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The Adventures of a Special Correspondent Among the Various Races and Countries of Central Asia

by Jules Verne · English · Gutenberg #11263 · 424,003 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Adventures of a Special Correspondent Among the Various Races and Countries of Central Asia

Author: Jules Verne


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11263]
                Most recently updated: June 8, 2025

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT AMONG THE VARIOUS RACES AND COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL ASIA ***

THE ADVENTURES
OF A SPECIAL
CORRESPONDENT

AMONG THE VARIOUS RACES AND
COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL ASIA

BEING THE EXPLOITS AND EXPERIENCES OF
CLAUDIUS BOMBARNAC OF "THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY" BY

JULES VERNE




BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY


Jules Verne, French author, was born at Nantes, France, in 1828, and
died in 1905. In 1850 he wrote a comedy in verse, but he eventually
confined himself to the writing of scientific and geographical
romances, achieving a great reputation. He visited the United States in
1867, sailing for New York on the _Great Eastern_, and his book, _A
Floating City_, was the result of this voyage. His best-known books
are: _A Captain at Fifteen, A Two Years' Vacation, A Voyage to the
Center of the Earth_ (1864), _From the Earth to the Moon_ (1865),
_20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ (1870), _A Tour of the World in Eighty
Days_ (1873), _Michael Strogoff_ (1876), _Mrs. Branica_ (1891), _Clovis
Dordentor_ (1896), _The Brothers Kip_ (1902). Most of his works have
been translated into English.




CLAUDIUS BOMBARNAC




CHAPTER I.


CLAUDIUS BOMBARNAC,
       _Special Correspondent_,
            "_Twentieth Century._"
                   _Tiflis, Transcaucasia._

Such is the address of the telegram I found on the 13th of May when I
arrived at Tiflis.

This is what the telegram said:

"As the matters in hand will terminate on the 15th instant Claudius
Bombarnac will repair to Uzun Ada, a port on the east coast of the
Caspian. There he will take the train by the direct Grand Transasiatic
between the European frontier and the capital of the Celestial Empire.
He will transmit his impressions in the way of news, interviewing
remarkable people on the road, and report the most trivial incidents by
letter or telegram as necessity dictates. The _Twentieth Century_
trusts to the zeal, intelligence, activity and tact of its
correspondent, who can draw on its bankers to any extent he may deem
necessary."

It was the very morning I had arrived at Tiflis with the intention of
spending three weeks there in a visit to the Georgian provinces for the
benefit of my newspaper, and also, I hoped, for that of its readers.

Here was the unexpected, indeed; the uncertainty of a special
correspondent's life.

At this time the Russian railways had been connected with the line
between Poti, Tiflis and Baku. After a long and increasing run through
the Southern Russian provinces I had crossed the Caucasus, and imagined
I was to have a little rest in the capital of Transcaucasia. And here
was the imperious administration of the _Twentieth Century_ giving me
only half a day's halt in this town! I had hardly arrived before I was
obliged to be off again without unstrapping my portmanteau! But what
would you have? We must bow to the exigencies of special correspondence
and the modern interview!

But all the same I had been carefully studying this Transcaucasian
district, and was well provided with geographic and ethnologic
memoranda. Perhaps it may be as well for you to know that the fur cap,
in the shape of a turban, which forms the headgear of the mountaineers
and cossacks is called a "papakha," that the overcoat gathered in at
the waist, over which the cartridge belt is hung, is called a
"tcherkeska" by some and "bechmet" by others! Be prepared to assert
that the Georgians and Armenians wear a sugar-loaf hat, that the
merchants wear a "touloupa," a sort of sheepskin cape, that the Kurd
and Parsee still wear the "bourka," a cloak in a material something
like plush which is always waterproofed.

And of the headgear of the Georgian ladies, the "tassakravi," composed
of a light ribbon, a woolen veil, or piece of muslin round such lovely
faces; and their gowns of startling colors, with the wide open sleeves,
their under skirts fitted to the figure, their winter cloak of velvet,
trimmed with fur and silver gimp, their summer mantle of white cotton,
the "tchadre," which they tie tight on the neck--all those fashions in
fact so carefully entered in my notebook, what shall I say of them?

Learn, then, that their national orchestras are composed of "zournas,"
which are shrill flutes; "salamouris," which are squeaky clarinets;
mandolines, with copper strings, twanged with a feather; "tchianouris,"
violins, which are played upright; "dimplipitos," a kind of cymbals
which rattle like hail on a window pane.

Know that the "schaska" is a sword hung from a bandolier trimmed with
studs and silver embroidery, that the "kindjall" or "kandijar" is a
dagger worn in the belt, that the armament of the soldiers of the
Caucasus is completed by a long Damascus gun ornamented with bands of
chiseled metal.

Know that the "tarantass" is a sort of berline hung on five pieces of
rather elastic wood between wheels placed rather wide apart and of
moderate height; that this carriage is driven by a "yemtchik," on the
front seat, who has three horses, to whom is added a postilion, the
"falétre," when it is necessary to hire a fourth horse from the
"smatritel," who is the postmaster on the Caucasian roads.

Know, then, that the verst is two-thirds of a mile, that the different
nomadic people of the governments of Transcaucasia are composed of
Kalmucks, descendants of the Eleuthes, fifteen thousand, Kirghizes of
Mussulman origin eight thousand, Koundrof Tartars eleven hundred,
Sartof Tartars a hundred and twelve, Nogais eight thousand five
hundred, Turkomans nearly four thousand.

And thus, after having so minutely absorbed my Georgia, here was this
ukase obliging me to abandon it! And I should not even have time to
visit Mount Ararat or publish my impressions of a journey in
Transcaucasia, losing a thousand lines of copy at the least, and for
which I had at my disposal the 32,000 words of my language actually
recognized by the French Academy.

It was hard, but there was no way out of it. And to begin with, at what
o'clock did the train for Tiflis start from the Caspian?

The station at Tiflis is the junction of three lines of railway: the
western line ending at Poti on the Black Sea, where the passengers land
coming from Europe, the eastern line which ends at Baku, where the
passengers embark to cross the Caspian, and the line which the Russians
have just made for a length of about a hundred miles between
Ciscaucasia and Transcaucasia, from Vladikarkaz to Tiflis, crossing the
Arkhot range at a height of four thousand five hundred feet, and which
connects the Georgian capital with the railways of Southern Russia.

I went to the railway station at a run, and rushed into the departure
office.

"When is there a train for Baku?" I asked.

"You are going to Baku?" answered the clerk.

And from his trap-door he gave me one of those looks more military than
civil, which are invariably found under the peak of a Muscovite cap.

"I think so," said I, perhaps a little sharply, "that is, if it is not
forbidden to go to Baku."

"No," he replied, dryly, "that is, if you are provided with a proper
passport."

"I will have a proper passport," I replied to this ferocious
functionary, who, like all the others in Holy Russia, seemed to me an
intensified gendarme.

Then I again asked what time the train left for Baku.

"Six o'clock to-night."

"And when does it get there?"

