LIFE IN THE GREAT DESERT OF CENTRAL ASIA 



751 



*:<* ' 



A SAMPLE 01- THE MOUNTAINOUS SOUTHERN BORDER OF TRANSCASPIA. SHOWING 

 THE SCANTY VEGETATION AND THE STERILE NATURE OF THE MOUNTAINS 



TURKOMAN TENTS ON THE EDGE OF THE TRANSCASPIAN DESERT 



who preceded their Turkoman cousins in 

 Transcaspia, seem to have found life un- 

 usually hard among the waterless, grass- 

 less pastures of sand and gravel. At 

 any rate, they raided the gentle, courteous 

 Persians with unendurable ferocitv. On 



the western borders of his realm lived 

 another race of plunderers, the Kurds, 

 and it occurred to Abbas Shah that the 

 one race might be pitted against the other. 

 Accordingly he transported some 100,000 

 Kurds to the mountains of Khorasanr 



