6

at a moment's notice. General Komaroff assured me that the total under arms could without difficulty be increased to 8,000, and I afterwards read in the Times' that Colonel Alikhanoff told the correspondent of that paper that in twenty-four hours he could raise 6,000 mounted men—a statement which tallies with that of the general. If there is some exaggeration in these estimates, at least there was no want of explicitness in the famous threat of Skobeleff, who in his memorandum on the invasion of India, drawn up in 1877, wrote: It will be in the end our duty to organise masses of Asiatic cavalry and to hurl them into India as a vanguard, under the banner of blood and rapine, thereby reviving the times of Tamerlane.' Even if this sanguinary forecast be forgotten, or if it remain unrealised, there is yet sound policy in this utilisation of the Turkoman manhood, inasmuch as it may operate as an antidote to the deteriorating influence of European civilisation, which, entering this unsophisticated region in its own peculiar guise, and bringing brandy and vodka in its train, is already beginning to enfeeble the virile type of these former slave-hunters of the desert.

man horses

When General Grodekoff rode from Samarkand The Turkoto Herat in 1878, he recorded his judgment of the value of the Turkoman horses in these words: If ever we conquer Merv, besides imposing a money contribution, we ought to take from the Tekkes all their best stallions and mares. They would then at once cease to be formidable.' For the policy of confiscation has wisely been substituted that of utilising

K

the equine resources of the oasis. None the less it is open to question whether the power and endurance of the Turkoman horses, reputed though they are to be able to accomplish from 70 to 100 miles a day for a week at a time, have not been greatly exaggerated. Travellers have related astonishing stories secondhand of their achievements; but those who have had actual experience are content with a more modest

tale. Certainly the long neck, large head, narrow chest, and weedy legs of the Turkoman horse do not correspond with European taste in horseflesh. But the English members of the Afghan Boundary Commission thought still less of them in use. A few only were bought at prices of from 20l. to 25l. And Colonel Ridgeway, who was authorised by the Indian Government to expend 3007. upon first-class Turkoman

stallions for breeding purposes, did not draw one

penny upon his credit.1

of Mery at

It was with perfect justice that General Komaroff The Khans boasted of the facility with which Russia succeeds in Baku enlisting, not only the services, but the loyalty of her former opponents. The volunteer enrolment of the Turkoman horse would be a sufficient proof of this, had it not already been paralleled in India and elsewhere. But I can give a more striking illustration still. On my return to Baku, I saw drawn up on the landing-stage to greet the Governor-General a number of gorgeously-clad Turkomans, robed in magnificent velvet or embroidered khalats, and their breasts ablaze with decorations. They, too, had come over to be presented to the Czar. At the head of the line. stood a dignified-looking Turkoman, with an immense pair of silver epaulettes on his shoulders. This, the general told me, was Makdum Kuli Khan, son of the famous Tekke chieftain Nur Verdi Khan by an Akhal wife, the hereditary leader of the Vekhil or Eastern division of the Merv Tekkes, and the chief of the Akhal Tekkes in Geok Tepe at the time of the siege. Reconciled to Russia at an early date, he was taken to Moscow to attend the coronation of the Czar in 1883, and is now a full colonel and Governor of the Tejend oasis-where but lately, in the exercise of his

1 Vide Travels with the Afghan Boundary Commission. By Lieut. A. C. Yate. P. 457. 1887. Cf. also the remarks of Sir Peter Lumsden. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. September 1885. It is only fair to state that Sir C. MacGregor formed an opposite opinion when in Khorasan in 1875. Life and Opinions, vol. ii. p. 10.

administrative powers, he, a Turkoman and an old Russian enemy, arrested a Russian captain serving under his command. And yet this was the man who, in 1881, told Edmund O'Donovan that it was the intention of himself and his staunch followers to fight to the last should Merv be invaded by the Russians, and if beaten to retire into Afghanistan. If not well received there, they purposed asking an asylum within the frontiers of British India.' Adjoining him. stood his younger brother, Yussuf Khan, son of Nur Verdi by his famous Merv wife, Gur Jemal, a boy of fifteen or sixteen at the time of O'Donovan's visit, but now a Russian captain; Maili Khan and Sari Batir Khan, chiefs of the Sichmaz and Bakshi, two others of the four tribes of Merv; old Murad Bey, leader of the Beg subdivision of the Toktamish clan, who conducted O'Donovan to the final meeting of the Great Council; and, mirabile dictu, Baba Khan himself, son of the old conqueror Koushid Khan, and hereditary leader of the Toktamish, the one-eyed Baba, who led the English party at Merv in 1881, and, in order to demonstrate his allegiance to the Queen, branded his horses with V.R. reversed and imprinted upside down. The three last-named are now majors in the Russian service. Baba's colleague of the Triumvirate of 1881, Niaz Khan, is also a Russian officer, but did not appear to be present. The old Ikhtyar at the date of O'Donovan's arrival, Kadjar Khan, who led the forlorn anti-Russian movement in 1884, is detained in St. Petersburg. Gur Jemal, the elderly matron and former chieftainess, of