proportion to the political
importance of the regions concerned.
Thus there is at present no country
which is more difficult to enter than
Afghanistan, and none whose isolation
is likely to break down so soon. This is
due in the first place to the fact that the
power which holds the Afghan moun
tains holds a strategic position of the
highest importance in regard to India.
Therefore England naturally has the
most serious objection to any attempt by
the Russians to obtain a foothold there.
In the second place, from Constanti
nople on the west to Manchuria on the

east there is no place where the natural
configuration of the country offers so
easy a route from the Russian posses
sions in Asia to the southern ocean as
through the western portion of Afghan
istan. Consequently it is highly desira
ble for Russia to control this route, and
she is naturally loath to see England su
preme within the Afghan borders.
Thus it happens that both countries
are willing for the present to leave Af
ghanistan in independence, and to allow
the naturally wild and exclusive temper
of the Afghans to have free play.
An account of the experiences of the
writer upon the northwestern border of
Afghanistan, where its territory adjoins
that of Russia ; upon the western border,
where the country touches Persia, and
upon the southwestern border, where
English influence begins to be felt, will
illustrate the degree of inaccessibility
which now prevails in this most exclu
sive of kingdoms.
In the winter of 1903-1904 the writer,
in company with a young Russian offi
cial, traversed the entire western frontier
of Afghanistan. We did not desire to
penetrate far into the country, but the
study of certain geographic and geologic
problems, such as the broad break in the
mountains which gives such easy access
to the country on the northwest, the
great depression which determines the
border between Afghanistan and Persia,
and the fluctuations to which the en
closed lakes of Khaf and Seyistan are
subject, made it highly desirable for the
writer to be able to cross the frontier,
while his Russian companion hoped to
win fame and promotion by penetrating
into some of the military secrets of the
Afghans. Late in November I started ahead of
my companion from Askhabad, the cap-

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND

789

TURKOMANS IN THE SANDY DESERT OF TRANSCASPIA DRAWING WATER FROM A WELL
BY MEANS OF LEATHER BUCKETS
The water is poured into a wooden bowl for the horse to drink
A CARAVAN-SERAI IN THE DESERT OF EASTERN PERSIA
The view is taken through the gate and shows the curious crowd assembled to watch the
departure of the foreigners

790

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

THE TOMBS OF MESHED, THE MOST HOLY PLACE IN PERSIA
The bodies of thousands of Mohammedans are brought here to be buried in the space around
the shrine, which is literally covered with tombstones

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND

791

ital of Transcaspia, and went by rail to
Dushak, a little station a hundred miles
to the eastward, whither our caravan had
preceded me. There the Transcaspian
railroad bends to the northeast to reach
Merv, while our route led to the south-
southeast, along the broad sloping plain
of gravel at the northern base of the
mountains which form the boundary be
tween Asiatic Russia and the extreme
northeastern part of Persia. The first
day's march was short. The following
morning a splendid red sunrise ushered
in Thanksgiving Day, clear and bracing,
as November days are apt to be in the
dry Russian province of Transcaspia.
All day the caravan moved slowly east
ward — four men, five horses, and three
"baggage camels — strange, grunting
beasts, whose long, pliant necks and awk
ward legs were oddly suggestive of huge
picked chickens, especially when seen
from in front.
During the four months of hard trav
eling in eastern Persia to which this
day's march was the prelude, the caravan
developed splendid efficiency, but as yet
it was not well shaken together. We
had spent an uneasy night, which began
with a search in the dark for a camping
place and for water, firewood, eggs, and
milk, and which ended with a nightmare
of a dragon licking his chops and writh
ing his coils about us. We awoke to
find that one of the common incidents of
camp life had occurred — the camels had
gotten loose, and in their attempts to eat
the leaves of the cultivated poplar tree
above our tent were kicking the tent
ropes with their crooked legs and setting
their rubbery, compressible feet upon the
pegs. All day we saw no sign of man except
the ruined mounds of the civilization of
the past, and no sign of animals except
herds of sharp-horned, slender gazelles
browsing on the brown remnants of the
sweet, meager growth of short grass
which flourishes for a month or two after
the rains of early spring. Once a herd
of about twenty of the graceful fawn-
colored creatures followed us for an
hour out of curiosity, sometimes coming

