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Updated: June 5, 2025
"And now the suitors of the maiden, nine in number, appear in the field, all unarmed, but mounted on the best horses they can procure; while the bride herself, on a beautiful Turkoman stallion, surrounded by her relations, anxiously surveys the group of lovers.
They are all pretty much alike, and were all built to serve the same purpose, of affording shelter and protection from Turkoman raiders.
"When the Emperor was approaching, as we ourselves are of a Turkoman family, and Mahomet Shah is a Turkoman and the lineal descendant of the noble house of Gurgan, we sent our dear son, Nassr Ali Khan, beyond the bounds of our camp to meet him. The Emperor entered our tents, and we delivered over to him the signet of our empire. He remained that day a guest in our royal tent.
Our speed was not slow, and frequently the poor fellow would have to resort to the whip, or shout, “Slowly, gentlemen, my horse is tired; the town is not far away, it is not necessary to hurry so.” The fact is that in all our experience we found no horse of even the famed Kirghiz or Turkoman breed that could travel with the same ease and rapidity as ourselves even over the most ordinary road.
Over these latter our progress was extremely slow. One stretch of fifteen miles, which it took us six hours to cover, was as formidable as any part of the Turkoman desert along the Transcaspian railway.
The sultans were overthrown, and in the general disorder of the Mahometan world a veteran and adventurous army, which included many Turkoman hordes, was dissolved into factions who, under various chiefs, lived a life of rapine and plunder.
Here they were able to approach, through gardens and the ruins of a village, until near the defences and, establishing a powerful battery, opened fire, and soon made a breach in the walls between the Turkoman and Ajmere gates. Unable to hinder them the Sepoys, aided by a portion of the population, worked from the morning of the 10th until that of the 12th to form an inner defence.
The stations are twenty or thirty versts apart. The names are not shouted, as we make no stop, and I have to discover them on my time-table. Such are Keltchi, Ravina why this Italian name in this Turkoman province? Peski, Repetek, etc. We cross the desert, the real desert without a thread of water, where artesian wells have to be sunk to supply the reservoirs along the line.
"I hope it will, and then Merv will have a right to call itself a city." "For my part, I should have preferred a visit to the old town, with its mosque, its fortress, and its palace. But that is a little too far off, and the train does not stop there, which I regret." "Pooh!" said the Yankee. "What I regret is, that there is no business to be done in these Turkoman countries!
Troops are not the only source of anxiety to the poor fellaheen. Princes and Government officials also travel with an enormous following, mainly composed of hangers-on and riff-raff, who plunder and devastate as ruthlessly as a band of Kurd or Turkoman robbers. They are even worse than the soldiery, for the latter usually leave the women alone.
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