"Seven o'clock in the morning."

"Is that in time to catch the boat for Uzun Ada?"

"In time."

And the man at the trap-door replied to my salute by a salute of
mechanical precision.

The question of passport did not trouble me. The French consul would
know how to give me all the references required by the Russian
administration.

Six o'clock to-night, and it is already nine o'clock in the morning!
Bah! When certain guide books tell you how to explore Paris in two
days, Rome in three days, and London in four days, it would be rather
curious if I could not do Tiflis in a half day. Either one is a
correspondent or one is not!

It goes without saying that my newspaper would not have sent me to
Russia, if I could not speak fluently in Russian, English and German.
To require a newspaper man to know the few thousand languages which are
used to express thought in the five parts of the world would be too
much; but with the three languages above named, and French added, one
can go far across the two continents. It is true, there is Turkish of
which I had picked up a few phrases, and there is Chinese of which I
did not understand a single word. But I had no fear of remaining dumb
in Turkestan and the Celestial Empire. There would be interpreters on
the road, and I did not expect to lose a detail of my run on the Grand
Transasiatic. I knew how to see, and see I would. Why should I hide it
from myself? I am one of those who think that everything here below can
serve as copy for a newspaper man; that the earth, the moon, the sky,
the universe were only made as fitting subjects for newspaper articles,
and that my pen was in no fear of a holiday on the road.

Before starting off round Tiflis let us have done with this passport
business. Fortunately I had no need for a "poderojnaia," which was
formerly indispensable to whoever traveled in Russia. That was in the
time of the couriers, of the post horses, and thanks to its powers that
official exeat cleared away all difficulties, assured the most rapid
relays, the most amiable civilities from the postilions, the greatest
rapidity of transport, and that to such a pitch that a well-recommended
traveler could traverse in eight days five hours the two thousand seven
hundred versts which separate Tiflis from Petersburg. But what
difficulties there were in procuring that passport!

A mere permission to move about would do for to-day, a certificate
attesting in a certain way that you are not a murderer or even a
political criminal, that you are what is called an honest man, in a
civilized country. Thanks to the assistance I received from our consul
at Tiflis, I was soon all in due order with the Muscovite authorities.

It was an affair of two hours and two roubles. I then devoted myself
entirely, eyes, ears, legs, to the exploration of the Georgian capital,
without taking a guide, for guides are a horror to me. It is true that
I should have been capable of guiding no matter what stranger, through
the mazes of this capital which I had so carefully studied beforehand.
That is a natural gift.

Here is what I recognized as I wandered about haphazard: first, there
was the "douma," which is the town hall, where the "golova," or mayor,
resides; if you had done me the honor to accompany me, I would have
taken you to the promenade of Krasnoia-Gora on the left bank of the
Koura, the Champs Elysées of the place, something like the Tivoli of
Copenhagen, or the fair of the Belleville boulevard with its
"Katchélis," delightful seesaws, the artfully managed undulations of
which will make you seasick. And everywhere amid the confusion of
market booths, the women in holiday costume, moving about with faces
uncovered, both Georgians and Armenians, thereby showing that they are
Christians.

As to the men, they are Apollos of the Belvedere, not so simply
clothed, having the air of princes, and I should like to know if they
are not so. Are they not descended from them? But I will genealogize
later on. Let us continue our exploration at full stride. A minute lost
is ten lines of correspondence, and ten lines of correspondence
is--that depends on the generosity of the newspaper and its managers.

Quick to the grand caravanserai. There you will find the caravans from
all points of the Asiatic continent. Here is one just coming in,
composed of Armenian merchants. There is one going out, formed of
traders in Persia and Russian Turkestan. I should like to arrive with
one and depart with the other. That is not possible, and I am sorry for
it. Since the establishment of the Transasiatic railways, it is not
often that you can meet with those interminable and picturesque lines
of horsemen, pedestrians, horses, camels, asses, carts. Bah! I have no
fear that my journey across Central Asia will fail for want of
interest. A special correspondent of the _Twentieth Century_ will know
how to make it interesting.

Here now are the bazaars with the thousand products of Persia, China,
Turkey, Siberia, Mongolia. There is a profusion of the fabrics of
Teheran, Shiraz, Kandahar, Kabul, carpets marvelous in weaving and
colors, silks, which are not worth as much as those of Lyons.

Will I buy any? No; to embarrass oneself with packages on a trip from
the Caspian to the Celestial Empire, never! The little portmanteau I
can carry in my hand, the bag slung across my shoulders, and a
traveling suit will be enough for me. Linen? I will get it on the road,
in English fashion.

Let us stop in front of the famous baths of Tiflis, the thermal waters
of which attain a temperature of 60 degrees centigrade. There you will
find in use the highest development of massage, the suppling of the
spine, the cracking of the joints. I remember what was said by our
great Dumas whose peregrinations were never devoid of incidents; he
invented them when he wanted them, that genial precursor of
high-pressure correspondence! But I have no time to be shampooed, or to
be cracked or suppled.

Stop! The Hôtel de France. Where is there not a Hôtel de France? I
enter, I order breakfast--a Georgian breakfast watered with a certain
Kachelie wine, which is said to never make you drunk, that is, if you
do not sniff up as much as you drink in using the large-necked bottles
into which you dip your nose before your lips. At least that is the
proceeding dear to the natives of Transcaucasia. As to the Russians,
who are generally sober, the infusion of tea is enough for them, not
without a certain addition of vodka, which is the Muscovite brandy.

I, a Frenchman, and even a Gascon, am content to drink my bottle of
Kachelie, as we drank our Château Laffite, in those regretted days,
when the sun still distilled it on the hillsides of Pauillac. In truth
this Caucasian wine, although rather sour, accompanied by the boiled
fowl, known as pilau--has rather a pleasant taste about it.

It is over and paid for. Let us mingle with the sixteen thousand
inhabitants of the Georgian capital. Let us lose ourselves in the
labyrinth of its streets, among its cosmopolitan population. Many Jews
who button their coats from left to right, as they write--the contrary
way to the other Aryan peoples. Perhaps the sons of Israel are not
masters in this country, as in so many others? That is so, undoubtedly;
a local proverb says it takes six Jews to outwit an Armenian, and
Armenians are plentiful in these Transcaucasian provinces.

I reach a sandy square, where camels, with their heads out straight,
and their feet bent under in front, are sitting in hundreds. They used
to be here in thousands, but since the opening of the Transcaspian
railway some years ago now, the number of these humped beasts of burden
has sensibly diminished. Just compare one of these beasts with a goods
truck or a luggage van!

Following the slope of the streets, I come out on the quays by the
Koura, the bed of which divides the town into two unequal parts. On
each side rise the houses, one above the other, each one looking over
the roof of its neighbors. In the neighborhood of the river there is a
good deal of trade. There you will find much moving about of vendors of
wine, with their goatskins bellying out like balloons, and vendors of
water with their buffalo skins, fitted with pipes looking like
elephants' trunks.

Here am I wandering at a venture; but to wander is human, says the
collegians of Bordeaux, as they muse on the quays of the Gironde.