within a hundred yards of the path, so
that we could see every movement as
they gamboled and played under the in
fluence of the crisp fall air, and some
times chasing one another in great cir
cles or dashing off for half a mile, so
that nothing could be seen of them ex
cept white tails bobbing up and down as
the graceful creatures leaped over bush
and stone. For them a run of twelve or
fifteen miles to a drinking place was a
matter of no consequence, and therefore
they could live in the dry plain from
which slow- footed man is excluded for
lack of water.
Toward sunset signs of the presence
of underground water appeared, and
soon we came upon sheep and camels
grazing amid the tamarisks of a broad,
shallow valley wherein no stream was to
be seen, but only a few slightly brackish
wells and a disorderly group of round
Turkoman tents, some of them made of
gray felt and others of reeds plastered
with mud. Not far away, upon a gravel
slope, a cluster of low, neat buildings,
with whitewashed walls of mud and
stone and roofs of tile, presented a
marked contrast to the slovenly Turko
man structures.
Sturdy Cossack sentinels, in long
woolen cloaks and huge sheepskin caps,
were pacing to and fro, and stopped us
sharply as we approached. An Ameri
can, even though accompanied by a uni
formed Afghan and Turkoman who
were enlisted in the Russian frontier
army, must show very good reason for
approaching a military post in the vicin
ity of turbulent Afghanistan. Only the
closest scrutiny of my papers, signed by
the military governor of Transcaspia,
convinced the sergeant who was tempo
rarily in charge that I was not a spy
whose arrest would bring him much
credit. Once convinced, however, he
was a true Russian in his hospitality.
He had not much to offer, for the quar
ters and provisions of his absent superior
were not at his disposal. The best that
he could do was to allow me to share
with himself and a corporal a cold, stone-
floored sleeping-room.

COto

HiK I — I
o >
r1 o
w oo >
h— I
o

> >N i — i

TWO PERSIAN FAKIRS, SUPPOSEDLY HOLY MEN, WHO GO ABOUT
SINGING, DANCING, PLAYING, ANP BEGGING

AN AFGHAN SOLDIER IN UNIFORM

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND

793

A VILLAGE AND IRRIGATED FIELDS ON TERRACES IN EASTERN PERSIA

PLOUGHING WITH HUMPED BULLOCKS AND A WOODEN PLOUGH ON THE BORDER OF
AFGHANISTAN

794

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

A POVERTY-STRICKEN PERSIAN FAMILY CROUCHED BESIDE THE MUD WALLS OF THEIR
HOUSE INSIDE A HIGH MUD WALL PUT UP FOR PROTECTION
AGAINST AFGHAN BANDITS

A GROUP OF AFGHAN NOMADS

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND

795

Dinner that Thanksgiving night con
sisted of a first course of black bread,
milk, and tea, followed at an interval of
an hour by "borsh," a favorite Russian
soup full of large pieces of potato, beet,
and carrot, floating amid chunks of mut
ton. The sergeant and his comrades
evidently suffered sadly from ennui; dis
cipline was naturally lax in so remote
and uninspected a post, and drunkenness
and gambling were too common to ex
cite remark. Yet, in spite of this, one
could not help liking the patient, good-
tempered Cossacks, for there was an air
of strength and vigor about them — the
attitude of a conquering race.
During the next ten days I visited
other lonely frontier stations, the largest
of which was Serakhs, a Turkoman town
at the very northeastern corner of Per
sia. Here the "pristav," or local execu
tive officer, when he heard of the
presence of an American, insisted upon
my becoming a guest in his pleasant
home. It was most interesting to see
how this educated, energetic young man
and his girlish wife made the modest
executive dwelling an oasis of European
culture in the midst of the Transcaspian
desert. The effect was marred some
what by the tall Cossacks who waited on
the table, did the cooking, and wheeled
the baby in its carriage ; but, as Mrs
Pristav said, "A Cossack is the most
careful kind of nursemaid, and, besides,
we can't get any girls or women here."
At the military club, the social center
of the community, the remoteness of the
place was much more evident than in
the pristav's house. As there was noth
ing else to do, every one, including the
priest, gambled and drank. When the
regimental band began to play, I fear my
face must have shown my feelings, for
an officer's wife who had lived in Ger
many and England remarked, plain
tively, "Does it sound very badly ? When
I first came I used to think it sounded
terribly out of tune, but now I can't tell
whether it is right or not. I believe I
like it out of tune."
At Serakhs I was obliged to wait sev
eral days for the young Russian official

