CHAPTER V

THE MURGHAB VALLEY RAILWAY

[Illustration: STREET SCENE, ANDIJAN]

The Russian Government has shown remarkable energy during the past few years in improving its railway communications in Central Asian regions. After the Trans-Caspian line had been finished from the Caspian Sea to Samarkand there was a lull in construction, but presently an extension was carried on to Tashkent and thence to Andijan. By creating railway communication with Merv, Russia met half-way the difficulties of her station in Trans-Caspia. In the event of any military crisis arising with Afghanistan 300 versts of difficult country yet remained to be crossed before concentration upon that frontier could be effected. At a later date, a branch was run from Merv to Pendjeh, by which this hiatus was at once repaired and Russia secured to herself a position of commanding importance across the road to Herat.

Surveys, carried out in the year 1894 in two directions, from the station of Tejend and from Merv, demonstrated that the Merv-Murghab route did not present any technical difficulties. Shorter than the Tejend line by 65 versts and more level, it traversed the well-populated Merv, Yulatan and Pendjeh oases. Water was also plentiful. On the other hand the line from Tejend crossed very difficult country; while it doubled the distance, necessitating 700,000 cubic sagenes’ additional excavation. Perhaps a more emphatic objection arose from the inadequacy of water between Tejend and Sarakhs, supplies in the Tejend district drying up between September and January. As a consequence the line was constructed from Merv to Kushkinski Post, on the Afghan frontier, through the valleys of the Murghab and Kushk rivers, just over 293 versts or 192 miles in length, with a terminal depôt only 80 miles distant from Herat. From motives of economy one station was allowed to every 50 versts, with sidings half-way between them; only two engine sheds and workshops were provided, while all other buildings were limited and none but the cheapest materials employed. Bridges were made of wood instead of stone, the rolling-stock sufficing for four trains in the twenty-four hours. Railway and military telegraph wires were fixed to the same posts and it was not intended to ballast the permanent way. Construction was reduced by these precautions to 8,408,000 roubles. After revision by a commission of the General Staff this sum was increased by the cost of ballasting the permanent way, 329,000 roubles; the total expenditure upon the work finally amounting to 9,669,000 roubles or 33,000 roubles per verst.

Imperial ukase authorised construction on August 26, 1896, actual work beginning on April 27, 1897.

Colonel Ulyanin, of the Corps of Engineers, was appointed Chief Constructor and the overseers were also engineer officers, the majority of whom had already taken part in the laying of the Krasnovodsk-Merv section of the Trans-Caspian railway. The workmen consisted of Russians, Persians, Bokharans, Sarts from the province of Samarkand, Ersaris and Afghans from Maimana, the daily roll averaging between 3500 and 5000. Of this number from 27 per cent. to 45 per cent. were Russians, who were paid from eighty-nine kopecks to one rouble eighty kopecks per day. Native workmen received no more than eighty kopecks daily; several hundred of them worked for a monthly salary of between fifteen and seventeen roubles. The prevalence of malaria in the Kushk and Murghab valleys interrupted the building and hundreds of instances of labourers breaking their contracts occurred, the authorities being obliged to repair the shortage by enlisting inexperienced men. In spite of this difficulty work upon the permanent way was completed in November 1898, and the task of laying the rails, which began on November 15, 1897, was finished on December 4, 1898. Rails were laid at a rate varying between 1 and 2½ versts per day, the job being carried out by the newly formed companies of the Railway Battalion. The cost per verst fluctuated from 350 to 450 roubles. The difference existing between the gauge of this railway and the standard of the Russian railways has since been altered. At first the line was of narrow gauge with rails weighing 18 lbs. to the cubic foot, metals of a heavier type only being laid for a distance of forty versts. The service of trains from Merv to Kushkinski was opened on December 4, 1898. At the present time, it comprises four daily local trains and two bi-weekly expresses, “through” trains, which complete the journey in eighteen hours at a speed of 11 miles an hour.

