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In truth, Kachgar is no longer the capital of Kachgaria; it is a station on the Grand Transasiatic, the junction between the Russian and Chinese lines, and the strip of iron which stretches for three thousand kilometres from the Caspian to this city runs on for nearly four thousand more to the capital of the Celestial Empire. I return to the double town.
Surely the general manager of the line ought to keep an eye on the illustrious defunct, entrusted to the care of the Grand Transasiatic? The gong was struck for the last time; we hasten into our cars. And the baron, what has become of him? Here he comes out on to the platform like a whirlwind. He has found his papers at the bottom of his nineteenth pocket.
"And to think that Henry Heine called those people sentimental oaks!" I added. "Then he could not have known that one!" said Caterna. "Oak, I admit, but sentimental " "Do you know why the baron has patronized the Grand Transasiatic?" I asked. "To eat sauerkraut at Pekin!" said Caterna. "Not at all. To rival Miss Nelly Bly. He is trying to get around the world in thirty-nine days."
TERRIBLE CATASTROPHE. A GRAND TRANSASIATIC EXPRESS ATTACKED BY TIGERS. FIFTY VICTIMS. AN INFANT DEVOURED BEFORE ITS MOTHER'S EYES the whole thickly leaded and appropriately displayed. Well, no! The Turkoman felidae did not give me even that satisfaction! And I treat them as I treat any other harmless cats.
Know that Madame Caterna, who is incontestably the first leading lady of the provinces, and there is not one to beat her as a waiting maid or in a man's part, cannot stand the sea. And when I heard of the Grand Transasiatic, I said to her, 'Be easy, Caroline! Do not worry yourself about the perfidious element.
Popof smiles and soon his perfumed puffs are mingling voluptuously with mine. For fifteen years I think I said our guard had been in the Transcaspian service. He knows the country up to the Chinese frontier, and five or six times already he has been over the whole line known as the Grand Transasiatic.
I am completely upset, and I could not help shrugging my shoulders, when the major whispers to me: "Perhaps one of the bandit chiefs with whom the Grand Transasiatic had to make terms!" "Come, major, be serious." The visit was nearing its end when Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer appeared. He is preoccupied, he is troubled, he is anxious, he is confused, he is fidgety.
While gentlemen cast in the mould of Sir Francis Trevellyan are in the majority in the United Kingdom, the Asiatic network of railways will never be complete. I was led to question the major regarding the safety of the Grand Transasiatic across the provinces of Central Asia. In Turkestan, he told me, the safety is well assured.
At dessert he and his wife sang the air appropriate to the occasion from the Voyage en Chine, which we caught up with more power than precision: "China is a charming land Which surely ought to please you." Oh! Labiche, could you ever have imagined that this adorable composition would one day charm passengers in distress on the Grand Transasiatic?
"Well, gentlemen," said I, "what we see is nothing to what our nephews will see. We are traveling to-day on the Grand Transasiatic. But what will it be when the Grand Transasiatic is in connection with the Grand Transafrican." "And how is Asia to be united by railway with Africa?" asked Major Noltitz. "Through Russia, Turkey, Italy, France and Spain.
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