and there is no exaggeration in saying that Russia has already morally conquered the northern slopes of the Kubbet Mountains to such an extent, that the physical conquest is only a question of time.

The next benefit Russia will derive from the subjugation of the Akhal-Tekke Turkomans, will be found in the strategical as well as commercial position she gained through her standing on the southern slopes of the Kubbet Mountains, known in antiquity as the country of the Parthians. Excepting the embouchures of the Gurgan, the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea is, as far as Kizil-Arvat, nothing but a dreary desert, a sterile and an arid country. Cultivation, owing to irrigation carried from the mountain, begins only at the last-named place. But the more we advance eastward the richer becomes the soil, the more plentiful is the water in the irrigating canals, and the more varied and luxuriant are the products. In fact, up to the beginning of the thirteenth century, this country was noted for its fertility and for its centres of culture. In antiquity, the great commercial road leading from the interior of Asia to the west, has passed the southern slopes of the Kubbet Mountain to the Caspian, and in spite of having been laid waste by the irruption of the Mongols, the places of Kahka and Mehne, Abiverd, and some others, enjoyed a fair amount of reputation up to the end of the seventeenth

century. Nothing, therefore, is easier to surmise than that Russia, being in the undisputed possession of that rich country, will do all in her power to revive the bygone period of culture. The country could be much more quickly colonised and peopled than any of her more recent acquisitions in Turkestan. Russia is prompted to hasten the process of colonisation here, in order to get a firm footing on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, on the very spot which is calculated to become the second link of connection in her great chain of communication, running from the interior of Russia over the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the Caspian, to the outskirts of the Paropamisus. It was in full recognition of this important fact that the Caucasus was bridged over by rail from Batoum to Baku, at the cost of £9,000,000; and considering the extraordinary increase of private and governmental ships on the Caspian during the last twenty years, it was but natural that the Russian government did not shun the expense, but began, simultaneously with the conquest of Turkomania, the construction of the Transcaspian railway, which until quite recently, starting from Mikhailofsk on the Balkan Bay, stretched over 144 miles to Kizil-Arvat, involving a cost of £648,000.

The heavy blow inflicted, Russia's first care was to pacify the country, and to show to the Turkomans

that the Czar was not only able to strike hard, but that he also possessed the power to heal the wounds, to show mercy, and to become a kind-hearted father of his subjects. Skobeleff, the originator of the massacre, and the dreaded exterminator of the Turkomans, was recalled from the scene of his bloody action and replaced by General Röhrberg, a GermanoRussian officer noted for his administrative faculties, and evidently the best man to represent the benignant rays of the sun after the frightful storm which had swept over the Akhal country. He began by alluring the large masses of fugitives which were dispersed in every direction of the less accessible sands in the north of the Karakum, invited them to re-occupy their former places, petted and encouraged them to go on with their usual work, promising, and giving too, all kinds of assistance; they were only asked to give up the arms they had concealed, and to keep quiet under the new order of things which awaited them. The returning Akhal-Tekke Turkomans presented the most pitiful aspect of dreary desolation and bewilderment; the greater portion of their property was lost and scattered; more than half of their cattle had perishedin the desert. The haggard-looking and terror-stricken nomads, happy to save the last resources cf existence, were certainly the best material cut of which the first nucleus of

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.