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Updated: May 4, 2025
The part which is called Turkestan extends between Eastern Turkestan and the Caspian Sea, the Kirghiz Steppe, Afghanistan, and Persia. The greater part is occupied by blown sand, the "Red Sand" and the "Black Sand." Right through the desert flow the two rivers, the Syr-darya and Amu-darya.
The Amu-darya forms the boundary between Bukhara and Afghanistan, the northern half of which is occupied by the Hindu-kush mountains. The name means "slaughterer of Hindus," because Hindus who venture up among the mountains after the heat of India have every prospect of being frozen to death in the eternal snow.
Then they proceeded northwards through the whole of Persia and northern Afghanistan, and along the Amu-darya to the Pamir, following routes which had to wait 600 years for new travellers from Europe. Past Yarkand, Khotan, and Lop-nor, and through the whole of the Gobi desert, they finally made their way to China.
South-west of Tashkent is the district of Samarcand, with a capital of the same name. South-west of Samarcand again, on the north of the Amu-darya, stretches a country called Bukhara, ruled by an Emir, a prince under the supremacy of Russia. Close to the Caspian Sea, on the east, there is a large area of country called Transcaspia.
We cross a pass, and at this giddy height I experience the unpleasant feelings of mountain sickness splitting headache, nausea, and singing in the ears. On the further side one of the affluents of the Amu-darya flows westwards. This valley, the Alai, is broad and open, but full of snow in winter. We make our entry into the Alai valley in a howling snowstorm and wade and plunge through drifts.
We had ridden 300 miles when we came to a small Russian frontier fort which rears its simple walls on the middle of the "Roof of the World," beside one of the headwaters of the Amu-darya. On the other side of the frontier lies the Eastern Pamir, in the dominion of the Emperor of China. Its height is 25,800 feet, and accordingly it is one of the loftiest mountains in the world.
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