Upon completion and after inspection by a commission, control of the Murghab valley line reverted to the Minister of Ways and Communications by whom the original narrow gauge was adapted to the broad gauge of the Russian system. Various other alterations and improvements in the siding and hutting accommodation were also carried out. In 1901-02 branch lines to Chahil Dukteran and Tanur Sangi, skirting the left bank of the Murghab and passing Maruchak on the Afghan bank, were constructed. It is now proposed to double the entire track between Merv and Kushkinski Post, these highly significant changes making the railway available for any service the military authorities might impose upon it. The line itself is veiled in such close secrecy by the Russian authorities that peculiar interest attaches to any particulars upon it, and these notes, presented for the first time to the public, convey an accurate and not unimportant description of its character, from the junction at Merv to the terminus at Chahil Dukteran.

[Illustration: A NOTABLE GATHERING]

From Merv station, 118.01 sagenes above sea-level, the railway runs at first in a south-easterly direction, passing due south and south-west along the valleys of the Murghab and Kushk rivers. The first station beyond Merv is Talkhatan Baba, some 37 versts distant at an elevation of 127.06 sagenes. This place is situated in country which is both sandy and flat, while barely 6 versts away is the Murghab river, upon which the station is dependent for its water-supply. Twenty versts further the line meets the spreading prosperity of the Yulatan oasis, from which the point derives its name. Yulatan station stands at a height of 134.16 sagenes; and, although a pleasant freshness is imparted by the oasis to its environment, the general spectacle is very dreary, being broken only by the contours of low dunes and undulating sand ridges. A small village has been founded by the Russians on the banks of the stream, the first colonists to establish themselves in Yulatan appearing in 1885. An open square, surrounded by little brick and stone buildings distinguishes the centre of the settlement. Four wide streets, along the gutters of which are planted tall trees, radiate from it; while the population consists principally of Persians, Khivans, Sarts, Armenians and Bokharan Jews. The percentage of Russians is inconsiderable.

Yulatan contains the headquarters of the District Commissioner, the Sixth Company of the 1st Trans-Caspian Railway Battalion and two companies of the 1st Caucasian Rifle Battalion. There are also a post and telegraph office, a mixed primary school, an hospital with six beds, a synagogue and a large public garden. The trade is in the hands of Bokharan Jews and the market assembles upon Mondays and Thursdays. In the district around the station there is a Tekke population of 15,000, occupied, for the most part, in the cotton industry. By reason of its trade this station is the most important commercial centre on the line. In 1901, for which statistics have only just become available, there were:

Passengers.

_Arrivals._ _Departures._ 2108 2084

_Imports._ _Exports._ Merchandise 10,569 poods Merchandise 30,161 poods. Sugar 413 ” Wheat 2,109 ” Kerosene 602 ” Barley 3,581 ” Flour 856 ” Cotton 16,763 ”

These figures have increased greatly in more recent years, the bulk of the trade from the Yulatan oasis line now converging upon this point.

The third station from Merv is Sultan-i-band, some 76 versts distant and at an altitude of 139.55 sagenes. A slight change in the character of the country is here noticeable; the flat, sandy, barren expanse which begins wherever the Yulatan oasis leaves off giving place to dense reeds and marshes. Water is not drawn from the Murghab river at this station, the supply coming from the Khani Yab canal. Originally the region was fertilised by the Sultan-i-band; but that once magnificent work has fallen into decay, and, although the surrounding country contains a large Tekke population, there is very little industry. The ruins of the Sultan-i-band lie in the immediate vicinity,--the word “band” means “dam,”--this famous canal once being connected very closely with the history of Old Merv when the waters of the Murghab irrigated that oasis. But to-day the commercial importance of the district is insignificant and in the year under review only 3689 poods of cotton were forwarded to Merv.

[Illustration: ON THE CENTRAL ASIAN RAILWAY.]

