Merv a Story of Adventure And Captivity

of the Kara Boghaz, the great expanse of shallow water lying to the north of Krasnavodsk. He had succeeded in obtaining from General Lomaldn a guard of fifteen Yamud Turcomans, acting as Russian auxiliary irregular horse, and, gathering from some conversation with me that I was interested in geological researches, asked me to accompany him on his expedition. We started early in the morning, and, mounted upon hardy little Khirgese ponies, climbed the horrid-looking, burnt-up ravines that lead through the amphitheatre of hills which guard Krasnavodsk, to the plain beyond. These rocks, as I have said, are of rose-colored gypsum, though sometimes a blue and yellow variety is to be met with. Once outside the rocky, girding scarp, the Turcoman sahra, here affording an unusually luxuriant supply of coarse bent-grass, reaches away in one unbroken tract to the banks of the Sea of Aral. The Yamud shepherds, perched upon every slight elevation around, kept watch and ward lest a party of Tekke Turcomans should sweep down upon them and bear both themselves and their 30 A DESERT POST. charges into captivity. At the time of which I am writing some four or five thousand camels, destined for the transport service of the Akhal Tekke expedition, were concentrated in the neighborhood of the town, the greater portion of them having been most unwisely sent to pasture at a distance of some twenty miles from the garrison. Though it was early in the year, the heat of the sun was ov...