Chapter 8

Tashkend has long been known as a refuge for damaged reputations and shattered fortunes, or “the official purgatory following upon the emperor’s displeasure.” One of the finest houses of the city is occupied by the Grand Duke Nicholai Constantinovitch Romanoff, son of the late general admiral of the Russian navy, and first cousin to the Czar, who seems to be cheerfully resigned to his life in exile. Most of his time is occupied with the business of his silk-factory on the outskirts of Tashkend, and at his farm near Hodjent, which a certain firm in Chicago, at the time of our sojourn, was stocking with irrigating machinery. All of his bills are paid with checks drawn on his St. Petersburg trustees. His private life is rather unconventional and even democratic. Visitors to his household are particularly impressed with the beauty of his wife and the size of his liquor glasses. The example of the grand duke illustrates the sentiment in favor of industrial pursuits which is growing among the military classes, and even among the nobility, of Russia. The government itself, thanks to the severe lesson of the Crimean war, has learned that a great nation must stand upon a foundation of something more than aristocracy and nobility. To this influence is largely due the present growing prosperity of Tashkend, which, in military importance, is rapidly giving way to Askabad, “the key to Herat.”

That spirit of equality and fraternity which characterizes the government of a Russian _mir_, or village, has been carried even into central Asia. We have frequently seen Russian peasants and natives occupying adjoining apartments in the same household, while in the process of trade all classes seem to fraternize in an easy and even cordial manner. The same is true of the children, who play together indiscriminately in the street. Many a one of these heterogeneous groups we have watched “playing marbles” with the ankle-bones of sheep, and listened, with some amusement, to their half Russian, half native jargon. Schools are now being established to educate the native children in the Russian language and methods, and native apprentices are being taken in by Russian merchants for the same purpose.

In Tashkend, as in every European city of the Orient, drunkenness, and gambling, and social laxity have followed upon the introduction of Western morals and culture. Jealousy and intrigue among the officers and functionaries are also not strange, perhaps, at so great a distance from headquarters, where the only avenue to distinction seems to lie through the public service. At the various dinner-parties and sociables given throughout the winter, the topic of war always met with general welcome. On one occasion a report was circulated that Abdurrahman Khan, the Ameer of Afghanistan, was lying at the point of death. Great preparations, it was said, were being made for an expedition over the Pamir, to establish on the throne the Russian candidate, Is-shah Khan from Samarkand, before Ayub Khan, the rival British protégé, could be brought from India. The young officers at once began to discuss their chances for promotion, and the number of decorations to be forthcoming from St. Petersburg. The social gatherings at Tashkend were more convivial than sociable. Acquaintances can eat and drink together with the greatest of good cheer, but there is very little sympathy in conversation. It was difficult for them to understand why we had come so far to see a country which to many of them was a place of exile.

An early spring did not mean an early departure from winter quarters. Impassable roads kept us anxious prisoners for a month and a half after the necessary papers had been secured. These included, in addition to the local passports, a carte-blanche permission to travel from Tashkend to Vladivostock through Turkestan and Siberia, a document obtained from St. Petersburg through the United States minister, the Hon. Charles Emory Smith. Of this route to the Pacific we were therefore certain, and yet, despite the universal opinion that a bicycle journey across the Celestial empire was impracticable, we had determined to continue on to the border line, and there to seek better information. “Don’t go into China” were the last words of our many kind friends as we wheeled out of Tashkend on the seventh of May.

At Chimkend our course turned abruptly from what was once the main route between Russia’s European and Asiatic capitals, and along which De Lesseps, in his letter to the Czar, proposed a line of railroad to connect Orenburg with Samarkand, a distance about equal to that between St. Petersburg and Odessa, 1483 miles. This is also the keystone in that wall of forts which Russia gradually raised around her unruly nomads of the steppes, and where, according to Gortchakoff’s circular of 1864, “both interest and reason” required her to stop; and yet at that very time General Tchernaieff was advancing his forces upon the present capital, Tashkend. Here, too, we began that journey of 1500 miles along the Celestial mountain range which terminated only when we scaled its summit beyond Barkul to descend again into the burning sands of the Desert of Gobi. Here runs the great historical highway between China and the West.

