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An hour with my cigar will take me to Kizil Arvat, where the train has to stop for some time. In going from the second to the first car I meet Major Noltitz. I step aside to let him pass. He salutes me with that grace which distinguishes well-bred Russians. I return his salute. Our meeting is restricted to this exchange of politeness, but the first step is taken.
A minute afterwards, we were on our way through the town, and this is what Major Noltitz told me: It was towards the end of 1885 that General Annenkof finished, at Kizil Arvat, the first portion of this railway measuring about 140 miles, of which 90 were through a desert which did not yield a single drop of water.
We have two hours to wait at Kizil Arvat. Although the day is closing in, I could not employ my time better than in visiting this little town, which contains more than two thousand inhabitants, Russians, Persians and Turkomans. There is not much to see, however, either within it or around it; there are no trees not even a palm tree only pasturages and fields of cereals, watered by a narrow stream.
By the close of the year more than forty miles were roughly laid down, and Skobeleff was ready for his final advance from Kizil Arvat towards Denghil Tepe. Meanwhile the Tekkes had gained reinforcements from their kinsmen in the Merv oasis, and had massed nearly 40,000 men so rumour ran at their stronghold.
"But he did not miss the start from Uzun Ada." "It doesn't matter, Popof. I shall be much surprised if this German beats an American at globe trotting." The train arrived at Kizil Arvat, two hundred and forty-two versts from the Caspian, at thirteen minutes past seven in the evening instead of seven o'clock. This slight delay provoked thirteen objurgations from the baron, one for each minute.
Popof was on duty on the section between Mikhailov and Kizil Arvat when the line opened a section which was begun in the December of 1880 and finished in ten months, in November, 1881. Five years later the locomotive entered Merv, on the 14th July, 1886, and eighteen months later it was welcomed at Samarkand.
Referring to the small outline map of the trans-Caspian region, herewith, it will be seen that troops could embark from Odessa in the fleet of merchant steamers available, and, if not molested en route by hostile cruisers, would reach Batum in from 2 to 3 days, thence by rail to Baku in 24 hours, another 24 hours through the Caspian Sea to Krasnovodsk, a transfer in lighters to the landing at Michaelovsk, and the final rail transportation to the present terminus of the track beyond Kizil Arvat; this, it is said, will soon reach Askabad, 310 miles from Herat.
Labor cost little; forty-five francs a month for the men from the oasis, fifty centimes a day for those who came from Bokhara. It was in this way that Skobeleff's soldiers were taken to Kizil Arvat, and then eighty-four miles beyond to Gheok Tepe.
Skobeleff landed at the port of Mikhailov the port of Uzun Ada was not then in existence and it was in view of facilitating his march across the desert that his second in command, Annenkof, constructed the strategic railway which in ten months reached Kizil Arvat.
The train would not stop until it reached Gheok Tepe at one o'clock in the morning. During the run from Kizil Arvat to Gheok Tepe I reckoned that Popof would have a good sleep, and then, or never, I would put my plan into execution. Hold! an idea! Suppose it is Zeitung who makes a trade of this sort of thing and manages to make a little money out of public generosity?
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