From Askabad to Samarkand there was a break in the continuity of our bicycle journey. Our Russian friends persuaded us to take advantage of the Transcaspian railway, and not to hazard a journey across the dreaded Kara-Kum sands. Such a journey, made upon the railroad track, where water and food were obtainable at regular [pg 113]intervals, would have entailed only a small part of the hardships incurred on the deserts in China, yet we were more than anxious to reach, before the advent of winter, a point whence we could be assured of reaching the Pacific during the following season. Through the kindness of the railway authorities at Bokhara station our car was side-tracked to enable us to visit, ten miles away, that ancient city of the East. On November 6 we reached Samarkand, the ancient capital of Tamerlane, and the present terminus of the Transcaspian railway.
CARAVANSARY AT FAKIDAOUD.
A MARKET-PLACE IN SAMARKAND, AND THE RUINS OF A COLLEGE.
IV
THE JOURNEY FROM SAMARKAND TO KULDJA
On the morning of November 16 we took a last look at the blue domes and minarets of Samarkand, intermingled with the ruins of palaces and tombs, and then wheeled away toward the banks of the Zerafshan. Our four days’ journey of 180 miles along the regular Russian post-road was attended with only the usual vicissitudes of ordinary travel. Wading in our Russian top-boots through the treacherous fords of the “Snake” defile, we passed the pyramidal slate rock known as the “Gate of Tamerlane,” and emerged upon a strip of the Kizil-Kum steppe, stretching hence in painful monotony to the bank of the Sir Daria river. This we crossed by a rude rope-ferry, filled at the time with a passing caravan, and then began at once to ascend the valley of the Tchirtchick toward Tashkend. The blackened cotton which the natives were gathering from the fields, the lowering snow-line on the mountains, the muddy roads, the chilling atmosphere, and the falling leaves of the giant poplars—all warned us of the approach of winter.