From Auli-eta eastward we had before us about 200 miles of a vast steppe region. Near the mountains is a wilderness of lakes, swamps, and streams, which run dry in summer. This is the country of the “Thousand Springs” mentioned by the Chinese pilgrim Huen T’sang, and where was established the kingdom of Black China, supposed by many to have been one of the kingdoms of “Prester John.” But far away to our left were the white sands of the Ak-Kum, over which the cloudless atmosphere quivers incessantly, like the blasts of a furnace. Of all these deserts, occupying probably one half of the whole Turkestan steppe, none is more terrible than that of the “Golodnaya Steppe,” or Steppe of Hunger, to the north of the “White Sands” now before us. Even in the cool of evening, it is said that the soles of the wayfarer’s feet become scorched, and the dog accompanying him finds no repose till he has burrowed below the burning surface. The monotonous appearance of the steppe itself is only intensified in winter, when the snow smooths over the broken surface, and even necessitates the placing of mud posts at regular intervals to mark the roadway for the Kirghiz post-drivers. But in the spring and autumn its arid surface is clothed, as if by enchantment, with verdure and prairie flowers. Both flowers and birds are gorgeously colored. One variety, about half the size of the jackdaw which infests the houses of Tashkend and Samarkand, has a bright blue body and red wings; another, resembling our field-lark in size and habits, combines a pink breast with black head and wings. But already this springtide splendor was beginning to disappear beneath the glare of approaching summer. The long wagon-trains of lumber, and the occasional traveler’s tarantass rumbling along to the discord of its _duga_ bells, were enveloped in a cloud of suffocating dust.

Now and then we would overtake a party of Russian peasants migrating from the famine-stricken districts of European Russia to the pioneer colonies along this Turkestan highway. The peculiarity of these villages is their extreme length, all the houses facing on the one wide street. Most of them are merely mud huts, others make pretensions to doors and windows, and a coat of whitewash. Near-by usually stands the old battered telega which served as a home during many months of travel over the Orenburg highway. It speaks well for the colonizing capacity of the Russians that they can be induced to come so many hundreds of miles from their native land, to settle in such a primitive way among the half-wild tribes of the steppes. As yet they do very little farming, but live, like the Kirghiz, by raising horses, cows, sheep, and goats, and, in addition, the Russian hog, the last resembling very much the wild swine of the jungles. Instead of the former military colonies of plundering Cossacks, who really become more assimilated to the Kirghiz than these to their conquerors, the _mir_, or communal system, is now penetrating these fertile districts, and systematically replacing the Mongolian culture. But the ignorance of this lower class of Russians is almost as noticeable as that of the natives themselves. As soon as we entered a village, the blacksmith left his anvil, the carpenter his bench, the storekeeper his counter, and the milkmaid her task. After our parade of the principal street, the crowd would gather round us at the station-house. All sorts of queries and ejaculations would pass among them. One would ask: “Are these gentlemen baptized? Are they really Christians?” On account of their extreme ignorance these Russian colonists are by no means able to cope with their German colleagues, who are given the poorest land, and yet make a better living.

The steppe is a good place for learning patience. With the absence of landmarks, you seem never to be getting anywhere. It presents the appearance of a boundless level expanse, the very undulations of which are so uniform as to conceal the intervening troughs. Into these, horsemen, and sometimes whole caravans, mysteriously disappear. In this way we were often enabled to surprise a herd of gazelles grazing by the roadside. They would stand for a moment with necks extended, and then scamper away like a shot, springing on their pipe-stem limbs three or four feet into the air. Our average rate was about seven miles an hour, although the roads were sometimes so soft with dust or sand as to necessitate the laying of straw for a foundation. There was scarcely an hour in the day when we were not accompanied by from one to twenty Kirghiz horsemen, galloping behind us with cries of “Yakshee!” (“Good!”) They were especially curious to see how we crossed the roadside streams. Standing on the bank, they would watch intently every move as we stripped and waded through with bicycles and clothing on our shoulders. Then they would challenge us to a race, and, if the road permitted, we would endeavor to reveal some of the possibilities of the “devil’s carts.” On an occasion like this occurred one of our few mishaps. The road was lined by the occupants of a neighboring tent village, who had run out to see the race. One of the Kirghiz turned suddenly back in the opposite direction from which he had started. The wheel struck him at a rate of fifteen miles per hour, lifting him off his feet, and hurling over the handle-bars the rider, who fell upon his left arm, and twisted it out of place. With the assistance of the bystanders it was pulled back into the socket, and bandaged up till we reached the nearest Russian village. Here the only physician was an old blind woman of the faith-cure persuasion. Her massage treatment to replace the muscles was really effective, and was accompanied by prayers and by signs of the cross, a common method of treatment among the lower class of Russians. In one instance a cure was supposed to be effected by writing a prayer on a piece of buttered bread to be eaten by the patient.

