'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎86] (117/714)

m
'll'yj
■
■«
m
HI
11 ;
86
PERSIA
CHAPTER V
FROM ASHKAHAD TO KUCHAN
Wild warriors of the turquoise hills.
T. Moore, Veiled Prophet of Khorasan.
iVr tliG station at Aslikabad I was accosted. 1a a Ptisian S6ivaiit
whom Colonel Stewart had been kind enough to send out to meet me
rrival it from the British Consulate at Meshed. The camp, which
Ashkabad i ie i iac l a l S o despatched, was, I understood, awaiting my
arrival somewhere on the Persian side ot the ti ontiei, o\ ei thirty
miles distant. The Russian authorities at Meshed being reluctant
to give permission to English subjects resident in Persia to cross
the border into Russian Transcaspia, my tuture attendants were
unable to meet me at Ashkabad; but the Persian, to whom the
restriction did not apply, had been despatched thither to guide me
to the frontier. Unfortuantely, neither of us spoke any tongue that
was intelligible to the other, and an intermediary was equally
difficult to find. I drove to the Governor-General's house through
suffocating volumes of dust, only to discover that General Komaroff
had left the day before, and that my previous year s acquaintance
with him would stand me in no stead. The Colonel commanding
in his absence, whom I next sought, and who was without instruc
tions as regards myself, expressed a desire to telegraph to St. Peters
burg for information, and in the meantime suggested that I might
with advantage devote a few days to the charms of Ashkabad. As
I knew from former experience that these were of the most meagre
description, consisting only of a common native bazaar, several
Russian shops, the houses inhabited by the Russian civil and
military officials, and the military cantonments—planted down on
a flat and featureless desert, and wrapped up in a perpetual whirl
wind of dust 1 —I declined the invitation and expressed my desire
1 In 1881, when the Russians invaded Transcaspia, Ashkabad was a Turkoman
settlement of 500 kihitlms. Being constituted the Russian capital, it speedily
changed its character and extended its dimensions. In 1884 it contained a popu
lation of 4,000; in 1886 of 10,000, exclusive of the military. Since then it has
remained at a little above that figure.