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ON TO THE EAST the more or lose less occulted occult ed fact that there is ie a land of vast scope and great promise juet beyond the fringe of civilization bordering the further east Js Is beginning to receive attention from the thoughtful A writer terin in zer der stein em der weisen of vienna speaks of what is going on there as one awaking from a vivid dream anu and then rubbing hit his eyes eye looks out upon the world to con vince himself himsel t that it was not a mere lerede de caption ot of the fantasy the ex ead dreamer sees before him a russian railway map and he reads reade kittl arvet Uok Ask abad ted Amu Darya etc with merv in bold capitals right to in the middle of the serpentine line ilse merv once the queen of the worl dj and in latest years belt known as an the headquarters of thieves robbers and beggars of the knights of the deser desert tand of priests hold ing longwinded long winded discourses on ritual washing and alose shaving a city in evolving more danger for the traveler than the interior of africa or the north pole androw and now merv station vents from the caspian sea bea from the amu darya 22 here says the writer is a triumph of civilization achieved with but little clamor the traveler now takes the oriental express from vienna to constantinople stantin ople nople a two days l journey goes thence by ship to bothum in two and one half days then by wagon in twenty four hours through trans caucasus to baku on the caspian sea and crossing the caspian by steamer reaches ada on the east coast after a voyage of eighteen hours onward thence by the trans crodian caspian railway which brings him in forty two hours to the amu darya the obus of the ancients right in the heart bear t ot of central asia A ton days P journey from vienna to the gates of is pronounced one of those realized fables to the credit of modern enterprise and the appliances of modern civilization and the way it came about is thus related cormany for many centuries past the Tur Turc comans who roamed over the whole region from the obus to the caspian led an independent robber life russia had bad gradually acquired a footing in turkestan Turk estan proper and on occasion engaged in expeditions ions from the east coast of the caspian notably against khiva but in the later seventies the Tur comans harassed their brethren under russian protection the jorud turco m macs a ns and even the russian fishing fiebing settlements on the caspian Cau pian with the object of chastising the marauders the russians ad act danced upon the so called aebel oasis with areat as their aim but with disastrous re result until the white cwhite general ak pasha the Tur comans called him appeared on the scene like a wind he be swept over the country stormed the fortress of Uok and filled its ditches witt wit i thousands of the slain the flie fame of ak pasha paha the invincible was borne t orne on the winds to fur furthest beet merv but after the triumphs ot of 1880 there was a change of policy at st pe enburg ers burg Sto beleff was recalled and the expeditionary troops lell jell backward to their permanent quarters on the caspian sea and in the caucasus five years later the unexpected happened the Tur comans of merv voluntarily placed themselves under the scepter of the czar the trans caspian camplan railway was at once begun and successfully carried through in defiance of the great difficulties presented by the shifting sands of the desert and the absence of water fo for long distances the price was naturally fabulous and at times as many as Tur comans were employed in the work of construction the project as we are well aware was at first stigmatized as a rash and unprofitable ope one from any point of view military or commercial but that these conclusions were more or leu if not altogether IN bein ding even thus early to be plainly manifest As A to the military importance of the ra iway before it was waa begun at all aleff wrote the transport trane porta ap tion facilities are so BO low that in case of a conflict with england an army of men with their equipments would require three years from the declaration of war before they coul I 1 be brought into the field Asle As ie shown from the facts the general erred widely in his bis calculations he calculated on six trains of sixteen cam care while in 1886 the rolling stock sock consisted of 84 locomotives freight cars care open freight wagons and numerous other vehicles vehicle with an average speed of 25 present appliances ances would admit of at least six times as great a cap capacity aulty as aa alefi calculated on however it is not dot the eions tione by war but rather those to be achieved by peaceful agencies that should receive the most attention it is in possible and even probable that there will be a great conflict in europe be fore very long and the region spoken of would doubtless be the theater of a good deal of it il but meantime and thereafter the work of building ID and civilizing will be the subject of the greatest interest and we hope to ibee ee it grow unimpeded |
