Annenkoff, M. Lessar, and their suites, all visiting Tashkent at once, not to mention private travellers, it was great luck that we got a carriage and horses at all. We have really to thank General Annenkoff for getting them both going and coming. As for the postal officials, for prevarication (not to use a stronger term) even Orientals would find it hard to be even with them. However, at 10 a.m. on the 22d September, we got our two tarantasses (one for ourselves and one for baggage) and horses, and off we went. At 9 p.m. we got to Jizak, and were told we could get no horses, as everything was retained for M. Vyshnegradsky. Again we had recourse to General Annenkoff at Samarkand. We wired to him and then went to sleep. At 1 a.m. on the 23d we were awakened and told that telegraphic orders had come and that we might go on. We thanked Annenkoff in our hearts. I can assure you that to have to spend two or three days at a postal station between Samarkand and Tashkent would be little better than imprisonment in jail. From Jizak to the Syrdarya, a distance of 80 miles, the road crosses the Galodnaya Steppe. In the old coaching days no part of England can have been so desolate as this is. And yet it is perfectly safe, safer than even a mail-coach route was from the Sheppards and Turpins of the last century. There is no water, no food, nothing on this steppe. The squalor and dirt of the postal stations is disgusting. The road is what the tarantass and cart wheels make. It is well named the Galodnaya (hungry or famished) Steppe. The Syr-darya is crossed by a swinging bridge, a very fine one. From there onward to Tashkent, a distance of 45 to 50 miles, a road is made in a sort of way. As the Finance Minister was coming, it was being improved a little and watered, i.e. flooded. We benefited by this so far that we escaped some dust, but were liberally bespattered with mud. A little dirt more or less does not matter when you have been for thirty hours in a tarantass on a Central Asian road. We were very thankful when, at 10 p.m. on the 23d September, after a thirty hours' drive, we descended at the Moscow Hotel in Tashkent. We immediately requisitioned all the brass basins to be found in the hotel, and surprised the proprietors by the quantity of water we required for our ablutions. We spent three very pleasant days in Tashkent. The first morning, we drove all round the native town and bazaars; and on the two others, along the Orenburg and Khokand roads. A strong fort here, as at Samarkand, dominates the native town. The Russian troops were located in barracks in various parts of the cantonments. There are fine broad roads, lined with trees and water-courses. Some of the shops are very good. The afternoon of each day we spent at the Exhibition. Last year I visited the Paris Exhibition. I infinitely preferred the one at Tashkent. Paris was too vast; Tashkent was small, and everything had the interest of comparative novelty. There were to be seen specimens of the products and industries of Turkistan. Cotton is the chief thing. The Russians have paid great attention to the improvement of the cotton grown in Central Asia. American seed has been introduced. It is mainly owing to the export of cotton that the Transcaspian Railway now pays its expenses. About 2000 tons are exported annually. Similar attention has been paid to wine-growing. General Annenkoff took us to see M. VOL. VII. F Ivanoff's exhibits of local wines. We tasted some half-dozen varieties of red and white wines made in Turkistan. Two (one white and one red) were very fair. We shall, no doubt, have them ere long in the market under the name of white and red Bordeaux. Bessarabia, the Crimea, and the Caucasus also produce good sound wines. Yet few or none of these wines are known in the English market. I was shown at Tashkent Exhibition a long cane, called "Sorgot." The Russians intend to make sugar of it. The sugar-cane does not suit the Turkistan climate. It is expected that "sorgot" will pay well. There are thousands of acres of rice-fields in the valleys of the Zarafshan and the Chirchik, the rivers of Samarkand and Tashkent. General Annenkoff is right in saying that what is needed for the development of Russian Asia are railway extension and improved irrigation. I heard of several projects of irrigation while I was in Turkistan, which will, no doubt, be carried out, and much improve the country. Bokhara is very short of water, as Samarkand now monopolises most of the Zarafshan water. Silk, too, was a prominent feature of the Exhibition. One of the exhibitors was a Corsican, who had brought his eggs and cocoons all the way from Corsica. He proudly remarked that he was the only foreign exhibitor there. Near the entrance were to be seen trophies and reminiscences of the Russian conquest and annexation of Turkistan, which lasted, roughly, from 1863 to 1873. The mineralogical section exhibited specimens of coal, brass, lead, iron, salt, sulphur, ozokerit, etc. As Baku oil is likely to fail, it is well that Central Asia produces coal. The Exhibition had also its agricultural, piscatorial, and military sections. The Transcaspian Railway was there in miniature. Maps, books, and photos of Central Asia were to be bought; so were beautifully illuminated Persian MSS. ; but at a price that might suit the British Museum, but did not suit my pocket. Bokhara silks and embroideries, all sorts of furs, pottery, saddlery, jewellery, brass and leather-work, antique arms and armour, carpets, silks of all