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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



and always ready for work except when 

 he became drunk — in short, a typical 

 frontiersman like those of the "Wild 

 West" of America a generation ago. He 

 belonged to a heretical sect much given 

 to holding long meetings, at which first 

 one and then another, and finally several 

 at once, shout out prayers at the tops of 

 their voices. His family and other co- 

 religionists had been transported to the 

 Persian border and placed there in colo- 

 nies, partly to get rid of their disturbing 

 presence at home and partly to form a 

 cordon of genuine Russian settlements 

 along the exposed frontier. 



Everywhere along the boundaries of 

 Asiatic Russia military preparations are 

 strongly in evidence. Nowhere is this 

 more noticeable than at the corner where 

 Russian territory adjoins Afghanistan 

 and Persia, for here, as has been said, 

 lies the one easy line of communication 

 between northern and southern Asia in 

 the whole vast stretch from the Bos- 

 phorus to Manchuria. Evidences of the 

 importance of the region are found not 

 only in the numerous military posts and 

 in the colonies established for military 

 purposes, but in the railroad spur some 

 one hundred and seventy-five miles long 

 which, at a distance of about sixty miles 

 east of Serakhs, runs southward from 

 the Transcaspian Railway at Merv to 

 the Afghan frontier at Kushka. The 

 fact that I traveled on part of the rail- 

 road aroused much ire on the part of 

 several Russian officers, especially an 

 irascible black-bearded colonel, and I 

 should have been arrested immediately 

 had I not been the guest of an official. 



In general, the officers to whom I had 

 introductions were proud to point out 

 the barracks and to tell how the soldiers 

 were cared for, but took great pains not 

 to mention the number of troops or guns. 

 They could not conceal the fact that 

 equipment for an immediate advance was 

 on hand in case there should ever be 

 occasion to invade Afghanistan ; and one 

 of them said with pride that the large 

 storehouses from which I was warned 

 away at Askhabad contained the rails, 

 ties, and complete equipment for sixty 



or seventy miles of light railroad, which 

 could be laid down at a moment's notice, 

 to connect the end of the Kushka spur 

 with Herat, the chief city of western 

 Afghanistan. Others may have over- 

 looked the importance of the break in the 

 great mountain chains of Asia which 

 occurs in western Afghanistan and east- 

 ern Persia, but the Russians realize that 

 some day it will be one of the world's 

 great lines of communication. 



The attitude of Persia toward affairs 

 in the eastern part of her domain may 

 almost be neglected, so far as its prac- 

 tical results are concerned. On leaving 

 Serakhs, our first night in Persia im- 

 pressed upon us the contrast between the 

 business-like methods of Russia and the 

 slipshod Persian way of doing things. 



Arriving at Zorabad after sunset, we 

 stumbled through the dung-heaps which, 

 by courtesy, are called streets, and ar- 

 rived at the wretched house of Mehemet 

 Yusup Khan, the redoubtable chief of 

 the three or four soldiers — nominally 

 thirty — who are supposed to defend this 

 frontier town against the Russians and 

 Afghans. The floor of the single apart- 

 ment was about two feet below the court- 

 yard in which the horses were stabled. 

 The furniture consisted of a few bags 

 hung on wooden pegs driven into the 

 mud walls, and a few dirty felts and 

 bags that partly covered the floor, also 

 of mud. The sooty roof of the apart- 

 ment was nearly seven feet above the 

 floor, but such spacious dimensions were 

 too high for the door, before which one 

 was obliged to stoop low to get through 

 its four feet of height. 



The only window was a round hole 

 about a foot in diameter, which was 

 filled by half a dozen fowls that had 

 taken refuge there from the cold Decem- 

 ber air, and that helped to lessen the 

 draft on the people inside. Such, at 

 least, was my thought until sunrise, when 

 a boy walked unceremoniously into the 

 room, and, picking up the sleepy hens, 

 put them out into the cold through the 

 door. The window was not a window 

 at all, but merely a niche in the thick 

 wall. 



