THE BOUNDARY COMMISSION 693 
any injury. It took all day till twilight to get through 
the whole of the programme ; and just as the gay throng 
of riders started for their respective camps, the race-course 
was swept by an icy buran. 
The combined camp of the Commissioners made a 
striking picture. It stood on a patch of level ground, 
at the foot of a conglomerate terrace, on the left bank 
of the Ak -su or Murghab. The Russians were quartered 
in a dozen large, handsome Kirghiz yurts ; the English- 
nien and Indian soldiers in some fifty or sixty white 
army tents. Round about the outskirts of the camp were 
the yurts of the Afghans, Kirghiz, Wakhanlik (men of 
Wakhan), and karakeshes (caravan attendants) of different 
nationalities. The camp thus presented a kind of epitome 
of various types of Oriental life, side by side with the 
highest civilization of the West. A painter would have 
found never-ending subjects for his brush. I he pencil 
of a dilettante like myself was kept hard at work all day 
long, for unfortunately I had lost my photographic appa- 
ratus in the desert. 
Both the Russian and the English generals were perfect 
patterns and ensamples to their officers and men. Both 
had gone through many a stiff brush with the enemy. 
General Pavalo-Shveikovsky had an inexhaustible fund of 
stories and anecdotes from the Russo - T urkish war of 
1877-78. General Gerard was famous throughout all 
India as one of the most daring spirits that ever tracked 
a tiger. With his own hand he had accounted for no 
fewer than 216 of the kings of the jungle, a number which, 
considering the relative scarcity of tigers now in India, 
must be accounted worthy of the most passionate lover 
of the chase. To General Gerard the tracking of a tiger 
Was what the coursing of a hare Is to ordinary sports- 
men, a mere harmless pastime, combining exercise with 
pleasure ; all the same, he had had many adventures and 
hairbreadth escapes, which it was very interesting to 
listen to. 
