192 
THROUGH ASIA 
1875-6. Besides being commandant of the fort, he was 
also governor of the Kirghiz population of the Pamirs. 
Of Fort Pamir I have none but the happiest recollec- 
tions. I reached it at the end of a long, toilsome journey- 
through an uninhabited and difficult mountainous waste, 
and was received in that little outlying fragment of mighty 
Russia with open arms, more like an old friend or long- 
standing acquaintance, by a group of officers who, I have 
no hesitation in saying, were as amiable, as courteous, as 
generous a set of men as it is possible to meet with. And 
without undue self-love, I can flatter myself, that my 
arrival formed a not unpleasing diversion in the lonely 
and monotonous life which the garrison of the fort are 
compelled to lead during the greater portion of the year. 
For all winter through, ever since September of the 
previous year, not a soul had been near the fort except 
the Kirghiz. As soon therefore as the Russian officers 
learned from the mounted couriers I sent on in advance, 
that I was approaching, they hurried up to the battery 
platforms, armed with every field-glass that could be 
got in the fort, and swept the horizon northwards until 
my caravan came into sight. And when I rode in through 
the gate, I was received with the warmest of welcomes by 
every man of the garrison. 
Fort Pamir often reminded me of a ship at .sea. The 
outer walls might be likened to the bulwarks ; the wide, 
open, sweeping valley of the Murghab to the sea ; and 
the courtyard to the deck. Up and down this latter we 
used to walk day after day, stopping every now and again 
to gaze through our powerful field-glasses towards the far- 
distant horizon — a view which never varied in its dull 
lifelessness, except on one day in the week. That was 
Tuesday, when all eyes were early on the alert for a 
single, solitary horseman, the post-courier (jighit), who 
brought the eagerly-expected mails from far-off Russia. 
His arrival was the great event of the week. 
When his horse trots in through the gate, every man of 
the o-arrison hurries out to receive him. The commandant’s 
O 
adjutant makes haste to open the mail-bags. Everybody 