sorts, from a handkerchief to a large web. Very fine fruits, such as pears, apples, grapes, and melons, were there. In another part was the cattle and horse show. I saw two really good Turkoman horses there. There were two native bands, one brass and the other string; and the dancing, juggling, and castanetplaying were remarkable. Speaking of Turkoman horses, a Russian officer at Amu-darya showed me two young handsome ones. I am still, however, of opinion that the quality and endurance of the ordinary Turkoman horse are not superior to those of the Afghan, Persian, Arab, Karabraghi, or other good Asiatic strains. And now I have come to the end of my task. There is one thing I wish to say a word about, and that is sport. It is to be hoped that Mr. Littledale on his return will tell us something of his sport on the Pamir and thereabouts. If any one wants good pheasant shooting, let him go to Dushakh and Merv, and then up the Murghab to Maruchak. There, too, he will find the boar and tiger. It is, however, difficult to ride pig in so close a country. One or two tigers were killed by Afghans and Turkomans in 1884-85, and in January 1888 my brother, Major Yate, shot one. There are lots of duck, snipe, and several varieties of par tridge. A sportsman might do worse than spend a few months on the Murghab and the Tejend. If he can get to the Tirband-i-Turkistan he will get good ibex, markhor, and uriyal shooting. The man who aims at the Ovis poli and Ovis ammon must penetrate to the Pamir and Tibet. In returning from Tashkent we followed the route that we went by, and on the 9th of October we found ourselves at Tiflis. Here I left the rest of the party, and on the 12th left Batum in a tank-steamer (built of steel, specially for the oil trade) for Constantinople. When we were 70 miles from shore I could see 90 or 100 miles off the high ranges (12,000 to 15,000 feet high) of the Caucasus to the NE., and of Armenia towards Ararat to the SE., covered with snow from summit to the horizon. It was a sight not often seen. I reached Constantinople on the 15th, and then was so fortunate as to meet Professor Arminius Vambéry, the doyen of Central Asian travellers. I can conceive no more happy conclusion to a trip to Tashkent than the pleasure of discussing all I had seen with the man whose adventurous journey to Khiva, Bokhara, and Herat in 1863 is so well known. It is very much to be hoped that in the future the Russians will allow us more facilities for travelling in Central Asia, and that they will more often visit India. We, at least, put no restrictions on them. The visit of the Tsarevitch will, let us hope, induce other Russians to visit India. They are most attentive to us in Central Asia, and we are quite ready to return the compliment in India. I had a conversation on this subject with a Russian Colonel at Tashkent. He mentioned three obstacles to Russian officers visiting India-viz., the want of funds, the difficulty of getting leave, and the fear of arousing our suspicions. The two first the Russian officers must get over themselves; if they will do so, and come to India, we will show them that the third is imaginary. British officers also will do well to visit Transcaspia and Turkistan. The military life there is akin to that which we lead along the NorthWest Frontier of India. There are many hints that we may pick up from the Russians in Central Asia to the advantage of our military and civil administration. THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF CENTRAL ASIA IN (Being the Abstract of a Paper read before the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Petersburg, March 1889.) BY LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ANNENKOFF. GENERAL ANNENKOFF commenced his lecture by referring to Southern Russia as a proof of the great results the energy of Russia is able to achieve in the field of colonisation. Within the last century and a half flourishing towns, such as Odessa, Rostov, Taganrog, Kherson, and Ekaterinoslav have sprung up, and on steppes formerly supposed to be suited only for a nomadic life there now dwells a fixed population of ten millions, with a density of more than sixty to a square mile. This country, which now yields over two million quarters of different cereals, is capable of producing still more abundant crops if artificially irrigated, for the dryness of the soil is the sole cause of sterility. The district of Orenburg, Siberia, and Central Asia as a whole, but more especially Trans-Caspia, are also open to Russian enterprise, and may undergo the same transformation if conditions favourable to colonisation exist in these countries. To show that such conditions are actually found, General Annenkoff described the geographical features of the territory in question, giving in the first place a sketch of the general configuration of the Asiatic continent, which may be omitted, as a detailed description was published in the Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. v., p. 148. He then proceeded to discuss the rivers and soil of the continent, drawing his information, for the most part, from the works of Reclus, Humboldt, Richthofen, and others. The large amount of earthy matter carried down by the principal rivers causes the formation of extensive deltas at their mouths, and constantly forces the rivers to form new channels, leaving the old beds and lake-basins dry. Thus, the mouth of the Whang-ho oscillates along some 560 miles of coast; and it has been calculated that the