[565] “Our path lay through fields and natural meadows of the richest verdure, among groves of oak clothed in young leaves of the most delicate hues, broken into glades and lawns of velvet” (Narrative of a Journey through Khorasan in the Years 1821–1822, by James Baillie Fraser; London, 1825).
[566] M. P. Lessar, whose knowledge of Central Asian geography is profound, affirms that the Paropamisus, as the range was anciently called, offers no difficulty to the engineer. The summit is reached by an almost imperceptible incline. In fact, the traveller crosses the range almost without perceiving that he has done so.
[567] Vambéry, in a lecture delivered in London on 10th April 1880.
[568] See Rawlinson’s History of Parthia, 1873.
[569] Travels in Bokhārā, 1834.
[570] Kibitka is the Russian term for the nomads’ tent. It is composed of portable felt carpets secured by strips of raw hide to a circular collapsible wooden frame. An old tent, black with age and smoke, is called by the Turkomans “kara ev”; a new one, still whitish-grey, “ak ev.” The kibitka is the Russian administrative unit, and is supposed to connote five inhabitants. A group of kibitkas ranging between twenty-five and fifty is called aul, “portable village.”
[571] The subsequent history of this once powerful tribe is a curious example of the process of agglomeration which raised the Tekkes to supremacy. In 1871 the remnant of the Salors were forcibly deported by the former tribe to Merv, and incorporated with themselves. Petrusevitch, quoted by Marvin (Merv, p. 80).
[572] O’Donovan, who visited these works in 1880, describes them as follows: “For twenty yards on either side the river-bank was revetted with stout fascines of giant reeds, solidly lashed to stakes planted on the bank to prevent the friction of the current, as it neared the dam, from washing away the earth surface. Huge masses of earthwork closed the narrow gorge by which the stream found exit in the lower level by a passage scarce ten feet wide. The waters rushed thunderously through this narrow gap to a level eight feet below their upper surface. The passage was some fifty yards in length, and, like its approaches, was lined with reed fascines” (The Story of Merv, p. 210). Petrusevitch states that the repairs of distributories were provided for by the labour of a contingent of one man in every twenty-four families (Marvin’s Merv, p. 80).
[573] O’Donovan saw them in 1881. One was an eighteen, the others six-pounders; all were bronze smooth-bores (The Story of Merv, p. 198).
[574] Petrusevitch, quoted by Marvin, Merv, p. 81.