336 



NATURE 



[November 27, 1919 



expedition organised in 1905 by an American, 

 Mr. Pumpelly,! to make the first scientific ex- 

 ploration of the region between the Pamir and 

 the Caspian. Since then little or no exploration 

 has been carried out. 



During 1918 and 1919 opportunities occurred of 

 visiting Turkestan, unhindered by the old restric- 

 tions, and much valuable experience was gained 

 by the members of the British forces which at one 

 time and another penetrated the province. A 

 voyage across the Caspian in March, 1919, took 

 me to Turkestan to a point within eighty miles 

 of the-Oxus, near Charjui, and the unusual facili- 

 ties of the journey enabled me to see much that 

 would not have been very accessible under pre- 

 war conditions. 



Once the Caspian is crossed and the Caucasus 

 left behind, one is in a region where the subjec- 

 tion of the routine of life to physical limitations 

 is very marked. Krasnovodsk, the port of 

 Western Turkestan, a cluster of drab houses on 

 the foot of arid and treeless hills, lives solely on 

 what the ships and the railways bring to it. The 

 route to inland Turkestan passes south-east from 

 the town, skirting the long arm of Balkhan Bay, 

 and passing between a gap in the hills — a gap 

 which, it is generally agreed by geologists, was 

 more than once in historical times the passage 

 through which the Aral and the Caspian were 

 joined ; the northern junction of these waters is 

 believed by Kropotkin and others to have been 

 round the north end of the Ust Urt Plateau into 

 the bay of Mortvy Kulduk. 



Once through this gap, the route runs nearly 

 due east, and the plain of Kara Kum opens out to 

 the north with the long sierra ridge of Kopet Dagh 

 screening off Persia on the south. From Kizil 

 Arvat to Askhabad, a distance of about 130 miles, 

 the railway and caravan route to the east runs 

 between the desert and the foothills. Numerous 

 prehistoric mounds, mostly of the flat-topped 

 variety, are found along the foothills and bear 

 testimony to the antiquity of the route. 



Except for occasional oases, the Kara Kum 

 plain is a vast and continuous desert, almost 

 entirely flat, and with camel-thorn as its only 

 vegetation. But though now it is for the most 

 part desert, the fertility of the oases, round which 

 cotton- and corn-fields are abundant, suggests 

 infinite possibilities, as the desert, at least 

 between Kizil Arvat and New Merv, is of rich 

 clay, and not of sand. Here and there a simple 

 system of converging trenches leading down from 

 the foothills has provided the irrigation the general 

 absence of which is the chief obstacle to agri- 

 culture. 



Russian rule, prior to the revolution, by en- 

 couraging and subsidising the growth on a large 

 scale of cotton and cereals, had largely con- 

 tributed to transforming the Tekke Turkomans 

 into a sedentary and agricultural race. In place 

 of the temporary camps of forty years ago, one 

 now sees large villages, which comprise groups 



1 See PuinpeUy, "Explorations in Turkestan" (Published by the 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1905 and 1908.) 



NO. 2613, VOL. 104] 



of two or more Kibitkas, enclosed in a mud wall. 

 Sometimes even the Kibitkas are replaced by 

 permanent single-storied flat-roofed houses of the 

 Caucasian type — the whole resembling the type of 

 walled farm common in Macedonia. Recent up- 

 heavals, however, have revived the nomadic 

 spirit. The Tekke Turkomans, largely at the in- 

 stigation of the Yomut Turkomans, who are in a 

 less fertile area, have shown signs of a movement 

 en masse to less troubled areas in the south. 



Askhabad, situated well out on the plain, is in 

 the most fertile region of all Western Turkestan. 

 It serves as the chief internal commercial centre 

 of the province, while Kizil Arvat is rather the 

 clearing-house for exports and imports. Dried 

 fruits, carpets, fish from the Caspian, and furs 

 are always to be found in its large and prosperous 

 market. Afghans from the south, Sarts from 

 Bokhara, Persians from over Kopet Dagh, and 

 even Greelfs from Baku and Batum, make up, with 

 the Tekkes and Yomuts, the cosmopolitan crowd 

 typical of a market-place of the Middle East. 

 Whether the produce of the little-known but 

 prosperous seal fisheries of the North Caspian 

 penetrate these regions 1 was unable to find out, 

 laut the museum at Askhabad contains a collection 

 of interesting photographs and implements illus- 

 trating this industry. 



The main trade connections of New Merv are 

 with the East and South, and carpets and silks 

 form the staple produce of the town. The town 

 itself is on the banks of the Murghab river, which 

 is here no inconsiderable stream, being on an 

 average about 50 ft. in width and well protected 

 with dykes. 



Old Merv, the ancient Antiocheia, the mediaeval 

 "Queen of the Earth," is situtited some twenty 

 miles east of New Merv. It is a sombre and 

 impressive ruin, covering about thirty square 

 miles. The ancient walls of the citadel still stand, 

 hardly damaged by the passage of time, close by 

 the woods and fields of the rnodel estate of the 

 late Tsar at Bairam Ali. The prosperous nature 

 of this estate is proof of what the soil of Turkes- 

 tan is capable when dealt with scientifically. 



Between Old Merv and the Oxus are only 

 rolling sand-dunes, unproductive and desolate. 

 The process of desiccation is still continuing in 

 Western Turkestan, and the geological causes 

 that have affected in so many and various fashions 

 the course of history in these regions are still 

 operative. The Oxus, which originally flowed 

 due north to Aral, later changed its direction, 

 running a south-westerly course into Lake Sary- 

 kamish and the Uzboi Channel of the old Aralo- 

 Caspian Sea. Later it reverted to its original 

 northern flow. The Aral has been alternately 

 marsh and sea. The causes of these changes are 

 still the ruling factors in a land where the human 

 element is not active. The province, left tc< itself, is 

 passing through another cycle in which, a shrink- 

 age of water supply is the most marked feature. 

 In 1842 the Abougir Gulf of Lake Aral comprised 

 3500 square kilometres of water surface; to-day 

 it is practically dry. The province is essentiallv 



