Chapter 7

A present from the village khan was announced. In stepped two men bearing a huge tray filled with melons, apricots, sugar, rock-candy, nuts, pistachios, etc., all of which we must, of course, turn over to the khan-keeper and his servants, and pay double their value to the bearers, as a present. This polite method of extortion was followed the next morning by one of a bolder and more peremptory nature. Notwithstanding the feast of the night before at our expense, and in addition to furnishing us with bedclothes which we really ought to have been paid to sleep in, our oily host now insisted upon three or four prices for his lodgings. We refused to pay him more than a certain sum, and started to vacate the premises. Thereupon he and his grown son caught hold of our bicycles. Remonstrances proving of no avail, and being unable to force our passage through the narrow doorway with the bicycles in our hands, we dropped them, and grappled with our antagonists. A noisy scuffle, and then a heavy fall ensued, but luckily we were both on the upper side. This unusual disturbance now brought out the inmates of the adjoining _anderoon_. In a moment there was a din of feminine screams, and a flutter of garments, and then—a crashing of our pith helmets beneath the blows of pokers and andirons. The villagers, thus aroused, came at last to our rescue, and at once proceeded to patch up a compromise. This, in view of the Amazonian reinforcements, who were standing by in readiness for a second onset, we were more than pleased to accept. From this inglorious combat we came off without serious injury; but with those gentle poker taps were knocked out forever all the sweet delusions of the “Light of the Harem.”

The great antiquity of this Teheran-Meshed road, which is undoubtedly a section of that former commercial highway between two of the most ancient capitals in history—Nineveh and Balk, is very graphically shown by the caravan ruts at Lasgird. These have been worn in many places to a depth of four feet in the solid rock. It was not far beyond this point that we began to feel the force of that famous “Damghan wind,” so called from the city of that name. Of course this wind was against us. In fact, throughout our Asiatic tour easterly winds prevailed; and should we ever attempt another transcontinental spin we would have a care to travel in the opposite direction.

Our peculiar mode of travel subjected us to great extremes in our mode of living. Sometimes, indeed, it was a change almost from the sublime to the ridiculous, and vice versa—from a stable or sheepfold, with a diet of figs and bread, and an irrigating-ditch for a lavatory, to a palace itself, an Oriental palace, with all the delicacies of the East, and a host of servants to attend to our slightest wish. So it was at Bostam, the residence of one of Persia’s most influential _hakims_, or governors, literally, “pillars of state,” who was also a cousin to the Shah himself. This potentate we visited in company with an English engineer whom we met in transit at Sharoud. It was on the evening before, when at supper with this gentleman in his tent, that a special messenger arrived from the governor, requesting us, as the invitation ran, “to take our brightness into his presence.” As we entered, the governor rose from his seat on the floor, a courtesy never shown us by a Turkish official. Even the politest of them would, just at this particular moment, be conveniently engrossed in the examination of some book or paper. His courtesy was further extended by locking up our “horses,” and making us his “prisoners” until the following morning. At the dinner which Mr. Evans and we were invited to eat with his excellency, benches had to be especially prepared, as there was nothing like a chair to be found on the premises. The governor himself took his accustomed position on the floor, with his own private dishes around him. From these he would occasionally fish out with his fingers some choice lamb _kebabh_ or cabbage _dolmah_, and have it passed over to his guests—an act which is considered one of the highest forms of Persian hospitality.

With a shifting of the scenes of travel, we stood at sunset on the summit of the Binalud mountains, overlooking the valley of the Kashafrud. Our two weeks’ journey was almost ended, for the city of Meshed was now in view, ten miles away. Around us were piles of little stones, to which each pious pilgrim adds his quota when first he sees the “Holy Shrine,” which we beheld shining like a ball of fire in the glow of the setting sun.

While we were building our pyramid a party of returning pilgrims greeted us with “Meshedi at last.” “Not yet,” we answered, for we knew that the gates of the Holy City closed promptly at twilight. Yet we determined to make the attempt. On we sped, but not with the speed of the falling night. Dusk overtook us as we reached the plain. A moving form was revealed to us on the bank of the irrigating-canal which skirted the edge of the road. Backward it fell as we dashed by, and then the sound of a splash and splutter reached us as we disappeared in the darkness. On the morrow we learned that the spirits of Hassan and Hussein were seen skimming the earth in their flight toward the Holy City. We reached the bridge, and crossed the moat, but the gates were closed. We knocked and pounded, but a hollow echo was our only response. At last the light of a lantern illumined the crevices in the weather-beaten doors, and a weird-looking face appeared through the midway opening. “Who’s there?” said a voice, whose sepulchral tones might have belonged to the sexton of the Holy Tomb. “We are _Ferenghis_,” we said, “and must get into the city to-night.” “That is impossible,” he answered, “for the gates are locked, and the keys have been sent away to the governor’s palace.” With this the night air grew more chill. But another thought struck us at once. We would send a note to General McLean, the English consul-general, who was already expecting us. This our interlocutor, for a certain _inam_, or Persian bakshish, at length agreed to deliver. The general, as we afterward learned, sent a servant with a special request to the governor’s palace. Here, without delay, a squad of horsemen was detailed, and ordered with the keys to the “Herat Gate.” The crowds in the streets, attracted by this unusual turnout at this unusual hour, followed in their wake to the scene of disturbance. There was a click of locks, the clanking of chains, and the creaking of rusty hinges. The great doors swung open, and a crowd of expectant faces received us in the Holy City.