"Sir," says a good little Jew to me, showing me a certain habitation
which seems a very ordinary one, "you are a stranger?"

"Quite."

"Then do not pass this house without stopping a moment to admire it."

"And why?"

"There lived the famous tenor Satar, who sang the _contre-fa_ from his
chest. And they paid him for it!"

I told the worthy patriarch that I hoped he would be able to sing a
_contre-sol_ even better paid for; and I went up the hill to the right
of the Koura, so as to have a view of the whole town.

At the top of the hill, on a little open space where a reciter is
declaiming with vigorous gestures the verses of Saadi, the adorable
Persian poet, I abandon myself to the contemplation of the
Transcaucasian capital. What I am doing here, I propose to do again in
a fortnight at Pekin. But the pagodas and yamens of the Celestial
Empire can wait awhile, here is Tiflis before my eyes; walls of the
citadels, belfries of the temples belonging to the different religions,
a metropolitan church with its double cross, houses of Russian,
Persian, or Armenian construction; a few roofs, but many terraces; a
few ornamental frontages, but many balconies and verandas; then two
well-marked zones, the lower zone remaining Georgian, the higher zone,
more modern, traversed by a long boulevard planted with fine trees,
among which is seen the palace of Prince Bariatinsky, a capricious,
unexpected marvel of irregularity, which the horizon borders with its
grand frontier of mountains.

It is now five o'clock. I have no time to deliver myself in a
remunerative torrent of descriptive phrases. Let us hurry off to the
railway station.

There is a crowd of Armenians, Georgians, Mingrelians, Tartars, Kurds,
Israelites, Russians, from the shores of the Caspian, some taking their
tickets--Oh! the Oriental color--direct for Baku, some for intermediate
stations.

This time I was completely in order. Neither the clerk with the
gendarme's face, nor the gendarmes themselves could hinder my departure.

I take a ticket for Baku, first class. I go down on the platform to the
carriages. According to my custom, I install myself in a comfortable
corner. A few travelers follow me while the cosmopolitan populace
invade the second and third-class carriages. The doors are shut after
the visit of the ticket inspector. A last scream of the whistle
announces that the train is about to start.

Suddenly there is a shout--a shout in which anger is mingled with
despair, and I catch these words in German:

"Stop! Stop!"

I put down the window and look out.

A fat man, bag in hand, traveling cap on head, his legs embarrassed in
the skirts of a huge overcoat, short and breathless. He is late.

The porters try to stop him. Try to stop a bomb in the middle of its
trajectory! Once again has right to give place to might.

The Teuton bomb describes a well-calculated curve, and has just fallen
into the compartment next to ours, through the door a traveler had
obligingly left open.

The train begins to move at the same instant, the engine wheels begin
to slip on the rails, then the speed increases.

We are off.




CHAPTER II.


We were three minutes late in starting; it is well to be precise. A
special correspondent who is not precise is a geometer who neglects to
run out his calculations to the tenth decimal. This delay of three
minutes made the German our traveling companion. I have an idea that
this good man will furnish me with some copy, but it is only a
presentiment.

It is still daylight at six o'clock in the evening in this latitude. I
have bought a time-table and I consult it. The map which accompanies it
shows me station by station the course of the line between Tiflis and
Baku. Not to know the direction taken by the engine, to be ignorant if
the train is going northeast or southeast, would be insupportable to
me, all the more as when night comes, I shall see nothing, for I cannot
see in the dark as if I were an owl or a cat.

My time-table shows me that the railway skirts for a little distance
the carriage road between Tiflis and the Caspian, running through
Saganlong, Poily, Elisabethpol, Karascal, Aliat, to Baku, along the
valley of the Koura. We cannot tolerate a railway which winds about; it
must keep to a straight line as much as possible. And that is what the
Transgeorgian does.

Among the stations there is one I would have gladly stopped at if I had
had time, Elisabethpol. Before I received the telegram from the
_Twentieth Century_, I had intended to stay there a week. I had read
such attractive descriptions of it, and I had but a five minutes' stop
there, and that between two and three o'clock in the morning! Instead
of a town resplendent in the rays of the sun, I could only obtain a
view of a vague mass confusedly discoverable in the pale beams of the
moon!

Having ended my careful examination of the time-table, I began to
examine my traveling companions. There were four of us, and I need
scarcely say that we occupied the four corners of the compartment. I
had taken the farthest corner facing the engine. At the two opposite
angles two travelers were seated facing each other. As soon as they got
in they had pulled their caps down on their eyes and wrapped themselves
up in their cloaks--evidently they were Georgians as far as I could
see. But they belonged to that special and privileged race who sleep on
the railway, and they did not wake up until we reached Baku. There was
nothing to be got out of those people; the carriage is not a carriage
for them, it is a bed.

In front of me was quite a different type with nothing of the Oriental
about it; thirty-two to thirty-five years old, face with a reddish
beard, very much alive in look, nose like that of a dog standing at
point, mouth only too glad to talk, hands free and easy, ready for a
shake with anybody; a tall, vigorous, broad-shouldered, powerful man.
By the way in which he settled himself and put down his bag, and
unrolled his traveling rug of bright-hued tartan, I had recognized the
Anglo-Saxon traveler, more accustomed to long journeys by land and sea
than to the comforts of his home, if he had a home. He looked like a
commercial traveler. I noticed that his jewelry was in profusion; rings
on his fingers, pin in his scarf, studs on his cuffs, with photographic
views in them, showy trinkets hanging from the watch-chain across his
waistcoat. Although he had no earrings and did not wear a ring at his
nose I should not have been surprised if he turned out to be an
American--probably a Yankee.

That is my business. To find out who are my traveling companions,
whence they come, where they go, is that not the duty of a special
correspondent in search of interviews? I will begin with my neighbor in
front of me. That will not be difficult, I imagine. He is not dreaming
or sleeping, or looking out on the landscape lighted by the last rays
of the sun. If I am not mistaken he will be just as glad to speak to me
as I am to speak to him--and reciprocally.

I will see. But a fear restrains me. Suppose this American--and I am
sure he is one--should also be a special, perhaps for the _World_ or
the _New York Herald_, and suppose he has also been ordered off to do
this Grand Asiatic. That would be most annoying! He would be a rival!

My hesitation is prolonged. Shall I speak, shall I not speak? Already
night has begun to fall. At last I was about to open my mouth when my
companion prevented me.

"You are a Frenchman?" he said in my native tongue.

"Yes, sir," I replied in his.

Evidently we could understand each other.

The ice was broken, and then question followed on question rather
rapidly between us. You know the Oriental proverb:

"A fool asks more questions in an hour than a wise man in a year."

But as neither my companion nor myself had any pretensions to wisdom we
asked away merrily.

"_Wait a bit_," said my American.

I italicize this phrase because it will recur frequently, like the pull
of the rope which gives the impetus to the swing.

"_Wait a bit_! I'll lay ten to one that you are a reporter!"

"And you would win! Yes. I am a reporter sent by the _Twentieth
Century_ to do this journey."

