May 25th.—What a heat! The roof of my car is covered with a thick layer of earth to protect it from the rays of the burning sun, but it is of no use, we are roasted alive all the same.
This morning we nearly ran over a camel. The encounter with these quadrupeds is very disagreeable, for it is only by repeated loud whistles that our engine-driver can make them leave the rails; they kept running before the train all the time.
May 26th.—It is Sunday to-day. When we approached the station of Merv, church-bells began to toll. It was a church-car which was waiting to be hooked on to our train, and thus we had Mass whilst crossing the vast desert.
May 27th.—At seven o’clock in the morning we are at Kermineh, where the Emir had come to welcome us. Opposite the platform was erected a large tent in which a copious lunch was prepared; but I did not leave my car, feigning a bad headache. A band of native musicians came to divert me with their weird music, which made me grind my teeth. A beautiful bouquet was brought to me from the Emir, together with a rich casket containing a pair of ear-rings with diamonds as large as hazel nuts.
The Emir invited my husband and his suite to dine at his summer residence, eight miles from the station. In their absence the soldiers of the Bokharian watch-guard were lying stretched out full length in the shade, under the trees, indulging in a dolce far niente.
My husband returned late in the night and we continued on our way. To Sergy the palace of the Emir proved a disappointment. It is an ugly building of no particular kind of architecture; the apartments are decorated with pictures, statues and ornaments of every sort, stuck up anyhow and everywhere. The Emir regaled my husband with a Lucullus repast, with champagne in profusion, but the Emir drank only lemonade, fermented drinks being forbidden by the Koran.
May 28th.—At last we are nearing Tashkend. Towards noon our train stopped at the railway-station, full of people. After having gone through the proceedings of hasty greetings with all present, we went to our carriage. On our passage native musicians blew with all their might into pipes of enormous length, raising them to the skies. They performed such beastly sounds that I feared our horses would take fright and bolt.
A few days after our arrival, three foreign tourists paid an unexpected visit to Tashkend: Sven-Hedin, the renowned Swedish Pamir and Thibet explorer, who had written a book about these countries; MacSwinee, an English colonel going out to India to command a Bengal regiment; and Mr. Herbert Powell, an English traveller going to try the shortest way leading from London to India, the future railway-line. For the present the English make this journey, via Brindisi and the Suez Canal, in three weeks’ time, but as soon as the Russian and British railroad join, the trip will take but eight days. Only five hundred miles are wanting for the line to be completed, but political combinations are hindering the work. Mr. Powell had passed one month in Moscow to study the Russian language, so difficult for strangers. Nevertheless, many English officers serving in India speak our language, and it is a great pity that the same cannot be said of the Russian officers who serve in Turkestan. Notwithstanding their long sojourn in that country, they do not speak the native language. It is quite recently that a school was organised where the Hindustani language is taught. We had also a visit from a French Academician, Mr. St. Yves, a member of the French Academy, who was going to Thibet to explore the lake Koukou-Nor, and of an English engineer, Mr. Wilson, who had come to Tashkend to study the system of local irrigation. The greater part of the soil of Turkestan, as that of India, would have presented long ere this a veritable earthly paradise if it were not for the want of water. The Government and the inhabitants are doing everything in their power to overcome this difficulty. They profit by the proximity of every river, and if there is no river, they dig artesian wells.
The English, in general, are very much interested in everything concerning Turkestan. I read an article about my husband which came out in the Daily Chronicle. I quote the following from the London newspaper:—“Every English officer, who understands the problem of Oriental politics, must know of what great importance is the centralisation of Russian powers in Asia. For the moment sixty thousand men are united under the command of General Doukhovskoy, one of the most able officers of the Russian army.” We gave a great dinner to the foreign travellers. After the end of the repast, we went into the park, illuminated with coloured lanterns to let them see the dances of the “batchas” (native boys arrayed in woman’s dress). The women in the Orient are not allowed to participate at public performances, and their parts are always taken by men. The courts of the suzerains of Central Asia and India boast of their troops of “batchas,” effeminate boys with long plaited hair, arrayed in sumptuous silk robes. In Tashkend the “batchas” are quite different. It was grown-up youths who were brought up to us, wearing white calico shirts and heavy boots which had not seen any polish for a long time. A band of native musicians, sitting on their heels on a carpet spread upon the grass, began to beat the cords of a kind of cithern, and the would-be “batchas” started turning around, whilst the musicians accelerated their time. The performance could scarcely be called a dance; it was rather a swift walk within a circle. Suddenly wild shrieks were heard, and the “batchas” began turning round like a spinning-top, whilst the musicians accelerated their time, and the “batchas” made rather clumsy jumps.
Our menagerie is enlarged. A native inhabitant of Tashkend presented me with a wild horse caught in the mountains, striped like a zebra, with long donkey ears. The animal was placed in the same enclosure with the reindeers, and a she-donkey was given to him as a spouse, which helped to tame the wild horse. Donkeys are very cheap in Turkestan. One can get a splendid specimen for the sum of twelve roubles, and a working ass for five roubles.