170 THE TRANSGASPIAN RAILWAY IN 1903. 



In the small hours of the morning the great railway 

 depot and workshops of Kizil Arvat were passed, and 

 dawn revealed a desolate land all round, broken only 

 by a chain of sullen mountains on the Persian frontier 

 to the south. At ten o'clock we steamed slowly into a 

 small wayside station — Geok Teppe. What a tumultu- 

 ous whirl of thought the two small words set going. 

 We were passing through the district which held out 

 to the last against the advance of the great white 

 power from the North. One by one the khanates had 

 succumbed. Turkestan, Tchimkent, and Tashkent fell 

 within a single year, Samarkand and the rich province 

 of Zerafshan were long since gone, then came Khiva and 

 Khokand. But the fierce Turkomans, brought up in an 

 atmosphere of blood and pillage, fought desperately to 

 the end. Here, within 50 yards of the railway-station, 

 the Russian general Lomakin was defeated with heavy 

 loss. The result was a severe blow to Russian prestige 

 and a check in their advance. The day of reckoning 

 went back two years, but when it came it was decisive. 

 What need to recall the elaborate precautions of the 

 Russians as they advanced under the genius SkobelefF, 

 or the terrible three weeks during which 35,000 Tekke 

 Turkomans were besieged in their stronghold Dengil 

 Teppe? It is now over twenty years ago,^ but the 

 horror of the death-grip when Russians attacked and 

 Turkomans attacked back, and the ghastly terror of 

 the last pursuit, will live for centuries. Twelve hundred 

 Russian soldiers lay dead or wounded ; nine thousand 

 Turkoman warriors went where dead Turkomans go. 

 Inside the ramparts the ground is now covered with 

 grass and scrub. A monument surmounted by a cross, 

 and smaller crosses at other points, stand in memory of 



1 The Eussians captured the fort, if it can be described as such, on 

 January 24, 1881. 



