Russian peaceful subjects in the desert could be formed.

The Government did all in its power to attract the sympathies of these poor wretches, but the Muscovite soldiery could not be restrained from pillaging to the last these half-naked inhabitants of the formerly flourishing Akhal country. Carpets, rugs, trinkets, jewellery, particularly arms inlaid with gold and silver, rich harnesses and saddles, went in loads beyond the Caspian and the Caucasus to Russia; and so great was the booty carried away from the desert, and sold in the various Russian towns, that part of it even reached Hungary, and the writer of these lines had an opportunity of buying in Buda-Pesth carpets, embroideries, and jewellery, the former property of Turkoman women. The merchant who offered these wares for sale, a Caucasian, who took part in the war, an eye-witness of the Russian depredations, remarked boastfully-"Sir, we have paid back to those rascals the many hundred years' cruelties and robberies; a part of them we have sent to hell; and the remaining part we have left lukht-i-pukht (naked and wretched), giving them full time and opportunity to ruminate over the greatness of the white Czar, who is of quite a different cast from the cowardly Kadjar in Teheran.” And indeed the lukht-i-pukht Turkomans submitted in the full sense of the word, and had to begin a life

to which certainly they had not been accustomed hitherto. The evil most sensibly felt was the exceedingly thinned ranks of the male population, and I hear from quite recent travellers that polygamy, hitherto scarcely known amongst Turkomans, has become an imperative necessity, and that, in order to provide for widows and girls matrimonially inclined, one Turkoman has to take frequently from six to eight wives, a burden exceeding his means of subsistence; poverty being the natural consequence of this anomaly.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM ASHKABAD TO MERV.

As to the Russians, they chose Ashkabad, a word literally meaning the abode of love, for the new centre of administration. It became the gathering place of the leading officers as well as of the mercantile world, following in the track of the invading army. The merchants, mostly Caucasians, Mohammedans and Christian Armenians, able to converse with the Turkomans-for the Turkish spoken by the Turkomans differs but slightly from the dialect spoken in the Caucasus were decidedly the best means of communication between the natives and the foreign conqueror. They could penetrate unmolested even to the far outlying parts of the Akhal country, for the Turkoman, once vanquished and sincerely submitting, would not touch any of the solitary travellers. These merchants enlarged upon the greatness and might of the Russians, spoke of the charity of the Czar, and bridged over smoothly and quietly the wide gulf existing but a short time ago between the dreaded

Russ and the Turkoman.

As to commercial affairs,

they were in the beginning unimportant, and most of the customers came from the ranks of the Russian army; but gradually the Turkomans, too, began to purchase sundry articles, and in particular took very quickly to the shops of the spirit-vendors, whose trade soon became most flourishing. In the course of two years six different whisky distilleries were opened in Ashkabad and the adjacent country; and so rapid was the spread of European civilisation à la Russe, that even playing-cards, known formerly under the name of "the koran of the Muscovites," had found their way to the tent of the simple Turkoman.

:

Of other phases of the new era of civilisation I will not speak suffice to mention that the Turkomans very soon delighted in wearing big brass medals on their breasts and adorning their shoulders with epaulettes, and only the female population and the older people were anxious to retain their ancient national character, and avoid any closer intercourse with the foreign conqueror. Kismet, i.e., fate, or properly speaking, an absolute reliance upon the decrees of the Almighty, proved anew its efficacy; and all the more natural was this effect with the Turkomans, whose national bard, called MakhdumKuli, predicted nearly a hundred years ago the events which had just now come into fulfilment.

In a poem entitled "The End of the World," the Turkoman poet relates, in his plain but impressive language, how the towns and countries (of course, within the sphere of his geographical information) will perish, how the various nations will disappear off the face of the earth, and at the end of his poem he says:

"It is the Russ who will engulf the Moslem world,

Whilst the Russ will be swallowed by the Anti-Christ."

This place,

But let us return to Ashkabad. made the centre of the Russian administration, as well as of the new cultural and commercial movement, very soon attracted not only those Turkomans who were already under the sway of the Russians, but also such members of that community as still enjoyed their independence-I mean to say Turkomans from Merv, from the Tedjend oasis, nay, even from the Salor and Sarik tribes, who, prompted partly by curiosity, partly by trading purposes, resorted to this place in order to see the new master of the country. I can fully imagine the surprise of these Turkomans upon finding themselves safe in the very midst of the dreaded conquerors; for according to their own notions of the mutual relations between belligerents, the only chance that could have awaited a foreigner would have been death or