[Rendezvous with the Kervanbashi]
The routes are as follows:--
1. The first, close along the shore of the Caspian, behind the greater Balkan, which direction it follows for a two days' journey towards the north from these mountains, and then, after proceeding ten days, the traveller has to turn to the east, in which quarter Khiva lies. This way is only accessible for the smaller karavans, as it affords but little water, but presents as little danger from attacks, except in times of extraordinary revolutions, when the Kasaks (Kirghis) or the Karakalpaks send hither their Alaman.
2. The middle route, which follows a northerly direction only as far as the original ancient channel of the Oxus, and then, passing between the Great and the Little Balkhan, turns to the north-east towards Khiva.
3. The third is the straight route and the shortest; for while we require twenty-four days for the first, and twenty for the second, this one may be performed in fourteen. Immediately on leaving Etrek one takes a north-easterly direction, through the Göklen and Tekke Turkomans. At every station wells of sweet drinkable water occur. Of course a karavan must be on good terms with the tribes above named, and must count from two to three thousand men, otherwise the passage is impossible. How great then was my joy, when one evening a messenger from Ata-bay brought us the intelligence that the Kervanbashi would leave his encampment early the following morning, and would give us rendezvous the day after at noon, on the opposite bank of the Etrek, whence we were to proceed all together upon our great journey through the desert! Ilias issued orders for us all to complete our preparations as speedily as possible. We therefore that very same evening got our bread ready; we once more salted our large pieces of camel-flesh, which we had received from the nomads in payment for the benedictions we had lavished on them. Who then was [{82}] happier than I, when the next day I mounted the kedjeve with Hadji Bilal, and in my creaking seat slowly left Etrek, borne forwards by the wave-like pace of the camel?
For the sake of security, Kulkhan was pleased to regard it as necessary to give us his escort for this day; for although we numbered from fifteen to twenty muskets, it was yet very possible that we might have to encounter a superior force of robbers, in which case the presence of Kulkhan might prove of the most important service, as the greater part of the Etrek bandits were under his spiritual guidance, and followed his orders blindfold. I had almost forgotten to mention that our Kulkhan was renowned, not only as the grey-beard of the Karaktchi, but also as Sofi (ascetic), a title he bore upon his seal: of the pious appellation he was not a little proud. I had indeed before my eyes one of the best-defined pictures of hypocrisy when I saw Kulkhan, the author of so many cruelties, sitting there amongst his spiritual disciples: he who had ruined the happiness of so many families, expounding what was prescribed respecting the holy purifications, and the ordinances directing the close cutting of the moustache! Teacher and scholar seemed alike inspired. In the confident assurances of their own piety, how many of these robbers were already dreaming of their sweet rewards in Paradise!
[Tribe Kem]
To avoid the marshes formed by the overflowing of the Etrek, our route turned now to the north-west, now to the north-east, for the most part over a sandy district on which very few tents were visible; on the edge of the desert we observed about 150 tents of the Turkoman clan Kem. I was told that this race had time out of mind separated itself from the Yomut [{83}] Turkomans, to whom they properly belonged, and had inhabited the edge of the desert; their great propensity to thieving is the cause why all the other tribes make war upon them and treat them as enemies, so that their numbers never increase. Near their resorts we came upon many stragglers from our karavan, who did not dare to pass on without our company; and according to all appearances the Kemites would have assailed us, had they not seen at our head Kulkhan, the mighty scarecrow.
A quarter of an hour's journey from their encampment farther to the north, we crossed a little arm of the Etrek, whose waters had already begun to have a very salt taste, a sign that its bed would soon be dry. The interval between its farther bank and a second and still smaller arm of the same river is alternately a salt bottom and a fine meadow, thickly overgrown with monstrous fennel, which took us a whole hour to traverse. This deep stream was like a ditch, and on account of its stiff loamy bank presented considerable impediments to our progress; several camels fell with their loads into the water: it was shallow, but still the wetting they received rendered the packs heavier and added greatly to our labour in reaching the hill on the opposite side, named Delili Burun. By two o'clock in the afternoon we had only advanced four miles on our way, notwithstanding our early start in the morning; nevertheless the resolution was taken to make a halt here, as it was only the next morning at mid-day that we were to meet the Kervanbashi on the other side of the Etrek.