The environment of the next station, Imam Baba, which is 44 versts distant, reveals on account of the prevalence of malaria a very desolate appearance. It is situated where the sand-hills approach the banks of the Murghab river, but the spot is desert and marshy. It rests 148.60 sagenes above the sea, drawing its water from the Murghab river. There is little local industry and the district owing to the fever, is very scantily populated.

The fifth station from Merv is Sari Yazi, where a small buffet denotes its importance. The mean gradient of the line between Merv and this point is 0.0005 and the distance is 157 versts. The depôt is situated in the Murghab valley, bounded on the east by the Karabyl hills, a low-lying ridge of sandy clay. It lies 155.57 sagenes high and depends for its water upon the Murghab river. Sari Yazi occupies an interesting region and is itself the site of an important Turcoman fortress, now in ruins. Among the valleys on the northern slopes of the Karabyl hills there are the traces of numerous Tekke villages, whose men held the region in subjection while the women cultivated the ground. At the station there are railway yards and workshops; attached to it is an hospital with fifteen beds and barracks for one company of the Railway Battalion. In 1901 there arrived:

_Imports._ _Exports._ Merchandise, 9188 poods. Cotton and Merchandise, 2139 poods.

Tash Kepri, the sixth station from Merv and 197 versts from that place, is situated in the broad valley of the Murghab river at its confluence with the Kushk river. It is at a height of 164.0 sagenes and the water-supply is from the Murghab river. The place derives its name from a handsome old brick bridge of nine arches, which spans the Kushk river at a distance of three-quarters of a mile to the south-west of Ak Tepe and connects the station with the village. It is also described as Pul-i-Khisti. The Karabyl hills, which bound the valley of the Murghab on the east, here recede somewhat from the river and there is a vestige of cultivation, the green plots imparting a welcome note of relief to the general aspect of the scene. Close to the station is a monument to the soldiers who fell during the expedition of 1885, which was commanded by Lieut.-General Komaroff. Among the trophies of the fight were eight guns and the whole of the Afghan camp. The monument was erected at the instance of the late Commander of the Forces in the Trans-Caspian province, Lieut.-General Kuropatkin, by those who took

## part in the fight together with the troops in garrison in the district.

The commercial development of the Tash Kepri district is growing and, conformably with the increase of trade with Afghanistan, the station itself is becoming of greater importance. In 1901 there were:

_Arrivals._ _Departures._ 1631 1710

_Imports._ _Exports._ 33,632 poods 41,913 poods

[Illustration: SCHOOL CHILDREN]

Almost upon the frontier and connected with it by a carriage-road 22 versts in length, is Takhta Bazar, the headquarters of the Harzagi section of the Pendjeh Sariks who control the Kashan valley cultivation. It is situated on the Murghab river and is the only settlement of importance in the Pendjeh district. The population comprises Jews, Persians, Bokharans, Armenians, Khivans, Russians, Afghans and Tartars. There are, including a native school under Russian supervision, fifty-seven buildings, in the village of which at least one-half belongs to the Jews. The Pendjeh Custom House, a frontier establishment of the third class through which passes the trade with Afghanistan, is situated near it. The trade statistics of the year under notice are:

_Exports._ Merchandise, 28,226 poods Roubles, 128,124.

_Imports._ Sheep, 86,630} Roubles, 297,836. Cattle, 2,863}

From Pendjeh the main line, taking a south-westerly direction, runs through the narrow valley of the Kushk river to Kushkinski Post. Since the completion of this work a branch line has been carried through from Tash Kepri a distance of 22 versts along the Murghab to Tanur Sangi, affording a supplementary avenue of approach for the purposes of concentration and the transport of stores to points on the actual Russo-Afghan frontier. From this extension a further line, 25 versts in length, has been projected towards Torashekh from a little south-east of Pendjeh up the Kashan valley. Ten miles south-east of Tanur Sangi, at Bala Murghab and 30 miles south of Torashekh, at Kala Nao the Afghans possess strong frontier posts. Herat already lay so snugly in the grasp of Russia that it might have been spared this little further attention.