who was to be my companion in Persia.
The time was well spent, for the chief of
the Department of Agriculture of the
province invited me to go with him on
his annual tour of inspection to the pis
tachio region, fifty miles to the south,
on the border of Afghanistan. Part of
the way we went by wagon and part on
horseback, riding Cossack horses belong
ing to our escort. Once we stayed at a
post where the wife of the captain was
the only white woman within forty-five
miles. Again we crossed into Persian terri
tory, and were struck by the poverty and
dilapidation of the Persian military
posts, which are supposed to offset those
of Russia. When told that certain men
were soldiers in uniform, I could see that
among their rags an occasional brass
button was hidden, but otherwise the
soldiers and the beggars looked alike.
We found the pistachios growing upon
low, bushy trees on the slopes of the
gently rising mountains which form the
Afghan border. The tree is so resistant
to drought that the Bureau of Plant
Industry of the United States deems it
one of the most useful plants for intro
duction into the arid regions of our own
country. The Russian government de
rives, quite a revenue from the sale of the
wild crop to Armenian merchants, who
employ Turkomans to gather the nuts.
A Russian servant, Mikhail by name,
shared all my journeyings in the Afghan
borderland. On the first day of his ser
vice he reported for duty hilariously
drunk, a condition of which he appeared
to be much ashamed when he was sober.
When he came for orders in Serakhs the
pristav's wife, who had no fear of wild
Turkomans and was accustomed to Cos
sacks as housemaids, was quite fright
ened. "I thought he was a robber," she
said, when she saw him come into the
kitchen with his rough sheepskin jacket,
high boots, tilted Turkoman busby of
sheepskin, shaggy brown beard, and
sharp blue eyes.
In spite of his appearance he was a
most lovable, gentle man — faithful, re
sourceful, and honest, a good hunter,

-1 CDCT5

Hi

O ^, >-
r ao o HJ
o

.J-
o >- Nt — i
!^

A COMFORTABLE PERSIAN VILLAGER

A WELL-TO-DO PERSIAN FAMILY
The women and girls of the family would not let them
selves be photographed or even seen

THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND

797

A SACRED PLATFORM DECKED WITH WOODEN BIRDS
This is carried in processions at the time of the great feast of the Shiah Mohammedans in
mourning for the death of Hassan and Hussein, grandsons of Mohammed
A PERSIAN VILLAGE OF DOMED MUD HOUSES COVERED WITH SNOW. BACK OF THE
HOUSES STANDS A ROW OF WIND-MILLS

798

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

and always ready for work except when
he became drunk — in short, a typical
frontiersman like those of the "Wild
West" of America a generation ago. He
belonged to a heretical sect much given
to holding long meetings, at which first
one and then another, and finally several
at once, shout out prayers at the tops of
their voices. His family and other co
religionists had been transported to the
Persian border and placed there in colo
nies, partly to get rid of their disturbing
presence at home and partly to form a
cordon of genuine Russian settlements
along the exposed frontier.
Everywhere along the boundaries of
Asiatic Russia military preparations are
strongly in evidence. Nowhere is this
more noticeable than at the corner where
Russian territory adjoins Afghanistan
and Persia, for here, as has been said,
lies the one easy line of communication
between northern and southern Asia in
the whole vast stretch from the Bos-
phorus to Manchuria. Evidences of the
importance of the region are found not
only in the numerous military posts and
in the colonies established for military
purposes, but in the railroad spur some
one hundred and seventy-five miles long
which, at a distance of about sixty miles
east of Serakhs, runs southward from
the Transcaspian Railway at Merv to
the Afghan frontier at Kushka. The
fact that I traveled on part of the rail
road aroused much ire on the part of
several Russian officers, especially an
irascible black-bearded colonel, and I
should have been arrested immediately
had I not been the guest of an official.
In general, the officers to whom I had
introductions were proud to point out
the barracks and to tell how the soldiers
were cared for, but took great pains not
to mention the number of troops or guns.
They could not conceal the fact that
equipment for an immediate advance was
on hand in case there should ever be
occasion to invade Afghanistan ; and one
of them said with pride that the large
storehouses from which I was warned
away at Askhabad contained the rails,
ties, and complete equipment for sixty