"Going all the way to Pekin?"

"To Pekin."

"So am I," replied the Yankee.

And that was what I was afraid of.

"Same trade?" said I indifferently.

"No. You need not excite yourself. We don't sell the same stuff, sir."

"Claudius Bombarnac, of Bordeaux, is delighted to be on the same road
as--"

"Fulk Ephrinell, of the firm of Strong, Bulbul & Co., of New York City,
New York, U.S.A."

And he really added U.S.A.

We were mutually introduced. I a traveler in news, and he a traveler
in--In what? That I had to find out.

The conversation continues. Ephrinell, as may be supposed, has been
everywhere--and even farther, as he observes. He knows both Americas
and almost all Europe. But this is the first time he has set foot in
Asia. He talks and talks, and always jerks in _Wait a bit_, with
inexhaustible loquacity. Has the Hunson the same properties as the
Garonne?

I listen to him for two hours. I have hardly heard the names of the
stations yelled out at each stop, Saganlong, Poily, and the others. And
I really should have liked to examine the landscape in the soft light
of the moon, and made a few notes on the road.

Fortunately my fellow traveler had already crossed these eastern parts
of Georgia. He pointed out the spots of interest, the villages, the
watercourses, the mountains on the horizon. But I hardly saw them.
Confound these railways! You start, you arrive, and you have seen
nothing on the road!

"No!" I exclaim, "there is none of the charm about it as there is in
traveling by post, in troika, tarantass, with the surprises of the
road, the originality of the inns, the confusion when you change
horses, the glass of vodka of the yemtchiks--and occasionally the
meeting with those honest brigands whose race is nearly extinct."

"Mr. Bombarnac," said Ephrinell to me, "are you serious in regretting
all those fine things?"

"Quite serious," I reply. "With the advantages of the straight line of
railway we lose the picturesqueness of the curved line, or the broken
line of the highways of the past. And, Monsieur Ephrinell, when you
read of traveling in Transcaucasia forty years ago, do you not regret
it? Shall I see one of those villages inhabited by Cossacks who are
soldiers and farmers at one and the same time? Shall I be present at
one of those merry-makings which charm the tourist? those djiquitovkas
with the men upright on their horses, throwing their swords,
discharging their pistols, and escorting you if you are in the company
of some high functionary, or a colonel of the Staniza."

"Undoubtedly we have lost all those fine things," replies my Yankee.
"But, thanks to these iron ribbons which will eventually encircle our
globe like a hogshead of cider or a bale of cotton, we can go in
thirteen days from Tiflis to Pekin. That is why, if you expect any
incidents, to enliven you--"

"Certainly, Monsieur Ephrinell."

"Illusions, Mr. Bombarnac! Nothing will happen either to you or me.
Wait a bit, I promise you a journey, the most prosaic, the most homely,
the flattest--flat as the steppes of Kara Koum, which the Grand
Transasiatic traverses in Turkestan, and the plains of the desert of
Gobi it crosses in China--"

"Well, we shall see, for I travel for the pleasure of my readers."

"And I travel merely for my own business."

And at this reply the idea recurred to me that Ephrinell would not be
quite the traveling companion I had dreamed of. He had goods to sell, I
had none to buy. I foresaw that our meeting would not lead to a
sufficient intimacy during our long journey. He was one of those
Yankees who, as they say, hold a dollar between their teeth, which it
is impossible to get away from them, and I should get nothing out of
him that was worth having.

And although I knew that he traveled for Strong, Bulbul & Co., of New
York, I had never heard of the firm. To listen to their representative,
it would appear that Strong, Bulbul & Co. ought to be known throughout
the world.

But then, how was it that they were unknown to me, a pupil of
Chincholle, our master in everything! I was quite at a loss because I
had never heard of the firm of Strong, Bulbul & Co.

I was about to interrogate Ephrinell on this point, when he said to me:

"Have you ever been in the United States, Mr. Bombarnac?"

"No, Monsieur Ephrinell."

"You will come to our country some day?"

"Perhaps."

"Then you will not forget to explore the establishment of Strong,
Bulbul & Co.?"

"Explore it?"

"That is the proper word."

"Good! I shall not fail to do so."

"You will see one of the most remarkable industrial establishments of
the New Continent."

"I have no doubt of it; but how am I to know it?"

"Wait a bit, Mr. Bombarnac. Imagine a colossal workshop, immense
buildings for the mounting and adjusting of the pieces, a steam engine
of fifteen hundred horse-power, ventilators making six hundred
revolutions a minute, boilers consuming a hundred tons of coals a day,
a chimney stack four hundred and fifty feet high, vast outhouses for
the storage of our goods, which we send to the five parts of the world,
a general manager, two sub-managers, four secretaries, eight
under-secretaries, a staff of five hundred clerks and nine hundred
workmen, a whole regiment of travelers like your servant, working in
Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Australasia, in short, a turnover
exceeding annually one hundred million dollars! And all that, Mr.
Bombarnac, for making millions of--yes, I said millions--"

At this moment the train commenced to slow under the action of its
automatic brakes, and he stopped.

"Elisabethpol! Elisabethpol!" shout the guard and the porters on the
station.

Our conversation is interrupted. I lower the window on my side, and
open the door, being desirous of stretching my legs.

Ephrinell did not get out.

Here was I striding along the platform of a very poorly lighted
station. A dozen travelers had already left the train. Five or six
Georgians were crowding on the steps of the compartments. Ten minutes
at Elisabethpol; the time-table allowed us no more.

As soon as the bell begins to ring I return to our carriage, and when I
have shut the door I notice that my place is taken. Yes! Facing the
American, a lady has installed herself with that Anglo-Saxon coolness
which is as unlimited as the infinite. Is she young? Is she old? Is she
pretty? Is she plain? The obscurity does not allow me to judge. In any
case, my French gallantry prevents me from claiming my corner, and I
sit down beside this person who makes no attempt at apology.

Ephrinell seems to be asleep, and that stops my knowing what it is that
Strong, Bulbul & Co., of New York, manufacture by the million.

The train has started. We have left Elisabethpol behind. What have I
seen of this charming town of twenty thousand inhabitants, built on the
Gandja-tchaï, a tributary of the Koura, which I had specially worked up
before my arrival? Nothing of its brick houses hidden under verdure,
nothing of its curious ruins, nothing of its superb mosque built at the
beginning of the eighteenth century. Of its admirable plane trees, so
sought after by crows and blackbirds, and which maintain a supportable
temperature during the excessive heats of summer, I had scarcely seen
the higher branches with the moon shining on them. And on the banks of
the stream which bears its silvery murmuring waters along the principal
street, I had only seen a few houses in little gardens, like small
crenelated fortresses. All that remained in my memory would be an
indecisive outline, seized in flight from between the steam puffs of
our engine. And why are these houses always in a state of defence?
Because Elisabethpol is a fortified town exposed to the frequent
attacks of the Lesghians of Chirvan, and these mountaineers, according
to the best-informed historians, are directly descended from Attila's
hordes.

