128 Extracts from Demi-Official Reports. [No. 110. 



from his home "by Mahommud Zeman Khan, his more powerful rival of 

 the same clan, who on sending a party of those who had followed him, 

 to cultivate land near Nerochok had fairly seized their crops, driven off 

 their cattle and sold 25 persons to the Toorkmauns. This confirmed the 

 statement which we had heard at Meimunna, and which we soon ceased 

 to doubt that the Soonnee religion is no longer a safeguard aguainst cap- 

 tivity. Every defenceless person who can be used for labor is carried 

 off to the insatiable markets of Tartary. We were followed by a small 

 cafila of slaves from Meimunna consisting of Sheah Huzarahs and Soon- 

 nee Eimauks, of all ages f.iom 5 to 30. 



"We forded the Moorghaub at Karoul Khaneh,. and our onward march 

 lay along or near its left bank for 8 marches to Merve. The first took 

 us past the rather imposing, but desolate mud fort and citadel of Meroc- 

 hak. Many mud pillars, which were formerly used by watchers of 

 crops, yet stand among the weedy bushes that have overrun the chief 

 portion of this now deserted valley, and the land retains many traces of 

 the industry with which it used to be irrigated. In parts high weeds 

 have sprung up thickly where flood water from the Moorghaub has been 

 allowed to settle, and its stagnation in those marshes is doubtless the 

 chief cause of the malaria which makes this district uninhabitable during 

 the heat of summer. The next wide break of the Moorghaub valley 

 below abroad belt of low dry hills which bound Merochak, forms the 

 head of the division called Punjdeh extending 20 miles down to a point 

 where the stream of Kooshk joins the Moorghaub, which although it con- 

 tains weedy vegetation in standing water on one side, is well inhabited 

 by Tookmauns, who are evidently in a flourishing condition They 

 breed many horses which they profitably export ; and they find pasture 

 for large flocks of sheep, and herds of camels in their range of the valley 

 parts of which they cultivate with jewaree wheat and barley. 



These Toorkmauns are a colony of the Ersauree tribe from the banks 

 of the Oxus, divided into 4 clans, called Oolle Zuppeh, Kureh Shughsee, 

 and Chunghee which they estimate in round numbers at 500 tents each. 



At Punjdeh we laid in 5 days' dry provisions for ourselves and horses,, 

 there being no encampments upon our road or along the Moorghaub to 

 Yellatoon. The right of the valley, which the river favors, is for nearly all 

 through bounded by a well defined line of low hills. The left, near which 

 our road lay, was sided by hillocks and undulations than positive hills. On 

 the 2d March we first observed sand lying upon the hill as if drifted by 

 northerly winds from the desert, and a third of our onward way lay, 

 over loose beds of sand that covered portions of the hard white clay soil, 