Being users but not patrons of the Russian post-roads, we were not legally entitled to the conveniences of the post-stations. Tipping alone, as we found on our journey from Samarkand, was not always sufficient to preclude a request during the night to vacate the best quarters for the post-traveler, especially if he happened to wear the regulation brass button. To secure us against this inconvenience, and to gain some special attention, a letter was obtained from the overseer of the Turkestan post and telegraph district. This proved advantageous on many occasions, and once, at Auli-eta, was even necessary. We were surveyed with suspicious glances as soon as we entered the station-house, and when we asked for water to lave our hands and face, we were directed to the irrigating ditch in the street. Our request for a better room was answered by the question, if the one we had was not good enough, and how long we intended to occupy that. Evidently our English conversation had gained for us the covert reputation of being English spies, and this was verified in the minds of our hosts when we began to ask questions about the city prisons we had passed on our way. To every interrogation they replied, “I don’t know.” But presto, change, on the presentation of documents! Apologies were now profuse, and besides tea, bread, and eggs, the usual rations of a Russian post-station, we were exceptionally favored with chicken soup and _verainyik_, the latter consisting of cheese wrapped and boiled in dough, and then served in butter.

It has been the custom for travelers in Russia to decry the Russian post-station, but the fact is that an appreciation of this rather primitive form of accommodation depends entirely upon whether you approach it from a European hotel or from a Persian khan. Some are clean, while others are dirty. Nevertheless, it was always a welcome sight to see a small white building looming up in the dim horizon at the close of a long day’s ride, and, on near approach, to observe the black and white striped post in front, and idle tarantasses around it. At the door would be found the usual crowd of Kirghiz post-drivers. After the presentation of documents to the _starosta_, who would hesitate at first about quartering our horses in the travelers’ room, we would proceed at once to place our dust-covered heads beneath the spindle of the washing-tank. Although by this dripping-pan arrangement we would usually succeed in getting as much water down our backs as on our faces, yet we were consoled by the thought that too much was better than not enough, as had been the case in Turkey and Persia. Then we would settle down before the steaming samovar to meditate in solitude and quiet, while the rays of the declining sun shone on the gilded eikon in the corner of the room, and on the chromo-covered walls. When darkness fell, and the simmering music of the samovar had gradually died away; when the flitting swallows in the room had ceased their chirp, and settled down upon the rafters overhead, we ourselves would turn in under our fur-lined coats upon the leather-covered benches.

In consequence of the first of a series of accidents to our wheels, we were for several days the guests of the director of the botanical gardens at Pishpek. As a branch of the Crown botanical gardens at St. Petersburg, some valuable experiments were being made here with foreign seeds and plants. Peaches, we were told, do not thrive, but apples, pears, cherries, and the various kinds of berries, grow as well as they do at home. Rye, however, takes three years to reach the height of one year in America. Through the Russians, these people have obtained high-flown ideas of America and Americans. We saw many chromos of American celebrities in the various station-houses, and the most numerous was that of Thomas A. Edison. His phonograph, we were told, had already made its appearance in Pishpek, but the natives did not seem to realize what it was. “Why,” they said, “we have often heard better music than that.” Dr. Tanner was not without his share of fame in this far-away country. During his fast in America, a similar, though not voluntary, feat was being performed here. A Kirghiz messenger who had been despatched into the mountains during the winter was lost in the snow, and remained for twenty-eight days without food. He was found at last, crazed by hunger. When asked what he would have to eat, he replied, “Everything.” They foolishly gave him “everything,” and in two days he was dead. For a long time he was called the “Doctor Tanner of Turkestan.”

A divergence of seventy-five miles from the regular post-route was made in order to visit Lake Issik Kul, which is probably the largest lake for its elevation in the world, being about ten times larger than Lake Geneva, and at a height of 5300 feet. Its slightly brackish water, which never freezes, teems with several varieties of fish, many of which we helped to unhook from a Russian fisherman’s line, and then helped to eat in his primitive hut near the shore. A Russian Cossack, who had just come over the snow-capped Ala Tau, “of the Shade,” from Fort Narin, was also present, and from the frequent glances cast at the fisherman’s daughter we soon discovered the object of his visit. The ascent to this lake, through the famous Buam Defile, or Happy Pass, afforded some of the grandest scenery on our route through Asia. Its seething, foaming, irresistible torrent needs only a large volume to make it the equal of the rapids at Niagara.

Our return to the post-road was made by an unbeaten track over the Ala Tau mountains. From the Chu valley, dotted here and there with Kirghiz tent villages and their grazing flocks and herds, we pushed our wheels up the broken path, which wound like a mythical stairway far up into the low-hanging clouds. We trudged up one of the steepest ascents we have ever made with a wheel. The scenery was grand, but lonely. The wild tulips, pinks, and verbenas dotting the green slopes furnished the only pleasant diversion from our arduous labor. Just as we turned the highest summit, the clouds shifted for a moment, and revealed before us two Kirghiz horsemen. They started back in astonishment, and gazed at us as though we were demons of the air, until we disappeared again down the opposite and more gradual slope. Late in the afternoon we emerged upon the plain, but no post-road or station-house was in sight, as we expected; nothing but a few Kirghiz kibitkas among the straggling rocks, like the tents of the Egyptian Arabs among the fallen stones of the pyramids.

