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After leaving Tachkend the railway had curved toward the south, so as to reach Khodjend; but after leaving town it curved to the east in the direction of Kokhan. It is at Tachkend that it is nearest to the Transsiberian, and a branch line is being made to Semipalatinsk to unite the railway systems of Central and Northern Asia.
You should have seen me dashing through the grand bazaar, a mere wooden building, which is crammed with Oriental stuffs, silk goods, metal ware, specimens of Chinese manufacture, including some very fine examples of porcelain. In the streets of old Tachkend a certain number of women are to be met with.
Northern Turkestan has frequently suffered from earthquake the terrible experience of 1887 will not have been forgotten and at Tachkend, as at Samarkand, I saw the traces of these commotions. In fact, minor oscillations are continually being observed, and this volcanic action takes place all along the fault, where lay the stores of petroleum and naphtha, from the Caspian Sea to the Pamir plateau.
In 1870 the Russians endeavored without success to establish a fair at Tachkend which would rival that at Nijni-Novgorod. Some twenty years later the attempt would have succeeded, and as a matter of fact the fair now exists, owing to the making of the Transcaspian to unite Samarkand and Tachkend.
The population of Tachkend does not differ very much from that met with in other parts of Turkestan. It comprises Sarthes, Usbegs, Tadjiks, Khirgizes, Nogais, Israelites, a few Afghans and Hindoos and as may be naturally supposed a fair supply of Russians. It is perhaps at Tachkend that the Jews are gathered in the greatest numbers.
They have splendid eyes, a superb beard, arched nose, and you would take them for real lords, provided we ignore the word Sarthe, which means a pedlar, and these were going evidently to Tachkend, where these pedlars swarm. In this car the two Chinese have taken their places, opposite each other. The young Celestial looks out of window.
The first railway was opened in China about 1877 and ran from Shanghai to Fou-Tcheou. The Grand Transasiatic followed very closely the Russian road proposed in 1874 by Tachkend, Kouldja, Kami, Lan Tcheou, Singan and Shanghai. This railway did not run through the populous central provinces which can be compared to vast and humming hives of bees and extaordinarily prolific bees.
I did not hear, as Madam Ujfalvy-Bourdon did, the band playing the Pompiers de Nanterre in the governor-general's garden. No! On this occasion they were playing Le Pere la Victoire, and if these are not national airs they are none the less agreeable to French ears. We left Tachkend at precisely eleven o'clock in the morning.
From Bactria, a mountainous country was to be crossed, and the country of the Sacæ, to Tachkend, or the Stone Tower. Near this place was the station of those merchants who traded directly with the Seres. The defile of Conghez was next passed, and the region of Cosia or Cashgar through the country of the Itaguri, to the capital of China.
As for me, I had soon forgotten all about the Mongol for the man in the case. Tired as I am after that long run through Samarkand, if I get a chance to visit him to-night I will. Dinner being over, we all begin to make ourselves comfortable for the night, with the intention of sleeping till we reach Tachkend. The distance from Samarkand to Tachkend is three hundred kilometres.
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