or seventy miles of light railroad, which
could be laid down at a moment's notice,
to connect the end of the Kushka spur
with Herat, the chief city of western
Afghanistan. Others may have over
looked the importance of the break in the
great mountain chains of Asia which
occurs in western Afghanistan and east
ern Persia, but the Russians realize that
some day it will be one of the world's
great lines of communication.
The attitude of Persia toward affairs
in the eastern part of her domain may
almost be neglected, so far as its prac
tical results are concerned. On leaving
Serakhs, our first night in Persia im
pressed upon us the contrast between the
business-like methods of Russia and the
slipshod Persian way of doing things.
Arriving at Zorabad after sunset, we
stumbled through the dung-heaps which,
by courtesy, are called streets, and ar
rived at the wretched house of Mehemet
Yusup Khan, the redoubtable chief of
the three or four soldiers — nominally
thirty — who are supposed to defend this
frontier town against the Russians and
Afghans. The floor of the single apart
ment was about two feet below the court
yard in which the horses were stabled.
The furniture consisted of a few bags
hung on wooden pegs driven into the
mud walls, and a few dirty felts and
bags that partly covered the floor, also
of mud. The sooty roof of the apart
ment was nearly seven feet above the
floor, but such spacious dimensions were
too high for the door, before which one
was obliged to stoop low to get through
its four feet of height.
The only window was a round hole
about a foot in diameter, which was
filled by half a dozen fowls that had
taken refuge there from the cold Decem
ber air, and that helped to lessen the
draft on the people inside. Such, at
least, was my thought until sunrise, when
a boy walked unceremoniously into the
room, and, picking up the sleepy hens,
put them out into the cold through the
door. The window was not a window
at all, but merely a niche in the thick
wall.

WITPI THE MONKS AT METEORA

799"

Throughout our stay in eastern Persia
we everywhere found conditions much
the same as in Zorabad. Poverty is the
rule, and with it go shiftlessness, lack of
neatness, lack of ambition, and vices such
as opium-smoking. It hardly seems fair
to condemn the Persians for these things.
In other parts of the country conditions
are much better. In the eastern half of

Persia, however, there is so little rainfall
that no crops can be grown except in a few
pitifully poor oases. No one can hope to
prosper greatly, no matter how hard he
may work. Therefore the inhabitants
stagnate and play no part in the present
history of the country except as pawns
to be harried by the Afghans, cowed by
the Russians, or cajoled by the English,

WITH THE MONKS AT METEORA:
MONASTERIES OF THESSALY

THE

By Elizabeth Perkins

THERE is a legend, perhaps it is
history, that there was once a
ruler in Constantinople who dis
liked his brother and wished to banish
him to the remotest corner of his king
dom. Consequently the monarch built a
monastery on a well-nigh inaccessible.
mountain in Thessaly and founded a
brotherhood, about four hundred years
ago, in what seemed to be the uttermost
corner of the earth.
The monastery was called "Meteora,"
meaning "domicile of the sky." After
the original was built, twenty-three others
grouped themselves around and were
inhabited for awhile. They were, how
ever, finally abandoned, with the excep
tion of three which are still in use.
To reach this settlement one can go di
rectly from Athens by train in thirteen
hours, for the railroad has been lately
finished; or one can cross Thessaly in
seven hours by train from Volos.
The season of good weather commences
in April, when the mountains are green
and yellow with gorse and the sun snines
almost continually. Earlier there are apt
to be heavy rains, and the spring thaw
causes a mist to rise from the frozen
mountains which obscures the view, while
the snow, melting into the earth, makes
mud one or two feet deep and^ traveling
on horseback is almost impossible.
If, however, one is fortunate enough

to hit the last of winter, when the sun
shines and the mountains are still re
splendent in their dazzling whiteness,
then one sees them in all their glory.
The rocky eminences on which stand the
twenty-four monuments of man's erst
while habitation seem to forbid nearer
approach, and yet they lure the adven
turer to them by their danger.
The seven hours' trip across the plains
of Thessaly to the town of Kalabaka is
most enchanting. Range after range of
hills roll up from the plateau. The foot
hills in winter are powdered with snow,
as though an angel had shaken the down
from his wings ; the higher hills are
whiter and bleaker, and the highest hills
are as pure as the drifting clouds into
which they seem to melt and disappear
into highest heaven.
On the plains flocks of goats and sheep,
attended by their shepherds, are spread
so numerously over the land that mush
rooms in a field never appeared more
abundant. The shepherd himself is a
picturesque person. His legs are encased
in long, white leggings, ending in pointed,
turned-up shoes adorned with tassels.
A sheepskin hangs from his shoulders
and a staff with crook is carried in his
hand. Our train crawls over the hills and
across the plains at the rate of ten miles
an hour, and the sheep-dogs run barking

oo

BARLAAM, WHERE WOMEN ARE NOT ALLOWED AND WHICH CONTAINS A REMARKABLE BYZANTINE LIBRARY
Access by the rope bag, also by the frail and swinging ladder, built against the rock. The ladders and rope show in this picture,
but not the bag

YALE UNIVERSITY L

3 9002 08837 1746