Kala-i-Mor, the station before Kushkinski Post, is situated almost mid-way between Pendjeh and the terminus at Kushk. It is 244 versts from Merv and 202 sagenes above sea-level. The position of the station, bounded by hills where wild boars are plentiful and snipe and pheasants offer attractive sport, occupies a dreary and desolate scene. There is little vegetation and considerable malaria; the local springs are quite brackish as the result of extensive deposits of salt in the sand. Fresh water is brought by train to the station where a drinking-water reservoir has been established. No trade exists at Kala-i-Mor, which fails to attract a population.

[Illustration: HINDU TRADERS AT PENDJEH]

Beyond Kala-i-Mor, at a distance of 259 versts from Merv, the line crosses the Kushk river by a bridge with stone abutments supported upon iron piles. Half-way to Kushkinski Post station, near the railway siding, are the ruins of the small fortress of Chemen-i-Bed. While approaching it the line passes the Alexeieffski village, established by Russian colonists in 1892 and containing forty-one families. This village and the neighbouring one of Poltavski, founded in 1896 and where there are thirty-five families, are the most southern settlements within the Russian Empire. The inhabitants exist almost entirely by the exportation of inconsiderable quantities of wheat, hay and straw to Kushkinski Post for the purposes of the garrison.

Kushkinski Post station, 306.4 sagenes above sea-level, is 293 versts from Merv. It possesses a fine buffet. The military post, situated near the frontier in the broad valley of the Kushk river, is bounded by the undulating slopes of the Bend Chengurek chain, an off-shoot of the Paropamisus. With the completion of the Murghab railway, Kushkinski Post immediately attained special importance and, in 1900, it was declared a fortress of the fourth rank. The hoisting of the Imperial standard over the walls was carried out in the presence of the late Minister of War, General Kuropatkin. In the early days, before the lines of the fortress had been planned, Kushkinski Post comprised a number of detached works within which the various arms were quartered. At that time, too, the officers’ accommodation, consisting of one-storey buildings roughly constructed out of mud, was in the railway settlement where, pending the completion of the main works, long narrow sheds for the use of the troops had been erected. Now improvement has followed upon preliminary chaos and the men are comfortably housed in cool barracks upon the upper slopes of the adjacent heights. The officers are disposed with equal care and convenience elsewhere. Public buildings likewise have improved upon their original sites. The military hospital, the post and telegraph bureau and the Custom House have taken up locations upon high ground, their positions crowned, if not protected by forts upon the crest of these very useful eminences. Kushkinski Post, therefore, may be said to be a thriving settlement where, if the hours are wearisome and the days charged with _ennui_, there is always the prospect of a “dust up.”

Attempts have been made from time to time, by officers stationed at Kushkinski Post, to become familiar with the officers in command of the Afghan posts across the frontier. More often these attempts at friendliness have been rebuffed, the Afghan soldiery neither accepting advances from the Russians nor making any overtures themselves. Strained relations exist, as a rule, between military posts on either side of any frontier, although, in regard to the Russo-Afghan frontier, there was an occasion when friendly conditions prevailed between the Russians and the Afghans.[10] At that time the staff of the frontier regiment on guard along the Afghan side of the border had accepted an invitation to the mess at the Russian post. They arrived in due course--appearing in all the full-dress grandeur of second-hand railway uniforms! The officer commanding the detachment exhibited on the collar of his tunic the mystic words “Ticket Collector”; his subordinate, a subaltern, was content with the less exalted label of “Guard.” Out of courtesy to their guests the Russians suppressed their merriment, receiving nevertheless the impression that a portion of the subsidy, granted by the Government of India to the Amir of Afghanistan, was taken out in the castoff uniforms of British public companies. The facts were that the Amir, through his Agent in India, had acquired a large parcel of discarded clothing at one of the annual sales of condemned stores in Northern India.