It was nearly midnight. Weariness invited me to sleep, and yet, like a
good reporter, I must sleep with one eye and one ear open.

I fall into that sort of slumber provoked by the regular trepidations
of a train on the road, mingled with ear-splitting whistles and the
grind of the brakes as the speed is slowed, and tumultuous roars as
passing trains are met with, besides the names of the stations shouted
out during the short stoppages, and the banging of the doors which are
opened or shut with metallic sonority.

In this way I heard the shouts of Geran, Varvara, Oudjarry, Kiourdamir,
Klourdane, then Karasoul, Navagi. I sat up, but as I no longer occupied
the corner from which I had been so cavalierly evicted, it was
impossible for me to look through the window.

And then I began to ask what is hidden beneath this mass of veils and
wraps and petticoats, which has usurped my place. Is this lady going to
be my companion all the way to the terminus of the Grand Transasiatic?
Shall I exchange a sympathetic salute with her in the streets of Pekin?
And from her my thoughts wander to my companion who is snoring in the
corner in a way that would make all the ventilators of Strong, Bulbul &
Co. quite jealous. And what is it these big people make? Is it iron
bridges, or locomotives, or armor plates, or steam boilers, or mining
pumps? From what my American told me, I might find a rival to Creusot
or Cokerill or Essen in this formidable establishment in the United
States of America. At least unless he has been taking a rise out of me,
for he does not seem to be "green," as they say in his country, which
means to say that he does not look very much like an idiot, this
Ephrinell!

And yet it seems that I must gradually have fallen sound asleep.
Withdrawn from exterior influences, I did not even hear the stentorian
respiration of the Yankee. The train arrived at Aliat, and stayed there
ten minutes without my being aware of it. I am sorry for it, for Aliat
is a little seaport, and I should like to have had a first glimpse of
the Caspian, and of the countries ravaged by Peter the Great. Two
columns of the historico-fantastic might have been made out of that,
with the aid of Bouillet and Larousse.

"Baku! Baku!"

The word repeated as the train stopped awoke me.

It was seven o'clock in the morning.




CHAPTER III.


The boat did not start until three o'clock in the afternoon. Those of
my companions who intended to cross the Caspian hurried off to the
harbor; it being necessary to engage a cabin, or to mark one's place in
the steamer's saloon.

Ephrinell precipitately left me with these words:

"I have not an instant to lose. I must see about the transport of my
baggage."

"Have you much?"

"Forty-two cases."

"Forty-two cases!" I exclaimed.

"And I am sorry I have not double as many. Allow me--"

If he had had a voyage of eight days, instead of one of twenty-four
hours, and had to cross the Atlantic instead of the Caspian, he could
not have been in a greater hurry.

As you may imagine, the Yankee did not for a moment think of offering
his hand to assist our companion in descending from the carriage. I
took his place. The lady leaned on my arm and jumped--no, gently put
her foot on the ground. My reward was a _thank you, sir_, uttered in a
hard, dry, unmistakably British voice.

Thackeray has said somewhere that a well-brought-up Englishwoman is the
completest of the works of God on this earth. My only wish is to verify
this gallant affirmation in the case of my companion. She has put back
her veil. Is she a young woman or an old girl? With these Englishwomen
one never knows! Twenty-five years is apparently about her age, she has
an Albionesque complexion, a jerky walk, a high dress like an
equinoctial tide, no spectacles, although she has eyes of the intense
blue which are generally short-sighted. While I bend my back as I bow,
she honors me with a nod, which only brings into play the vertebrae of
her long neck, and she walks off straight toward the way out.

Probably I shall meet this person again on the steamboat. For my part,
I shall not go down to the harbor until it is time to start. I am at
Baku: I have half a day to see Baku, and I shall not lose an hour, now
that the chances of my wanderings have brought me to Baku.

It is possible that the name may in no way excite the reader's
curiosity. But perhaps it may inflame his imagination if I tell him
that Baku is the town of the Guebres, the city of the Parsees, the
metropolis of the fire-worshippers.

Encircled by a triple girdle of black battlemented walls, the town is
built near Cape Apcheron, on the extreme spur of the Caucasian range.
But am I in Persia or in Russia? In Russia undoubtedly, for Georgia is
a Russian province; but we can still believe we are in Persia, for Baku
has retained its Persian physiognomy. I visit a palace of the khans, a
pure product of the architecture of the time of Schahriar and
Scheherazade, "daughter of the moon," his gifted romancer, a palace in
which the delicate sculpture is as fresh as it came from the chisel.
Further on rise some slender minarets, and not the bulbous roofs of
Moscow the Holy, at the angles of an old mosque, into which one can
enter without taking off one's boots. True, the muezzin no longer
declaims from it some sonorous verse of the Koran at the hour of
prayer. And yet Baku has portions of it which are real Russian in
manners and aspect, with their wooden houses without a trace of
Oriental color, a railway station of imposing aspect, worthy of a great
city in Europe or America, and at the end of one of the roads, a modern
harbor, the atmosphere of which is foul with the coal smoke vomited
from the steamer funnels.

And, in truth, one asks what they are doing with coal in this town of
naphtha. What is the good of coal when the bare and arid soil of
Apcheron, which grows only the Pontic absinthium, is so rich in mineral
oil? At eighty francs the hundred kilos, it yields naphtha, black or
white, which the exigencies of supply will not exhaust for centuries.

A marvelous phenomenon indeed! Do you want a light or a fire? Nothing
can be simpler; make a hole in the ground, the gas escapes, and you
apply a match. That is a natural gasometer within the reach of all
purses.

I should have liked to visit the famous sanctuary of Atesh Gah; but it
is twenty-two versts from the town, and time failed me. There burns the
eternal fire, kept up for centuries by the Parsee priests from India,
who never touch animal food.

This reminds me that I have not yet breakfasted, and as eleven o'clock
strikes, I make my way to the restaurant at the railway, where I have
no intention of conforming myself to the alimentary code of the Parsees
of Atesh Gah.

As I am entering, Ephrinell rushes out.

"Breakfast?" say I.

"I have had it," he replies.

"And your cases?"

"I have still twenty-nine to get down to the steamer. But, pardon, I
have not a moment to lose. When a man represents the firm of Strong,
Bulbul & Co., who send out every week five thousand cases of their
goods--"

"Go, go, Monsieur Ephrinell, we will meet on board. By the by, you have
not met our traveling companion?"

"What traveling companion?"

"The young lady who took my place in the carriage."

"Was there a young lady with us?"

"Of course."

"Well you are the first to tell me so, Mr. Bombarnac. You are the first
to tell me so."

And thereupon the American goes out of the door and disappears. It is
to be hoped I shall know before we get to Pekin what it is that Strong,
Bulbul & Co. send out in such quantities. Five thousand cases a
week--what an output, and what a turnover!