Meshed claims our attention chiefly for its famous dead. In its sacred dust lie buried our old hero Haroun al Raschid, Firdousi, Persia’s greatest epic poet, and the holy Imaum Riza, within whose shrine every criminal may take refuge from even the Shah himself until the payment of a blood-tax, or a debtor until the giving of a guarantee for debt. No infidel can enter there.

Meshed was the pivotal point upon which our wheel of fortune was to turn. We were filled with no little anxiety, therefore, when, on the day after our arrival, we received an invitation to call at the Russian consulate-general. With great ceremony we were ushered into a suite of elegantly furnished rooms, and received by the consul-general and his English wife in full dress. Madame de Vlassow was radiant with smiles as she served us tea by the side of her steaming silver samovar. She could not wait for the circumlocution of diplomacy, but said: “It is all right, gentlemen. General Kuropatkine has just telegraphed permission for you to proceed to Askabad.” This precipitate remark evidently disconcerted the consul, who could only nod his head and say, “_Oui, oui_,” in affirmation. This news lifted a heavy load from our minds; our desert journey of six hundred miles, therefore, had not been made in vain, and the prospect brightened for a trip through the heart of Asia.

Between the rival hospitality of the Russian and English consulates our health was now in jeopardy from excess of kindness. Among other social attentions, we received an invitation from Sahib Devan, the governor of Khorassan, who next to the Shah is the richest man in Persia. Although seventy-six years of age, on the day of our visit to his palace he was literally covered with diamonds and precious stones. With the photographer to the Shah as German interpreter, we spent half an hour in an interesting conversation. Among other topics he mentioned the receipt, a few days before, of a peculiar telegram from the Shah: “Cut off the head of any one who attempts opposition to the Tobacco Regie”; and this was followed a few days after by the inquiry, “How many heads have you taken?” A retinue of about three hundred courtiers followed the governor as he walked out with feeble steps to the parade-ground. Here a company of Persian cavalry was detailed to clear the field for the “wonderful steel horses,” which, as was said, had come from the capital in two days, a distance of six hundred miles. The governors extreme pleasure was afterward expressed in a special letter for our journey to the frontier.

The military road now completed between Askabad and Meshed reveals the extreme weakness of Persia’s defense against Russian aggression. Elated by her recent successes in the matter of a Russian consul at Meshed, Russia has very forcibly invited Persia to construct more than half of a road which, in connection with the Transcaspian railway, makes Khorassan almost an exclusive Russian market, and opens Persia’s richest province to Russia’s troops and cannon on the prospective march to Herat. At this very writing, if the telegraph speaks the truth, the Persian border-province of Dereguez is another cession by what the Russians are pleased to call their Persian vassal. In addition to its increasing commercial traffic, this road is patronized by many Shiah devotees from the north, among whom are what the natives term the “silent pilgrims.” These are large stones, or boulders, rolled along a few feet at a time by the passers-by toward the Holy City. We ourselves were employed in this pious work at the close of our first day’s journey from Meshed when we were suddenly aroused by a bantering voice behind us. Looking up, we were hailed by Stagno Navarro, the inspector of the Persian telegraph, who was employed with his men on a neighboring line. With this gentleman we spent the following night in a telegraph station, and passed a pleasant evening chatting over the wires with friends in Meshed.

Kuchan, our next stopping-place, lies on the almost imperceptible watershed which separates the Herat valley from the Caspian Sea. This city, only a few months ago, was entirely destroyed by a severe earthquake. Under date of January 28, 1894, the American press reported: “The bodies of ten thousand victims of the awful disaster have already been recovered. Fifty thousand cattle were destroyed at the same time. The once important and beautiful city of twenty thousand people is now only a scene of death, desolation, and terror.”