This exchange of courtesies on the frontier illustrates only the pleasant side of service in this region. More serious incidents occur. Occasionally in the heat of the chase, when parties of Russian officers have crossed the frontier in pursuit of their quarry they have been fired upon by the Afghan patrols or ridden down by Afghan sowars. Sporting trips around Kushkinski Post or in the valleys of the Murghab are infrequent among the Russians, although wild boar abound in the thick patches of reeds which hem in the banks of the rivers; the tufts of grass, the hardy scrub and the patches of bush also afford excellent cover for partridges and pheasants. The scarcity of good water at any distance from the railway is the great drawback to such excursions, since the transport of water is both costly and cumbersome. In cantonments goat-skins of the precious fluid are brought for sale by water-sellers who come round, earning a precarious livelihood by their industry.

This custom, which prevails throughout the East, was once turned to account by an Afghan who was afterwards discovered to be an Hazara sapper from the Kabul garrison. Disguised as a water-seller he spent three weeks at Kushkinski Post, conducting an exhaustive inspection of the works and coming every night and morning to the fort with his supplies of water. Chance, which in Asia plays no less a part in the affairs of man than in Europe, threw across his path a native who had visited Kabul some weeks before with letters from the Governor-General of Turkestan. The Afghan had been deputed by the Amir to attend to the Turkestani. He had met and escorted him to the capital and back again to the western boundary. As the Russian had entered Afghanistan from the Kushkinski Post, along the Hari Rud valley, he was conducted from the capital to the frontier by the route he had first followed. At the frontier he had dismissed his Afghan attendant, who promptly proceeded to disguise himself as a water-carrier and to obtain admission to the station. Here he busied himself daily until, meeting of a sudden his late charge, recognition upon the part of the Russian subject was immediate and the spy was arrested in the act of escaping from the precincts of the fort. Suspicion as to the man’s identity became assured when a packet of notes was found, wrapped in a rubber sheath, at the bottom of the goat-skin water-bag.

Until the advent of the railway the colony at Kushkinski Post apart from the garrison, comprised a few Armenian and Persian traders. With the prolongation of the line from Merv the civilian population began to increase rapidly. There is, of course, no hotel in the station; although the officers of the garrison have established a small military club wherein they mess together and where, when the bi-weekly trains bring the supply of ice, there is usually an animated gathering of desolated humanity. At the present time there are in Kushkinski Post 123 buildings, of which some thirty odd belong to private persons. Apart from the garrison the civil population numbers fifty people.

[Illustration: NATIVE WATER-SELLERS]

Kushkinski Post station consists of a handsome, spacious structure in the white stone which is brought from quarries in the basin of the Kushk. The railway buildings include a depôt with workshops, eight bungalows for the heads of the staff and special quarters for the employés. There are also large barracks for the 6th Company of the 1st Trans-Caspian Railway Battalion, who are not included in the field state of the post. All buildings are lighted by electricity and the workshops are furnished with electric motors, while the water is drawn from springs on Gumesli mountain.

Kushk region is malarial in consequence of the marshy nature of the surrounding country. For some years past measures have been undertaken with a view to draining the swamps and regulating the running of the streams. By these means it has been hoped to render more healthy the general environment of the station, including the fortress works, Kushkinski village and the district lying between the Afghan frontier post of Kara Teppe and the Russian Alexeieffski and Poltavski villages.