I had soon finished my breakfast and was off again. During my walk I
was able to admire a few magnificent Lesghians; these wore the grayish
tcherkesse, with the cartridge belts on the chest, the bechmet of
bright red silk, the gaiters embroidered with silver, the boots flat,
without a heel, the white papak on the head, the long gun on the
shoulders, the schaska and kandijar at the belt--in short men of the
arsenal as there are men of the orchestra, but of superb aspect and who
ought to have a marvelous effect in the processions of the Russian
emperor.

It is already two o'clock, and I think I had better get down to the
boat. I must call at the railway station, where I have left my light
luggage at the cloakroom.

Soon I am off again, bag in one hand, stick in the other, hastening
down one of the roads leading to the harbor.

At the break in the wall where access is obtained to the quay, my
attention is, I do not know why, attracted by two people walking along
together. The man is from thirty to thirty-five years old, the woman
from twenty-five to thirty, the man already a grayish brown, with
mobile face, lively look, easy walk with a certain swinging of the
hips. The woman still a pretty blonde, blue eyes, a rather fresh
complexion, her hair frizzed under a cap, a traveling costume which is
in good taste neither in its unfashionable cut nor in its glaring
color. Evidently a married couple come in the train from Tiflis, and
unless I am mistaken they are French.

But although I look at them with curiosity, they take no notice of me.
They are too much occupied to see me. In their hands, on their
shoulders, they have bags and cushions and wraps and sticks and
sunshades and umbrellas. They are carrying every kind of little package
you can think of which they do not care to put with the luggage on the
steamer. I have a good mind to go and help them. Is it not a happy
chance--and a rare one--to meet with French people away from France?

Just as I am walking up to them, Ephrinell appears, drags me away, and
I leave the couple behind. It is only a postponement. I will meet them
again on the steamboat and make their acquaintance on the voyage.

"Well," said I to the Yankee, "how are you getting on with your cargo?"

"At this moment, sir, the thirty-seventh case is on the road."

"And no accident up to now?

"No accident."

"And what may be in those cases, if you please?

"In those cases? Ah! There is the thirty-seventh!" he exclaimed, and he
ran out to meet a truck which had just come onto the quay.

There was a good deal of bustle about, and all the animation of
departures and arrivals. Baku is the most frequented and the safest
port on the Caspian. Derbent, situated more to the north, cannot keep
up with it, and it absorbs almost the entire maritime traffic of this
sea, or rather this great lake which has no communication with the
neighboring seas. The establishment of Uzun Ada on the opposite coast
has doubled the trade which used to pass through Baku. The Transcaspian
now open for passengers and goods is the chief commercial route between
Europe and Turkestan.

In the near future there will perhaps be a second route along the
Persian frontier connecting the South Russian railways with those of
British India, and that will save travelers the navigation of the
Caspian. And when this vast basin has dried up through evaporation, why
should not a railroad be run across its sandy bed, so that trains can
run through without transhipment at Baku and Uzun Ada?

While we are waiting for the realization of this desideratum, it is
necessary to take the steamboat, and that I am preparing to do in
company with many others.

Our steamer is called the _Astara_, of the Caucasus and Mercury
Company. She is a big paddle steamer, making three trips a week from
coast to coast. She is a very roomy boat, designed to carry a large
cargo, and the builders have thought considerably more of the cargo
than of the passengers. After all, there is not much to make a fuss
about in a day's voyage.

There is a noisy crowd on the quay of people who are going off, and
people who have come to see them off, recruited from the cosmopolitan
population of Baku. I notice that the travelers are mostly Turkomans,
with about a score of Europeans of different nationalities, a few
Persians, and two representatives of the Celestial Empire. Evidently
their destination is China. .

The _Astara_ is loaded up. The hold is not big enough, and a good deal
of the cargo has overflowed onto the deck. The stern is reserved for
passengers, but from the bridge forward to the topgallant forecastle,
there is a heap of cases covered with tarpaulins to protect them from
the sea.

There Ephrinell's cases have been put. He has lent a hand with Yankee
energy, determined not to lose sight of his valuable property, which is
in cubical cases, about two feet on the side, covered with patent
leather, carefully strapped, and on which can be read the stenciled
words, "Strong, Bulbul & Co., Now York."

"Are all your goods on board?" I asked the American.

"There is the forty-second case just coming," he replied.

And there was the said case on the back of a porter already coming
along the gangway.

It seemed to me that the porter was rather tottery, owing perhaps to a
lengthy absorption of vodka.

"Wait a bit!" shouted Ephrinell. Then in good Russian, so as to be
better understood, he shouted:

"Look out! Look out!"

It is good advice, but it is too late. The porter has just made a false
step. The case slips from his shoulders, falls--luckily over the rail
of the _Astara_--breaks in two, and a quantity of little packets of
paper scatter their contents on the deck.

What a shout of indignation did Ephrinell raise! What a whack with his
fist did he administer to the unfortunate porter as he repeated in a
voice of despair: "My teeth, my poor teeth!"

And he went down on his knees to gather up his little bits of
artificial ivory that were scattered all about, while I could hardly
keep from laughing.

Yes! It was teeth which Strong, Bulbul & Co., of New York made! It was
for manufacturing five thousand cases a week for the five parts of the
world that this huge concern existed! It was for supplying the dentists
of the old and new worlds; it was for sending teeth as far as China,
that their factory required fifteen hundred horse power, and burned a
hundred tons of coal a day! That is quite American!

After all, the population of the globe is fourteen hundred million, and
as there are thirty-two teeth per inhabitant, that makes forty-five
thousand millions; so that if it ever became necessary to replace all
the true teeth by false ones, the firm of Strong, Bulbul & Co. would
not be able to supply them.

But we must leave Ephrinell gathering up the odontological treasures of
the forty-second case. The bell is ringing for the last time. All the
passengers are aboard. The _Astara_ is casting off her warps.

Suddenly there are shouts from the quay. I recognize them as being in
German, the same as I had heard at Tiflis when the train was starting
for Baku.

It is the same man. He is panting, he runs, he cannot run much farther.
The gangway has been drawn ashore, and the steamer is already moving
off. How will this late comer get on board?

Luckily there is a rope out astern which still keeps the _Astara_ near
the quay. The German appears just as two sailors are manoeuvring with
the fender. They each give him a hand and help him on board.

Evidently this fat man is an old hand at this sort of thing, and I
should not be surprised if he did not arrive at his destination.

However, the _Astara_ is under way, her powerful paddles are at work,
and we are soon out of the harbor.

About a quarter of a mile out there is a sort of boiling, agitating the
surface of the sea, and showing some deep trouble in the waters. I was
then near the rail on the starboard quarter, and, smoking my cigar, was
looking at the harbor disappearing behind the point round Cape
Apcheron, while the range of the Caucasus ran up into the western
horizon.

Of my cigar there remained only the end between my lips, and taking a
last whiff, I threw it overboard.

In an instant a sheet of flame burst out all round the steamer The
boiling came from a submarine spring of naphtha, and the cigar end had
set it alight.

Screams arise. The _Astara_ rolls amid sheaves of flame; but a movement
of the helm steers us away from the flaming spring, and we are out of
danger.

The captain comes aft and says to me in a frigid tone:

"That was a foolish thing to do."

