'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎87] (120/714)

FROM ASIIKABAD TO KUCIIAN
87
to proceed at once. As this intention appeared to be incompatible
with any concealed design to spy out the land, I was permitted to
depart, although I received no assistance or offer of assistance in
the dilemma in which I was placed as regards my arrangements.
The fact is, the Russian military authorities do not verv much care
about seeing Englishmen at Ashkabad, and have on more than
one occasion shown an incivility rare in so polite a people.
Having at last entered into communications with my Persian,
through the medium of two intervening parties, and having spent
start for some hours in rearranging my baggage and transferring
the it to mules, I started forth an hour before sundown, in
tending to drive in a droshky to the mountains, and to
ride the remaining distance on a horse which had been brought for
me by the Persian. A misunderstanding, arising from the too
numerous necessary links in our chain of conversation, resulted in
my baggage being lost for the night, in the Persian having to walk
fifteen miles, and myself being compelled to ride entirely alone to
the frontier at midnight, and there to wander about till by good
fortune I struck the encampment at 1 a.m.
The road upon which I travelled, and which I shall now describe,
is one of great importance, inasmuch as it provides Russia with a
History of P r ' va ^ e wa y entry into the coveted province of Khorasan.
the Ash- Immediately after her subjugation of the Turkomans in
kabad-
Kuchan 1881, she set to work to consolidate her position upon the
road Persian border and to utilise the advantages which con
quest had given her over her weak and timid neighbour on the
south. A strategical ascendency she already possessed by virtue
of her newly acquired territories, and of a border treaty which she
proceeded forthwith to conclude with Persia, and which placed the
crest of the mountains as well as the command of the principal
water-supplies in her hands. 1 General Annenkoff's railway promised
her a commercial superiority not less assured, provided that her
merchandise could easily and securely pass across the border.
Existing communications between the Turkoman Atek (literally,
1 skirt' of the mountains) and Khorasan were none of the best, and
had been all but closed by the savage forays of the border clans.
It was for the purpose of opening up a new, secure, and direct line
of connection that a military chaussee was presently commenced
from Ashkabad to the frontier, the Persians undertaking at the
1 Printed as an Appendix to Russia in Central Asia.