From Pole to Pole

ia from

nety-nine stages and changes of horses between Orenburg and Tashkent, the capital of Russian Turkestan. At the post-houses nothing can be got but tea, so provisions for nineteen days had to be taken with us, as well as sawn wood, rope and tools in case anything should break, and a large pot of cart-grease to keep the wheels cool. My boxes and trunks are wrapped in bast-matting and secured with strong ropes to the driver's box and behind the tarantass. It takes time to get everything

FROM ORENBURG TO T

ts with a high wooden arch above his neck, but the two outside horses go at a canter. The horses are accustomed to this pace and action, and a rapidly moving team is a fine sight. After three hours a yellow light is seen through the swirling snow, and the team dash

rd. It is the post; and the courier enters covered with snow and with icicles on his beard. He is a good fellow, and we become acquainted at once and travel together to Orsk. He h

eady." Then I pack myself in again among the cushions and r

emely flat and looks like a frozen sea. Day after day we drive southwards, the horses ready to run away; there is nothing to drive over, no ditches to fall into, no stones to carry away a wheel. The hoofs hammer on the hard ground, the wheels creak, I and my things are shaken and thrown about in

belongings on camels and migrate to another spot. They are a freeborn, manly people and love the boundless steppe. Life in the open air and on the level country, which affords grazing to their flocks, has sharpened their intellect to a wonderful degree. They never forget a place they have once seen. If the steppe plants grow closer or thinner, if the ground shows the slightest inequality, i

helter. At one such station three camels are harnessed to the tarantass, and the clumsy animals waddle along so that their humps bob and roll on their backs. The reason for this change is that we are now on the shore of the Sea of Aral, where the soft yielding drifts make it impossible for horses to draw the tarantass. The two r

e shouts of the driver never cease, whether we are near the river or far off in the dreary steppe. The ground becomes soft and swampy. The wheels cut like knives into the mud. We move more and more slowly and heavily, and at last stick fast in the mire. The driver shouts and scolds, and cracks his whip over the team. The middle horse rears, one of the outside horses jibs and the other gathers himself together for a spring which makes the traces break with a loud report. Then the

nd and

eppe, Afghanistan, and Persia. The greater part is occupied by blown sand, the "Red Sand" and the "Black Sand." Right through the desert flow the two rivers, the Syr-darya and Amu-darya. Two railway lines cros

est of Tashkent is the district of Samarcand, with a capital of the same name. South-west of Samarcand again, on the

ple, who in former times used to make raids into northern Persia, carrying off men and women, whom they sold as slaves in the markets of Bukhara and Samarcand. General Skobeleff put a check to their domination when he invaded the country in 1880.

The Russian general, Skobeleff, had a mine carried under the wall. Inside the fortress the Turkomans heard the soldiers working underground with picks and crowbars, but did not understand what was intended. They supposed that the soldiers would c

nd without the fortress. The Turkomans will never forget that day. The cavalry band played at the head of the columns during the fight. Old Turkomans still remember the strains. Th

town called Bukhara, the "Blessed." There silk is produced and carpets are woven; great caravans pass by laden with cotton; disfigured by sores, lepers sit begging in front o

ewith the Emir could measure the flight of time. His prayer was granted and he made an ordinary clock. This called forth the Emir's astonishment and admiration, and the Italian lived in high favour for a time. Later on, however, the tyrant wished to force h

have swept over this region. The Arabs have subdued it, countless hordes of Mongols have passed through it pillaging and devastating, and now at last it lies under the sceptre of the Tsar. Samarcand attained the height of its splendour during the rule of the powerful Timur. When he died in the year 1405 he had conquered all Central Asia, Persia, Mesopotamia, South Russia, Tu

by her slaves, to inspect her last resting-place. A poisonous snake crept from under an arch. Those present wished to kill it, but the Queen forbade them and caressed the snake, which offered her no harm. When at length she died she was decked with all her jewels-costly pearl

rned and glazed tiles in varied patterns and texts from the holy book of Islam, the Koran. It is worth while to ascend one of the lofty minarets to take a look over Samarcand. Hence we see innumerable gray mud houses with courts in the centre, pools, canals and gardens, and in the maze of streets, squares and lanes moves a stream of people of Turkish and Pers

Pa

ant, are connected with it. The Tibetan ranges extend far into China and beyond the Indian peninsula. The Tien-shan is only the first link in a series of mountains which stretch north-eastwards throughout Asia. The continuation of the Hindu-Kush is found in the mountains of northern Persia, in the Caucasus and the chains of Asia Minor, the Balkan Peninsula, the Alps and Pyrenees. The Pamir is like the body of a cuttlefish, which throws out arms in all directions. The Pami

m being Islam Bay, who was afterwards to serve me faithfully for many years. We did not need to take tents with us, for the Governor gave orders to the Kirghizes, to set up two of their black felt tents wherever I wished to pass the night. We had a good supply

ht, and our path is like a channel of ice running along the edge of a vertical precipice. We have several Kirghizes with us to give assistance. One of them leads the first horse, which carries two large sacks of straw with my tent bed between them. The horse is shod and can keep his feet on ice, but at o

on to his tail to help him if he stumbles. To ride is impossible; we crawl along on hands and feet. Darkness follows twilight; the rushing water of the stream gives for

broad and open, but full of snow in winter. We make our entry into the Alai valley in a howling snowstorm and wade and plunge through drifts. Two Kirghizes go in front with sticks to mark out the way, in order that the horses may not sink in the snow. Our little caravan moves slowly