And I reply, as I usually reply under such circumstances:

"Really, captain, I did not know--"

"You ought always to know, sir!"

These words are uttered in a dry, cantankerous tone a few feet away
from me.

I turn to see who it is.

It is the Englishwoman who has read me this little lesson.




CHAPTER IV.


I am always suspicious of a traveler's "impressions." These impressions
are subjective--a word I use because it is the fashion, although I am
not quite sure what it means. A cheerful man looks at things
cheerfully, a sorrowful man looks at them sorrowfully. Democritus would
have found something enchanting about the banks of the Jordan and the
shores of the Dead Sea. Heraclitus would have found something
disagreeable about the Bay of Naples and the beach of the Bosphorus. I
am of a happy nature--you must really pardon me if I am rather
egotistic in this history, for it is so seldom that an author's
personality is so mixed up with what he is writing about--like Hugo,
Dumas, Lamartine, and so many others. Shakespeare is an exception, and
I am not Shakespeare--and, as far as that goes, I am not Lamartine, nor
Dumas, nor Hugo.

However, opposed as I am to the doctrines of Schopenhauer and Leopardi,
I will admit that the shores of the Caspian did seem rather gloomy and
dispiriting. There seemed to be nothing alive on the coast; no
vegetation, no birds. There was nothing to make you think you were on a
great sea. True, the Caspian is only a lake about eighty feet below the
level of the Mediterranean, but this lake is often troubled by violent
storms. A ship cannot "get away," as sailors say: it is only about a
hundred leagues wide. The coast is quickly reached eastward or
westward, and harbors of refuge are not numerous on either the Asiatic
or the European side.

There are a hundred passengers on board the _Astara_--a large number of
them Caucasians trading with Turkestan, and who will be with us all the
way to the eastern provinces of the Celestial Empire.

For some years now the Transcaspian has been running between Uzun Ada
and the Chinese frontier. Even between this part and Samarkand it has
no less than sixty-three stations; and it is in this section of the
line that most of the passengers will alight. I need not worry about
them, and I will lose no time in studying them. Suppose one of them
proves interesting, I may pump him and peg away at him, and just at the
critical moment he will get out.

No! All my attention I must devote to those who are going through with
me. I have already secured Ephrinell, and perhaps that charming
Englishwoman, who seems to me to be going to Pekin. I shall meet with
other traveling companions at Uzun Ada. With regard to the French
couple, there is nothing more at present, but the passage of the
Caspian will not be accomplished before I know something about them.
There are also these two Chinamen who are evidently going to China. If
I only knew a hundred words of the "Kouan-hoa," which is the language
spoken in the Celestial Empire, I might perhaps make something out of
these curious guys. What I really want is some personage with a story,
some mysterious hero traveling _incognito_, a lord or a bandit. I must
not forget my trade as a reporter of occurrences and an interviewer of
mankind--at so much a line and well selected. He who makes a good
choice has a good chance.

I go down the stairs to the saloon aft. There is not a place vacant.
The cabins are already occupied by the passengers who are afraid of the
pitching and rolling. They went to bed as soon as they came on board,
and they will not get up until the boat is alongside the wharf at Uzun
Ada. The cabins being full, other travelers have installed themselves
on the couches, amid a lot of little packages, and they will not move
from there.

As I am going to pass the night on deck, I return up the cabin stairs.
The American is there, just finishing the repacking of his case.

"Would you believe it!" he exclaims, "that that drunken moujik actually
asked me for something to drink?"

"I hope you have lost nothing, Monsieur Ephrinell?" I reply.

"No; fortunately."

"May I ask how many teeth you are importing into China in those cases?"

"Eighteen hundred thousand, without counting the wisdom teeth!"

And Ephrinell began to laugh at this little joke, which he fired off on
several other occasions during the voyage. I left him and went onto the
bridge between the paddle boxes.

It is a beautiful night, with the northerly wind beginning to freshen.
In the offing, long, greenish streaks are sweeping over the surface of
the sea. It is possible that the night may be rougher than we expect.
In the forepart of the steamer are many passengers, Turkomans in rags,
Kirghizes wrapped up to the eyes, moujiks in emigrant costume--poor
fellows, in fact, stretched on the spare spars, against the sides, and
along the tarpaulins. They are almost all smoking or nibbling at the
provisions they have brought for the voyage. The others are trying to
sleep and forget their fatigue, and perhaps their hunger.

It occurs to me to take a stroll among these groups. I am like a hunter
beating the brushwood before getting into the hiding place. And I go
among this heap of packages, looking them over as if I were a custom
house officer.

A rather large deal case, covered with a tarpaulin, attracts my
attention. It measures about a yard and a half in height, and a yard in
width and depth. It has been placed here with the care required by
these words in Russian, written on the side, "Glass--Fragile--Keep from
damp," and then directions, "Top--Bottom," which have been respected.
And then there is the address, "Mademoiselle Zinca Klork, Avenue
Cha-Coua, Pekin, Petchili, China."

This Zinca Klork--her name showed it--ought to be a Roumanian, and she
was taking advantage of this through train on the Grand Transasiatic to
get her glass forwarded. Was this an article in request at the shops of
the Middle Kingdom? How otherwise could the fair Celestials admire
their almond eyes and their elaborate hair?

The bell rang and announced the six-o'clock dinner. The dining-room is
forward. I went down to it, and found it already occupied by some forty
people.

Ephrinell had installed himself nearly in the middle. There was a
vacant seat near him; he beckoned to me to occupy it, and I hastened to
take possession.

Was it by chance? I know not; but the Englishwoman was seated on
Ephrinell's left and talking to him. He introduced me.

"Miss Horatia Bluett," he said.

Opposite I saw the French couple conscientiously studying the bill of
fare.

At the other end of the table, close to where the food came from--and
where the people got served first--was the German passenger, a man
strongly built and with a ruddy face, fair hair, reddish beard, clumsy
hands, and a very long nose which reminded one of the proboscidean
feature of the plantigrades. He had that peculiar look of the officers
of the Landsturm threatened with premature obesity.

"He is not late this time," said I to Ephrinell.

"The dinner hour is never forgotten in the German Empire!" replied the
American.

"Do you know that German's name?"

"Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer."

"And with that name is he going to Pekin?"

"To Pekin, like that Russian major who is sitting near the captain of
the _Astara_."

I looked at the man indicated. He was about fifty years of age, of true
Muscovite type, beard and hair turning gray, face prepossessing. I knew
Russian: he ought to know French. Perhaps he was the fellow traveler of
whom I had dreamed.

"You said he was a major, Mr. Ephrinell?"

"Yes, a doctor in the Russian army, and they call him Major Noltitz."

Evidently the American was some distance ahead of me, and yet he was
not a reporter by profession.

As the rolling was not yet very great, we could dine in comfort.
Ephrinell chatted with Miss Horatia Bluett, and I understood that there
was an understanding between these two perfectly Anglo-Saxon natures.