alluvium it deposits in twenty-five days would suffice to form an island about 1100 yards square and 118 feet deep, while the island of Tsung-ming, at the mouth of the Yang-tse-kiang, which is now some 380 square miles in extent, rose barely to the surface of the water, it is said, at the commencement of the Mongolian dominion. The character of the Amu-Daria is similar to that of these two rivers, and the absence of a delta at its mouth may be accounted for by the fact that it has flowed in its present bed for about 350 years only. Whereas, then, in the central parts of the continent the products of denudation, being transported only from one place to another in the neighbourhood of their origin, fill up the inequalities of the ground and tend to reduce the surface to a uniform. level, on the outskirts of Asia they are carried by these rivers down towards the sea, where they form large tracts of alluvial soil and furnish the waters of the ocean with their necessary complement of salts. Consequently, in Central Asia are to be found many localities, clothed with a uniform vegetation and often of a saline character, where only a few insignificant oases afford conditions favourable for settled habitation and the progress of civilisation, whereas on the confines of the continent elevated land instead of plains, numerous rivers, valleys, etc., promote the development of a great diversity of organic life, and enable man to attain a higher standard of mental culture and political organisation. Turning again to the Amu-Daria, General Annenkoff cited, as irrefragable proof of the fact that this river formerly flowed in other beds than the one it now occupies, the existence of the phenomena known as shors and chinkis, which have of late attracted attention. The shors are rows of cavities or embanked channels separated from one another by heaps of sand. Some are dry, others filled with water to the depth of one and a half to two feet. A succession of such shors forms a perfect representation of a river-bed dried up and in many places filled with sand, and there can be no doubt that they are abandoned channels of the Amu-Daria. It has further been remarked that the country near the Kopet-Dagh slopes in the direction indicated by these lines of shors. Between Merv and the Amu-Daria exist as many as six of these ancient channels, and it is beyond doubt that in ancient times the sea extended to this country, and that the river formed a vast delta which embraced the plain of the Karakul as well as the six existing channels at Charjui. As time went on, and the sea receded towards the west, two principal streams were formed, the one flowing along the Kopet-Dagh and the other near Uzboï and the Sari-Kamish. The northern stream, increasing at the expense of the western, has gradually turned in the direction of the sea of Aral, and the latter has been reduced to a series of shors almost deprived of water. The chinkis are long ranges of abrupt elevations, which may be attributed to the action of some force which has detached enormous masses of earth from the slopes, and piled them up at the foot of the mountains. The most remarkable of these chinkis is that of Unguz, measuring 330 miles in length; but others are to be found near the Gulf of the Tsarevitch (Dead Bay), between the Great Balkhans and Krasnovodsk, in the oasis of Khiva, and in other parts of the basins of the Caspian and Sea of Aral. Recent investigations have shown that an intimate connection exists between the general slope of the land and the position of the chinkis, and that water formerly flowed at the foot of all these elevations; and this opinion is confirmed by the fact that chinkis are found only where there are, or have been, currents-among the ramifications of the ancient beds of the Amu-Daria or on the banks of existing rivers. The foregoing facts have an important bearing on the question of Central Asian colonisation, for along these river-beds lie deposits of fertile löss, a clayey soil formed by atmospheric agency, as is shown by the following observations :-Firstly, fresh-water shells are never found in the löss soil, but only those of land molluscs; secondly, bones of terrestrial mammals are found; and, thirdly, traces of vegetation have been discovered. The agents which have combined to form these deposits are rains, whereby the particles of soil set free from the mountains. by atmospheric action have been washed down to the plain; winds, which have borne these particles along in certain fixed directions; and plants, which have preserved the accumulations from dispersion by the wind and have formed vegetable soil on their surface. From the geological map drawn up under the supervision of Professor Mushketoff and the mining engineers, Bogdanovitch and Obrutcheff, it appears that the whole country from Kizil-Arvat to Askhabad and the Atrek basin beyond are covered by a soil of compact löss, interrupted in a few places only by sand, as well as the country intersected by the beds of the Amu-Daria. The depth of this formation has been discovered, in the course of the construction of the Trans-Caspian Railway and at the sinking of Artesian wells, to be very considerable, sometimes amounting to several hundreds of feet; and chemical analysis has shown that the composition of this clay in Central Asia is identical with that of the alluvium of Chinese rivers. Now, the density of the population in China is due to the remarkable fertility of this soil, and even in the province of Trans |