ten feet deep. The first horse disappeared in a moment as though he had fallen through a trap-door. His load was taken off, and he was pulled up with ropes. Then the Kirghizes thou

of snow in a temperature of 29° below freezing-point. The Kirghizes who should have furnished us with a tent had been delayed on a pass by an avalanche of snow which overwhelmed forty sheep. Six men had struggled on to meet us, but two had stuck fast and were abandoned in the snow

gle wolf had recently worried 180 sheep belonging to a Kirghiz. A travelling Kirghiz was attacked in this neighbourhood by a pack of wolves, and when the body was found a couple of days later only the skull and skeleton were left. Another

nkle up their upper lips to leave their fangs exposed. Their dripping tongues hang out of their jaws. The traveller hears their sneaking steps behind him, and turning round can distinguish in the d

There he has at any rate his back protected, but the eyes and teeth of the wolves gleam above him in the darkness, and he stabs at them with his knife. They know that he will tire of this game soon. Two wolves tear open his boots to get at his feet. He cannot reach them with his knife, so he sits up, and at the same moment the leader seizes him by the neck so that the blood spurts out over the white snow. The wolves have now tasted blood and nothing can restrain them. The man is beside himself and throws himself about thrusting desperately with his knife. The wolves attack him from behind and he falls again on his back. Now his knife moves more slowly. The wolves yelp, bark and pant, and the froth hangs round their teeth. The unfortunate man

seldom expose themselves to gunshot. Woe to the wolf that is wounded or

gantly curved horns and is somewhat larger than the wild sheep of Tibet. The wolves chase Marco Polo's sheep by a cunningly devised method. They hunt up a herd and single out some less cautious or less quick-footed member. This animal is forced by a w

es, and horses of mine have they destroyed. How often has their dismal howl

lls on the middle of the "Roof of the World," beside one of the headwaters of the Amu-darya. On

er of Ice

wls. It glides slowly down with its own weight, and by pressure from above is here also converted into ice. Thus are produced great tongues of ice, which move downwards exceedingly slowly, perhaps only a few yards in the year. They are enclosed between huge steep ridges, from which time after time gravel and blocks of stone fall down on to the ice and are carried down to lower levels. The further the ice descends the warmer becomes the air, and then the ice melts in the sun. As it melts below,

hed glass, and long icicles hung down from the edges. Streamlets of melted ice run over the surface of the glacier, sometimes flowing quietly and gently as oil in the greenish-blue ice channels, sometimes murmuring in lively leaps. The water can be heard trickling and bubbling at the bottom of the crevasses, and the surface brooks often form fin

e powdered ice spurts up around him, and if the slope is so steep that he cannot get foothold, he stretches out all four legs and holds them stiff and rigid as iron and thus slides down witho

20,700 feet above sea-level. At this point we halted for the night, intending to push on higher in the morning, but two of the Kirghizes were so overcome with weariness and headaches that they asked to be allowed to go down again. The others shovelled away the snow and pitched the little tent within a wall of snow. A fire was kindled and the tea-kettle put on, but our appetites were poor, as we were suffering from mountain sickness. The ten yaks stood tethered in the snow outside, and the Kirghizes curled themselves up in their skin coats like hedgehogs. The full moon soared like a silvery white balloon just above the top of the mountain, and I left the tent to enjoy this never-to-be-f

d of whirling snow we could not see our way, and it would have been death to mount to still higher regions. We might be glad if we could strugg

undles of fuel, suddenly sank through the snow and disappeared. Fortunately he was held fast by his horns, a hind leg, and the faggots, and there he hung suspended over a dark yawning chasm. Th

hiz Gy

ese tents for the summer of 1904, and spent several very interesting months in studying the habits and mode of life of the people. If the weather was fine, I made long excursions on horseback or on a yak,

oth; the older women are busy with the sour milk and butter behind a partition in the tent, or perhaps they are sitting round a pot, cooking meat. A fire is always burning in the middle of the tent, and the smoke finds its way out through a round opening in the top. The young men are out with the sheep or are looking after the yaks grazing in the mountains. The older men rep

as glad to live among them. They came from far and near and gave me presents-sheep and milk, wild sheep they had shot, and mo

It was to be a baiga, or gymkhana, and early in the morning small parties of hors

nd tobacco box rattling at their sides, they presented a stately and festal appearance. Among them might be noticed the chief of the Kirghizes who lived on the eastern side of Mus-tagh-ata. His long mantle was dark blue, his girdle light blue

, a hundred and eleven years old, sits firmly and surely in his saddle, though bent by the weight of years. His large aquiline nose points down to

ith a single blow of his sharp knife, allowed the blood to flow, and then took the goat by the hind legs and rode at full speed round the plain. A troop of riders appeared in the distance and drew near at a furious pace. The hoofs of eighty horses beat the ground and the deafening noi

d the goat there was an inextricable confusion of men and horses, only partially visible in the dust. They were struggling for the goat, and the one who gets it is the winner. They crush together and tear and push; horses shy, rear, or fall do

rimmage. The yaks prod the horses' loins with their horns. The horses are irritated and

round the plain. The others pursue him, and as they turn back they look as if they mean to ride over us with irresistible force. At the last moment, however, the horses stop as if turned to s

re old that we are not in the

o since I was as old as you are now,

TNO

of three ho

d "darya" m