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people in their white garments, had the appearance of a cataract of water, while the green umbrellas with which several thousand hadjis sitting on their camels below were provided, bore some resemblance to a verdant plain.

ASIA

HAV

The Ride to Khiva

By FREDERICK BURNABY

AVING once resolved to go to Central Asia, the next question was how to execute my intention; and, on returning to England from Africa, I eagerly read every book that could be found and which seemed likely to give any information about the country which I proposed to visit. Vambéry's Travels," Abbott's "From Herat to Khiva,' and MacGahan's "Campaigning on the Oxus," were each in turn studied, and, judging by the difficulties that the gallant correspondent of the New York Herald" had to overcome before he carried his project of reaching Khiva into execution, I felt convinced that the task I had laid out for myself was anything but an easy one.

The time of year in which I should have to attempt the journey was another obstacle to the undertaking, for my leave of absence from my regiment would not begin until December. I had already, in previous journeys through Russia, discovered what the term "cold" really means in that country, and, judging from the weather experienced by Captain Abbott when traveling in the month of March in a latitude a good deal to the south of that which seemed to me the most practicable, I felt convinced that careful preparations must be made for a ride through the steppes in midwinter or that I should inevitably be frozen. The cold of the Kirghiz desert is a thing unknown, I believe, in any other part of the world, or even in the Arctic regions. An

enormous. expanse of flat country, extending for hundreds of miles and devoid of everything save snow and salt lakes and here and there saksavol, a species of bramble-tree, would have to be traversed on horseback ere Khiva could be reached. The winds in those parts of Asia are unknown to the inhabitants of Europe, who, when they grumble at the so-called east wind, can little imagine what that wind is like in those countries which lie exposed to the full fury of its first onslaught. For there you meet with no warm ocean to mollify its rigor, no tree, no rising land, no hills or mountains to check it in its course, and it blows on uninterruptedly over a vast snow and salt covered track, until, absorbing the saline matter, it cuts the faces of those exposed to its gusts with a sensation more like the application of the edge of a razor than anything else to which it can be likened.

There was, beside this, something else to be taken into consideration. I was well aware that no assistance could be expected from the Russian authorities, who might not content themselves by indirectly throwing obstacles in my way, but might even stop me by sheer force if they found all other ways fail. The account of the prohibitory order which I had seen published in the "Pall Mall Gazette "was, I had every reason to believe, correct; and should I not find, after crossing the Ural river, and entering Asia, that my long sleigh journey had been all to no purpose and have to retrace my steps through European Russia? These were my first impressions on arriving in England; but on talking the matter over with some Russians of my acquaintance, they assured me that I was entirely mistaken; that, on the contrary, the authorities at St. Petersburg would readily permit English officers to travel in Central Asia, and it was observed that the order to which I had alluded referred only to merchants or people who tried to smuggle contraband goods into the recently annexed Khanates.

A few months later I had the honor of making the acquaintance of his Excellency Count Schouvaloff, the Russian ambassador in London and formerly the head of the secret

police at St. Petersburg. He was excessively kind and promised to do what he could to further my plans; but in an answer to a straightforward question as to whether I should be permitted to travel in Russian Asia or not his reply was: "My dear sir, that is a subject about which I cannot give you any answer; but, on arriving at St. Petersburg, the authorities there will be able to afford you every possible information." It was a diplomatic answer-one which bound the count to nothing, and I went away charmed with the tact and affability of the Russian ambassador. Apparently there was nothing to be learned officially from Russian sources; but unofficially, one by one, many little bits of information crept out. I now learned that General Milutin, the Minister of War at St. Petersburg, was personally very opposed to the idea of an English officer traveling in Central Asia, particularly in that part which lies between the boundaries of British India and Russia. According to him, a Russian traveler, a Mr. Pachino, had not been well treated by the authorities in India, and this gentleman had not been permitted to enter Afghanistan, and, in consequence, General Milutin did not see why he should allow an Englishman to do what was denied to a Russian subject.

Another peculiarity which I remarked in several Russians whose acquaintance I had at that time the honor of making, it may here be not out of place to mention. This was their desire to impress upon my mind the great advantage it would be for England to have a civilized neighbor like Russia on her Indian frontier; and when I did not take the trouble to dissent from their views-for it is a waste of breath to argue with Russians about this question-how eager they were for me to impress their line of thought upon. the circle of people with whom I was the more immediately. connected. Of course, the arguments brought forward were based upon purely philanthropic motives, upon Christianity and civilization. They said that the two great powers ought to go together hand in glove; that there ought to be railways all through Asia, formed by Anglo-Russian companies; that Russia and England had every sympathy

in common which should unite them; that they both hated Germany and loved France; that England and Russia could conquer the world, and so on.

It was a line of reasoning delightfully Russian, and, though I was not so rude as to differ from my would-be persuaders and lent an attentive ear to all their eloquence, I could not help thinking that the mutual sympathy between England and Germany is much greater than that between England and Russia; that the Greek faith, as practiced by the lower orders in Russia, is pure paganism in comparison with the Protestant religion which exists in Prussia and Great Britain; that Germany and Great Britain are natural allies against Russia or any other power aggressively disposed toward them; that Germans and Englishmen who are well acquainted with Russia understand by the term "Russian civilization" something diametrically opposite to what is attributed to it by those people who form their ideas of Muscovite progress from the few Russians whom they meet abroad; and that the Honduras railway would be a paying concern to its English shareholders in comparison with an Anglo-Russian line to be constructed in Central Asia with English capital and Russian directors.

The time was wearing on, November was drawing to a close, my leave of absence would begin on the first of the following month, and on that day I must begin my travels. Preparations were rapidly made. Under the advice of Captain Allen Young, of Arctic fame, I ordered a huge water-proof and, consequently, air-proof, bag of prepared sail-cloth. The bag was seven feet and a half long and ten feet around. A large aperture was left on one side, and the traveler could thus take up his quarters inside and sleep well protected from the cold winds. The bag would also be useful in many other ways, and I found it of great convenience for every other purpose save the one for which it was originally intended. The manufacturer, not calculating on the enormous dimensions an individual assumes when enveloped in furs, had not made the aperture large enough, and the consequence was that the difficulties, when I at

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