Toward these we now directed our course, and, in view of a rapidly approaching storm, asked to purchase a night’s lodging. This was only too willingly granted in anticipation of the coming _tomasha_, or exhibition. The milkmaids as they went out to the rows of sheep and goats tied to the lines of woolen rope, and the horsemen with reinless horses to drive in the ranging herds, spread the news from tent to tent. By the time darkness fell the kibitka was filled to overflowing. We were given the seat of honor opposite the doorway, bolstered up with blankets and pillows. By the light of the fire curling its smoke upward through the central opening in the roof, it was interesting to note the faces of our hosts. We had never met a people of a more peaceful temperament, and, on the other hand, none more easily frightened. A dread of the evil eye is one of their characteristics. We had not been settled long before the _ishan_, or itinerant dervish, was called in to drive away the evil spirits, which the “devil’s carts” might possibly have brought. Immediately on entering, he began to shrug his shoulders, and to shiver as though passing into a state of trance. Our dervish acquaintance was a man of more than average intelligence. He had traveled in India, and had even heard some one speak of America. This fact alone was sufficient to warrant him in posing as instructor for the rest of the assembly. While we were drinking tea, a habit they have recently adopted from the Russians, he held forth at great length to his audience about the _Amerikón_.

The rain now began to descend in torrents. The felt covering was drawn over the central opening, and propped up at one end with a pole to emit the clouds of smoke from the smoldering fire. This was shifted with the veering wind. Although a mere circular rib framework covered with white or brown felt, according as the occupant is rich or poor, the Kirghiz kibitka, or more properly _yurt_, is not as a house builded upon the sand, even in the fiercest storm. Its stanchness and comfort are surprising when we consider the rapidity with which it may be taken down and transported. In half an hour a whole village may vanish, emigrating northward in summer, and southward in winter. Many a Kirghiz cavalcade was overtaken on the road, with long tent-ribs and felts tied upon the backs of two-humped camels, for the Bactrian dromedary has not been able to endure the severities of these Northern climates. The men would always be mounted on the camels’ or horses’ backs, while the women would be perched on the oxen and bullocks, trained for the saddle and as beasts of burden. The men never walk; if there is any leading to be done it falls to the women. The constant use of the saddle has made many of the men bandy-legged, which, in connection with their usual obesity,—with them a mark of dignity,—gives them a comical appearance.

After their curiosity regarding us had been partly satisfied, it was suggested that a sheep should be slaughtered in our honor. Neither meat nor bread is ever eaten by any but the rich Kirghiz. Their universal kumiss, corresponding to the Turkish yaourt, or coagulated milk, and other forms of lacteal dishes, sometimes mixed with meal, form the chief diet of the poor. The wife of our host, a buxom woman, who, as we had seen, could leap upon a horse’s back as readily as a man, now entered the doorway, carrying a full-grown sheep by its woolly coat. This she twirled over on its back, and held down with her knee while the butcher artist drew a dagger from his belt, and held it aloft until the assembly stroked their scant beards, and uttered the solemn bismillah. Tired out by the day’s ride, we fell asleep before the arrangements for the feast had been completed. When awakened near midnight, we found that the savory odor from the huge caldron on the fire had only increased the attraction and the crowd. The choicest bits were now selected for the guests. These consisted of pieces of liver, served with lumps of fat from the tail of their peculiarly fat-tailed sheep. As an act of the highest hospitality, our host dipped these into some liquid grease, and then, reaching over, placed them in our mouths with his fingers. It required considerable effort on this occasion to subject our feelings of nausea to a sense of Kirghiz politeness. In keeping with their characteristic generosity, every one in the kibitka must partake in some measure of the feast, although the women, who had done all the work, must be content with remnants and bones already picked over by the host. But this disposition to share everything was not without its other aspect; we also were expected to share everything with them. We were asked to bestow any little trinket or nick-nack exposed to view. Any extra nut on the machine, a handkerchief, a packet of tea, or a lump of sugar, excited their cupidity at once. The latter was considered a bonbon by the women and younger portion of the spectators. The attractive daughter of our host, “Kumiss John,” amused herself by stealing lumps of sugar from our pockets. When the feast was ended, the beards were again stroked, the name of Allah solemnly uttered by way of thanks for the bounty of heaven, and then each gave utterance to his appreciation of the meal.