LIFE IN THE GREAT DESERT OE CENTRAL ASIA 



753 



of the Russians less than a generation 

 ago, their dearest delight was long, hard 

 rides of 80 or 100 miles in a single day 

 on slave-taking raids among the timid 

 Persians. No pity was shown to the 

 poor captives ; with chained hands and 

 blistered feet, stumbling and faint, they 

 were driven hundreds of miles at the 

 point of the spear to be finally sold in the 

 slave markets of the rich oases of Bok- 

 hara and Khiva. 



Far in the interior of eastern Persia, 

 beyond the mountain home of the trans- 

 ported Kurds, the traveler is often sur- 

 prised by being addressed by native Per- 

 sians in Turki, the language of the Tur- 

 komans, as the writer discovered during a 

 journey which succeeded the one here de- 

 scribed. Time and again they tell the 

 same tale : "Years ago in my boyhood I 

 was working in the fields toward sunset, 

 when some one in the watch tower 

 shouted, 'The Turkomans, the Turko- 

 mans.' We dropped our work and ran 

 for shelter, but the Turkomans caught us. 

 Six men they killed that day, and fifteen 

 of us they drove to Khiva. There we 

 lived and worked for hard masters twelve 

 years until the Russians came and freed 

 us. God bless the Russians. The Tur- 

 komans are fiends." 



In spite of their cruel raids the Turko- 

 mans are admirable people — brave, gen- 

 erous, and honest, faithful and indus- 

 trious, and possessing that greatest of 

 virtues, profound respect for women. At 

 least such was the case till recently, al- 

 though of late contact with Russian civili- 

 zation is beginning to have the same sad 

 effect which contact with American civi- 

 lization has had upon the Indians. 



A RIDE INTO THE DESERT 



A week's ride out into the sand north 

 of Merv at the end of June gave oppor- 

 tunity to see how friendly the Turkomans 

 are and how terrible is their desert. At 

 first our way led through the unkempt 

 fringe of brown stubble and weed-bor- 

 dered ditches which surrounds every 

 oasis ; then came stretches of clayey plain 

 with just a trace of grass ; and finally the 

 sand itself, a vast undulating expanse of 



dunes, indescribably graceful in their 

 smooth crescentic curves, and strangely 

 beautiful in tint and shading during the 

 cool sunrise hours when the long shadows 

 bring out every slightest hollow or ripple. 



As the midsummer sun rises higher the 

 landscape flattens and assumes a garish 

 tint of yellowish gray, inexpressibly 

 wearisome. Strange mirages torment 

 the vision, but never are really deceit- 

 ful — perchance a group of tents beside a 

 pool of sparkling blue water, or a string 

 of camels pacing slowly along above the 

 horizon in the lower portion of the sky 

 with heads to earth and feet to the un- 

 substantial floor of heaven. 



"By Allah !" remarked the guide on the 

 first day of our journey, "I wish I had 

 brought a thicker robe. I had no idea it 

 would be so hot. The sun beats right 

 through this thin thing, and only the 

 grace of Allah keeps me from being 

 burned to a cinder." 



During the heat of the day we rested' 

 for two or three hours ; that is, we lay 

 down on the burning sand in the shade 

 of a bit of cloth or of our horses — thin, 

 patient animals — and wrote up notes, the 

 bane of the explorer's life, or tried to 

 sleep and forget the heat. The end of 

 the noon siesta was always the worst part 

 of the day. We fairly staggered when 

 we rose to mount our horses ; and the 

 still, suffocating heat made us clutch at 

 the saddles to keep from swaying and 

 falling as the dispirited creatures plodded 

 heavily on. Soon, however, a little 

 breeze arose regularly, the horses began 

 to step more lightly, the shadows length- 

 ened, and the world grew interesting. 



By sunset we had reached a group of 

 tents, a well, some tamarisk bushes, and 

 flocks of bleating sheep, with here and 

 there a camel from whose gaunt leather 

 sides a few handfuls of last winter's coat 

 of hair still clung. Friendly Turkomans 

 took our horses and gave us cool drafts 

 of the acrid sour milk, which all men love 

 in the desert. In the cool of the evening 

 we sat and talked with our hosts while 

 waiting for dinner of curdled milk, coarse 

 wheaten bread, and the flesh of a young 

 lamb pulled to pieces with the fingers. 