The specific disease which makes duty in the Murghab and Kushk valleys peculiarly obnoxious is a low fever of an endemic nature. Its pathological history is still undetermined and, although investigations have been made into its character and numerous experiments essayed, the malady is usually fatal. In general, the patient is stricken suddenly when the liver would appear immediately to be affected, the skin becoming yellow and the sufferer lapsing into unconsciousness within a few hours of the attack. Systematic study of the disease has enabled the medical authorities to trace it indirectly to the soil from which, just as in Africa and any of the countries lying within the fever belt, germs are released whenever it is disturbed. In this way the most infectious points in the Kushk and Murghab valleys are those lying within the cultivated areas, more especially around those places where digging operations are of frequent occurrence. As the order of life becomes more settled and the necessity for any interference with the soil disappears, it is anticipated that the extreme virulence of the disease may diminish. At one time the soldiers of the Railway Battalions were so susceptible to its ravages that its course assumed the appearance of an epidemic.

No commercial importance belongs to Kushkinski Post and it is solely the strategic considerations which attach to it that give it so much value. In the hands of Russia and commanding the trade routes into Afghanistan, as well as the road to Herat, Kushkinski Post well might play a leading part in the settlement of questions still outstanding between Russia and Great Britain in respect of Afghanistan. Whether the existence of the post will promote the development of trade relations, which are now restricted by the Amir’s Government and directed by the Afghan frontier authorities through Khorassan, remains to be seen. Nothing can underestimate its significance. The post, together with the whole of this branch line, is a deliberate military measure against Afghanistan, the boundaries of which kingdom can almost be seen from the ramparts of the forts which crown the crest of the hills.

[Illustration: KHORASSAN DERVISH]

Eighteen versts to the south of the fortress, at Chahil Dukteran, there is the post of the Russian Frontier Guard and the present terminus of the Murghab Valley railway. Beyond may be noted the solitary figures of the Russian sentinels keeping their beat along the extensive line of their position; while southward and serving at the moment for a caravan route lies the road to Herat. As an interesting link in the chain of evidence which points to the future use of this road in another way, there is the existence of a large store of light railway plant prepared for the purposes of extending it into Afghanistan itself, whenever the troops of Russia may require to be carried forward to the walls of Herat through the passes of the Paropamisus, a little less than 80 miles.

To Englishmen another, perhaps less direct and more ficticious, interest attaches to this railway. A glance at the map of the Eastern hemisphere will show that the shortest practicable line of communication between London and India lies through Russia and across Central Asia. The direction would be _viâ_ Calais, Berlin, Warsaw, Rostov-on-Don, Petrovski, Baku, Krasnovodsk, Merv, Kushkinski, Girishk and Kandahar. The whole of this distance has now been covered by railway, with the exception of the span of 195 miles across the Caspian Sea, between Baku and Krasnovodsk and the gap of 500 miles which still separates Kushkinski Post from New Chaman. If these sections were bridged the journey from London to India might be very considerably shortened, assuming that the present rate of speed--32 miles an hour on the European and 25 on the Asiatic lines--were maintained. The net saving in time, if the railway were completed, would be seven days; while the horrors of the Red Sea and the monsoon would be but bad dreams to the Anglo-Indian traveller. The country between Kushkinski Post and New Chaman presents no obstacle to the engineer; the Paropamisus range could be crossed by the Ardewan or the Chashma Sabz pass, neither of which is more than 3400 feet above sea-level or 1000 feet higher than that of the tableland on either side. From this point Herat, the garden city of Afghanistan and the key of India, is distant only 30 miles; thence the line would be carried by way of Sabzawar, Farah, Girishk and Kandahar to New Chaman.