From this point to Askabad the construction of the military highway speaks well for Russia’s engineering skill. It crosses the Kopet Dagh mountains over seven distinct passes in a distance of eighty miles. This we determined to cover, if possible, in one day, inasmuch as there was no intermediate stopping-place, and as we were not a little delighted by the idea of at last emerging from semi-barbarism into semi-civilization. At sunset we were scaling the fifth ridge since leaving Kuchan at daybreak, and a few minutes later rolled up before the Persian custom-house in the valley below. There was no evidence of the proximity of a Russian frontier, except the extraordinary size of the tea-glasses, from which we slaked our intolerable thirst. During the day we had had a surfeit of cavernous gorges and commanding pinnacles, but very little water. The only copious spring we were able to find was filled at the time with the unwashed linen of a Persian traveler, who sat by, smiling in derision, as we upbraided him for his disregard of the traveling public.

It was already dusk when we came in sight of the Russian custom-house, a tin-roofed, stone structure, contrasting strongly with the Persian mud hovels we had left behind. A Russian official hailed us as we shot by, but we could not stop on the down-grade, and, besides, darkness was too rapidly approaching to brook any delay. Askabad was twenty-eight miles away, and although wearied by an extremely hard day’s work, we must sleep that night, if possible, in a Russian hotel. Our pace increased with the growing darkness until at length we were going at the rate of twelve miles per hour down a narrow gorge-like valley toward the seventh and last ridge that lay between us and the desert. At 9:30 P. M. we stood upon its summit, and before us stretched the sandy wastes of Kara-Kum, enshrouded in gloom. Thousands of feet below us the city of Askabad was ablaze with lights, shining like beacons on the shore of the desert sea. Strains of music from a Russian band stole faintly up through the darkness as we dismounted, and contemplated the strange scene, until the shriek of a locomotive-whistle startled us from our reveries. Across the desert a train of the Transcaspian railway was gliding smoothly along toward the city.

A hearty welcome back to civilized life was given us the next evening by General Kuropatkine himself, the Governor-General of Transcaspia. During the course of a dinner with him and his friends, he kindly assured us that no further recommendation was needed than the fact that we were American citizens to entitle us to travel from one end of the Russian empire to the other.

From Askabad to Samarkand there was a break in the continuity of our bicycle journey. Our Russian friends persuaded us to take advantage of the Transcaspian railway, and not to hazard a journey across the dreaded Kara-Kum sands. Such a journey, made upon the railroad track, where water and food were obtainable at regular intervals, would have entailed only a small part of the hardships incurred on the deserts in China, yet we were more than anxious to reach, before the advent of winter, a point whence we could be assured of reaching the Pacific during the following season. Through the kindness of the railway authorities at Bokhara station our car was side-tracked to enable us to visit, ten miles away, that ancient city of the East. On November 6 we reached Samarkand, the ancient capital of Tamerlane, and the present terminus of the Transcaspian railway.

IV

THE JOURNEY FROM SAMARKAND TO KULDJA

On the morning of November 16 we took a last look at the blue domes and minarets of Samarkand, intermingled with the ruins of palaces and tombs, and then wheeled away toward the banks of the Zerafshan. Our four days’ journey of 180 miles along the regular Russian post-road was attended with only the usual vicissitudes of ordinary travel. Wading in our Russian top-boots through the treacherous fords of the “Snake” defile, we passed the pyramidal slate rock known as the “Gate of Tamerlane,” and emerged upon a strip of the Kizil-Kum steppe, stretching hence in painful monotony to the bank of the Sir Daria river. This we crossed by a rude rope-ferry, filled at the time with a passing caravan, and then began at once to ascend the valley of the Tchirtchick toward Tashkend. The blackened cotton which the natives were gathering from the fields, the lowering snow-line on the mountains, the muddy roads, the chilling atmosphere, and the falling leaves of the giant poplars—all warned us of the approach of winter.

We had hoped at least to reach Vernoye, a provincial capital near the converging point of the Turkestan, Siberian, and Chinese boundaries, whence we could continue, on the opening of the following spring, either through Siberia or across the Chinese empire. But in this we were doomed to disappointment. The delay on the part of the Russian authorities in granting us permission to enter Transcaspia had postponed at least a month our arrival in Tashkend, and now, owing to the early advent of the rainy season, the roads leading north were almost impassable even for the native carts. This fact, together with the reports of heavy snowfalls beyond the Alexandrovski mountains, on the road to Vernoye, lent a rather cogent influence to the persuasions of our friends to spend the winter among them.

Then, too, such a plan, we thought, might not be unproductive of future advantages. Thus far we had been journeying through Russian territory without a passport. We had no authorization except the telegram to “come on,” received from General Kuropatkine at Askabad, and the verbal permission of Count Rosterzsoff at Samarkand to proceed to Tashkend. Furthermore, the passport for which we had just applied to Baron Wrevsky, the Governor-General of Turkestan, would be available only as far as the border of Siberia, where we should have to apply to the various governors-general along our course to the Pacific, in case we should find the route across the Chinese empire impracticable. A general permission to travel from Tashkend to the Pacific coast, through southern Siberia, could be obtained from St. Petersburg only, and that only through the chief executive of the province through which we were passing.

