JOUENEY FROM HERAT TO ORENBURG. 227 



hours ; at Herat he got a fresh horse, and rejoined 

 me at Merv, a distance of 260 miles, in 105 hours ! 

 He has brought me an English newspaper dated 4th 

 March, eighty-two days from London to Merv ! Be- 

 fore his arrival I was talking over with Brutus the 

 chance of his getting safely through the perils of the 

 journey. " Why," said Brutus, " fatigue can't kill 

 him, and no one in this country will kill him, for it 

 is more profitable to sell him ; and as the Wolf has 

 already been three times sold to the Turkomans, a 

 fourth will make no great difference." The horse he 

 has ridden here from Herat is ruined ; if he survives, 

 he can never be of service during this journey, his 

 back being dreadfully wounded by the saddle. It 

 may be as well to describe heie the khurgah (literally 

 donkey-house), which is the dwelling of the Turkoman 

 tribes. I am now living in one which is eighteen 

 feet high. The wall is five feet high, and is formed 

 of dried willow boughs, crossing each other diagon- 

 ally. At each cross a leather thong is passed through 

 both the pieces of willow, so that the whole can be 

 shut up and placed on a camel. This wall is first 

 pitched, and a broad strap of carpeting passed round 

 it, binding it to a doorway. The roof is formed of a 

 ring of willow boughs, having holes in it for the in- 

 sertion of other willow boughs, covered at one end, 

 which radiate from the ring, and slope down to the 

 wall, to the top of which they are firmly fixed. Over 

 this framework thick felts are bound, and, with good 