However if further railway construction in this region is to take place, it will be in connection with the development of plans which concern the requirements of potential strategy rather than the humours of experimental fantasies. For some time past there have been abundant signs that Russia is proposing to find compensation in the Middle East for the downfall of her prestige in Further Asia. Certainly there is a field for her energies lying fallow in Central Asia. The precise quarter where the furrows are waiting to be ploughed is between the Central Asian railway and the frontiers of Northern Persia and Northern Afghanistan. It is to-day evident that sooner or later Russia will improve her communications in this direction by adding to the Orenburg-Tashkent system its natural complement--an extension to Termes on the Oxus, where there is a Russian fortress--or by imparting to her position on the Perso-Afghan border that little requisite attention which it merits--a railway to Meshed in Khorassan. Long since is it that these schemes entered the domain of practical politics, the Russian military position on the Middle Oxus requiring an alternative line of communications to that offered by the Amu Daria, which, when frozen in winter with the post-roads across the mountains blocked by snow, wraps in dangerous isolation the Russian garrisons at Termes, Kelif and elsewhere along this section of the frontier. Preliminary surveys for a railway were conducted in 1902, when the routes selected followed from Samarkand the Shar-i-Sabz, Huzar, Shirabad caravan highway to Termes; and, from Farab to Termes, the trade route along the Oxus through Burdalik and Kelif. Further extensions in this direction would provide railway communication between Huzar and Karki by a bridge across the river, by which Huzar would become as important a railway junction as it is a caravan and trading centre. Still more in the future is the strong probability that Karki will be joined with the Afghan frontier at Imam Nasar, by following the caravan route from the river, or with Pendjeh across the fringe of the Kara Kum.

[Illustration: THE MURGHAB VALLEY RAILWAY]

Equally determined has been the intention to open up railway communication with the north, north-eastern frontier of Persia, the original surveys taking place simultaneously with the parties working towards the Oxus. For purposes of the Persian railway two routes were also inspected in this quarter, the Askhabad-Meshed line receiving the earliest attention and warmest support. This scheme, after passing through the defiles between Firuza, the summer resort of Askhabad society, and Badjira, entered Persian territory at Kettechinar; running up the Deregez valley and leaving the Atrek waters near their source at Kuchan, it then broke into the Keshef Rud valley, striking the caravan road to Meshed between Durbadam and Imam Kuli. Great initial outlay was made in connection with this railway. Its course had been pegged out under the supervision of M. Stroieff, dragoman of the Russian Consulate at Meshed, with the help of the Ikram-ul-Mul late Karguzar of Kuchan, to whom 12,000 roubles were presented. Further, it was arranged to open a branch of the Imperial Russian Bank at Meshed to assist the financing of the work, the staff comprising an official from St. Petersburg as manager-in-chief, an assistant manager from Teheran, with Ali Askar Khan, the interpreter of the State Bank at Askhabad. The outbreak of hostilities in Manchuria imposed a temporary check upon the labours of the construction parties, the reflection thus obtained giving rise to the advantage of dropping a branch line from Tejend station on the Central Asian railway _viâ_ Sarakhs, Daulatabad, Pul-i-Khatun to between Zulfikar and Kala Kafir, wherever some future extension of the Askhabad-Meshed line, following the Keshef Rud to its meeting with the Hari Rud on the actual Perso-Afghan frontier, may terminate. The Tejend Rud is the name given to the lower waters of the Hari Rud which, flowing by Herat, receives midway in its course the Keshef Rud and thence runs close to Sarakhs, presenting to any line running along the Had Rud valley an alternative approach to the Afghan city.

That Herat and Meshed are the objectives of Russian railway policy is obvious from a pamphlet issued in 1902 by the Topographical Bureau in St. Petersburg and entitled _Railways Across Persia_. In its pages a railway was projected from Kara Kliss, a station midway between Tiflis and Erivan, _viâ_ Tabriz, Teheran, Shahrud to Meshed. The mileage, cost, the number of sidings and names of stations were all laid down. The principal stations in the first section--Kara Kliss to Tabriz--were Erivan and Julfa. At this moment the span from Kara Kliss to Julfa a distance of 135 miles is completed, the first hundred miles--Kara Kliss to Erivan--being open to traffic and the remaining thirty-five miles--Erivan to Julfa--in working order. From Julfa a carriageway, constructed under Russian auspices and in all essentials a Russian military road, runs to Tabriz, so that Russian schemes for broad gauge railways to Herat and Meshed are at least removed from their incipient obscurity.

[Illustration: NATIVE SCHOOL]

[10] “All the Russias.” H. V. Norman.

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