Permission to enter Turkestan is by no means easily obtained, as is well understood by the student of Russian policy in central Asia. We were not a little surprised, therefore, when our request to spend the winter in its capital was graciously granted by Baron Wrevsky, as well as the privilege for one of us to return in the mean time to London. This we had determined on, in order to secure some much-needed bicycle supplies, and to complete other arrangements for the success of our enterprise. By lot the return trip fell to Sachtleben. Proceeding by the Transcaspian and Transcaucasus railroads, the Caspian and Black seas, to Constantinople, and thence by the “overland express” to Belgrade, Vienna, Frankfort, and Calais, he was able to reach London in sixteen days.

Tashkend, though nearly in the same latitude as New York, is so protected by the Alexandrovski mountains from the Siberian blizzards and the scorching winds of the Kara-Kum desert as to have an even more moderate climate. A tributary of the Tchirtchick river forms the line of demarcation between the native and the European portions of the city, although the population of the latter is by no means devoid of a native element. Both together cover an area as extensive as Paris, though the population is only 120,000, of which 100,000 are congregated in the native, or Sart, quarter. There is a floating element of Kashgarians, Bokhariots, Persians, and Afghans, and a resident majority of Kirghiz, Tatars, Jews, Hindus, gypsies, and Sarts, the latter being a generic title for the urban, as distinguished from the nomad, people.

Our winter quarters were obtained at the home of a typical Russian family, in company with a young reserve officer. He, having finished his university career and time of military service, was engaged in Tashkend in the interest of his father, a wholesale merchant in Moscow. With him we were able to converse either in French or German, both of which languages he could speak more purely than his native Russian. Our good-natured, corpulent host had emigrated, in the pioneer days, from the steppes of southern Russia, and had grown wealthy through the “unearned increment.”

The Russian samovar is the characteristic feature of the Russian household. Besides a big bowl of cabbage soup at every meal, our Russian host would start in with a half-tumbler of vodka, dispose of a bottle of beer in the intervals, and then top off with two or three glasses of tea. The mistress of the household, being limited in her beverages to tea and soup, would usually make up in quantity what was lacking in variety. In fact, one day she informed us that she had not imbibed a drop of water for over six years. For this, however, there is a very plausible excuse. With the water at Tashkend, as with that from the Zerafshan at Bokhara, a dangerous worm called _reshta_ is absorbed into the system. Nowhere have we drunk better tea than around the steaming samovar of our Tashkend host. No peasant is too poor, either in money or in sentiment, to buy and feel the cheering influence of tea. Even the Cossack, in his forays into the wilds of central Asia, is sustained by it. Unlike the Chinese, the Russians consider sugar a necessary concomitant of tea-drinking. There are three methods of sweetening tea: to put the sugar in the glass; to place a lump of sugar in the mouth, and suck the tea through it; to hang a lump in the midst of a tea-drinking circle, to be swung around for each in turn to touch with his tongue, and then to take a swallow of tea.

The meaning of the name Tashkend is “city of stone,” but a majority of the houses are one-story mud structures, built low, so as to prevent any disastrous effects from earthquakes. The roofs are so flat and poorly constructed that during the rainy season a dry ceiling is rather the exception than the rule. Every building is covered with whitewash or white paint, and fronts directly on the street. There are plenty of back and side yards, but none in front. This is not so bad on the broad streets of a Russian town. In Tashkend they are exceptionally wide, with ditches on each side through which the water from the Tchirtchick ripples along beneath the double, and even quadruple, rows of poplars, acacias, and willows. These trees grow here with remarkable luxuriance, from a mere twig stuck into the ground. Although twenty years of Russian irrigation has given Nature a chance to rear thousands of trees on former barren wastes, yet wood is still comparatively scarce and dear.

The administration buildings of the city are for the most part exceedingly plain and unpretentious. In striking contrast is the new Russian cathedral, the recently erected school, and a large retail store built by a resident Greek, all of which are fine specimens of Russian architecture. Among its institutions are an observatory, a museum containing an embryo collection of Turkestan products and antiquities, and a medical dispensary for the natives, where vaccination is performed by graduates of medicine in the Tashkend school. The rather extensive library was originally collected for the chancellery of the governor-general, and contains the best collection of works on central Asia that is to be found in the world, including in its scope not only books and pamphlets, but even magazines and newspaper articles. For amusements, the city has a theater, a small imitation of the opera-house at Paris; and the Military Club, which, with its billiards and gambling, and weekly reunions, balls, and concerts, though a regular feature of a Russian garrison town, is especially pretentious in Tashkend. In size, architecture, and appointments, the club-house has no equal, we were told, outside the capital and Moscow.