In fact, one was a traveler in teeth and the other was a traveler in
hair. Miss Horatia Bluett represented an important firm in London,
Messrs. Holmes-Holme, to whom the Celestial Empire annually exports two
millions of female heads of hair. She was going to Pekin on account of
the said firm, to open an office as a center for the collection of the
Chinese hair crop. It seemed a promising enterprise, as the secret
society of the Blue Lotus was agitating for the abolition of the
pigtail, which is the emblem of the servitude of the Chinese to the
Manchu Tartars. "Come," thought I, "if China sends her hair to England,
America sends her teeth: that is a capital exchange, and everything is
for the best."

We had been at the table for a quarter of an hour, and nothing had
happened. The traveler with the smooth complexion and his blonde
companion seemed to listen to us when we spoke in French. It evidently
pleased them, and they were already showing an inclination to join in
our talk. I was not mistaken, then; they are compatriots, but of what
class?

At this moment the _Astara_ gave a lurch. The plates rattled on the
table; the covers slipped; the glasses upset some of their contents;
the hanging lamps swung out of the vertical--or rather our seats and
the table moved in accordance with the roll of the ship. It is a
curious effect, when one is sailor enough to bear it without alarm.

"Eh!" said the American; "here is the good old Caspian shaking her
skin."

"Are you subject to seasickness?" I asked.

"No more than a porpoise," said he. "Are you ever seasick?" he
continued to his neighbor.

"Never," said Miss Horatia Bluett.

On the other side of the table there was an interchange of a few words
in French.

"You are not unwell, Madame Caterna?"

"No, Adolphe, not yet; but if this continues, I am afraid--"

"Well, Caroline, we had better go on deck. The wind has hauled a point
to the eastward, and the _Astara_ will soon be sticking her nose in the
feathers."

His way of expressing himself shows that "Monsieur Caterna"--if that
was his name--was a sailor, or ought to have been one. That explains
the way he rolls his hips as he walks.

The pitching now becomes very violent. The majority of the company
cannot stand it. About thirty of the passengers have left the table for
the deck. I hope the fresh air will do them good. We are now only a
dozen in the dining room, including the captain, with whom Major
Noltitz is quietly conversing. Ephrinell and Miss Bluett seem to be
thoroughly accustomed to these inevitable incidents of navigation. The
German baron drinks and eats as if he had taken up his quarters in some
bier-halle at Munich, or Frankfort, holding his knife in his right
hand, his fork in his left, and making up little heaps of meat, which
he salts and peppers and covers with sauce, and then inserts under his
hairy lip on the point of his knife. Fie! What behavior! And yet he
gets on splendidly, and neither rolling nor pitching makes him lose a
mouthful of food or drink.

A little way off are the two Celestials, whom I watch with curiosity.

One is a young man of distinguished bearing, about twenty-five years
old, of pleasant physiognomy, in spite of his yellow skin and his
narrow eyes. A few years spent in Europe have evidently Europeanized
his manners and even his dress. His mustache is silky, his eye is
intelligent his hair is much more French than Chinese. He seems to me a
nice fellow, of a cheerful temperament, who would not ascend the "Tower
of Regret," as the Chinese have it, oftener than he could help.

His companion, on the contrary, whom he always appears to be making fun
of, is of the type of the true porcelain doll, with the moving head; he
is from fifty to fifty-five years old, like a monkey in the face, the
top of his head half shaven, the pigtail down his back, the traditional
costume, frock, vest, belt, baggy trousers, many-colored slippers; a
China vase of the Green family. He, however, could hold out no longer,
and after a tremendous pitch, accompanied by a long rattle of the
crockery, he got up and hurried on deck. And as he did so, the younger
Chinaman shouted after him, "Cornaro! Cornaro!" at the same time
holding out a little volume he had left on the table.

What was the meaning of this Italian word in an Oriental mouth? Did the
Chinaman speak the language of Boccaccio? The _Twentieth Century_ ought
to know, and it would know.

Madame Caterna arose, very pale, and Monsieur Caterna, a model husband,
followed her on deck.

The dinner over, leaving Ephrinell and Miss Bluett to talk of
brokerages and prices current, I went for a stroll on the poop of the
_Astara_. Night had nearly closed in. The hurrying clouds, driven from
the eastward, draped in deep folds the higher zones of the sky, with
here and there a few stars peeping through. The wind was rising. The
white light of the steamer clicked as it swung on the foremast. The red
and green lights rolled with the ship, and projected their long colored
rays onto the troubled waters.

I met Ephrinell, Miss Horatia Bluett having retired to her cabin; he
was going down into the saloon to find a comfortable corner on one of
the couches. I wished him good night, and he left me after gratifying
me with a similar wish.

As for me, I will wrap myself in my rug and lie down in a corner of the
deck, and sleep like a sailor during his watch below.

It is only eight o'clock. I light my cigar, and with my legs wide
apart, to assure my stability as the ship rolled, I begin to walk up
and down the deck. The deck is already abandoned by the first-class
passengers, and I am almost alone. On the bridge is the mate, pacing
backward and forward, and watching the course he has given to the man
at the wheel, who is close to him. The paddles are impetuously beating
into the sea, and now and then breaking into thunder, as one or the
other of the wheels runs wild, as the rolling lifts it clear of the
water. A thick smoke rises from the funnel, which occasionally belches
forth a shower of sparks.

At nine o'clock the night is very dark. I try to make out some
steamer's lights in the distance, but in vain, for the Caspian has not
many ships on it. I can hear only the cry of the sea birds, gulls and
scoters, who are abandoning themselves to the caprices of the wind.

During my promenade, one thought besets me: is the voyage to end
without my getting anything out of it as copy for my journal? My
instructions made me responsible for producing something, and surely
not without reason. What? Not an adventure from Tiflis to Pekin?
Evidently that could only be my fault! And I resolved to do everything
to avoid such a misfortune.

It is half-past ten when I sit down on one of the seats in the stern of
the _Astara_. But with this increasing wind it is impossible for me to
remain there. I rise, therefore, and make my way forward. Under the
bridge, between the paddle boxes, the wind is so strong that I seek
shelter among the packages covered by the tarpaulin. Stretched on one
of the boxes, wrapped in my rug, with my head resting against the
tarpaulin, I shall soon be asleep.

After some time, I do not exactly know how much, I am awakened by a
curious noise. Whence comes this noise? I listen more attentively. It
seems as though some one is snoring close to my ear.

"That is some steerage passenger," I think. "He has got under the
tarpaulin between the cases, and he will not do so badly in his
improvised cabin."

By the light which filters down from the lower part of the binnacle, I
see nothing.

I listen again. The noise has ceased.

I look about. There is no one on this part of the deck, for the
second-class passengers are all forward.

Then I must have been dreaming, and I resume my position and try again
to sleep.

This time there is no mistake. The snoring has begun again, and I am
sure it is coming from the case against which I am leaning my head.

"Goodness!" I say. "There must be an animal in here!"

An animal? What? A dog? A cat? Why have they hidden a domestic animal
in this case? Is it a wild animal? A panther, a tiger, a lion?

Now I am off on the trail! It must be a wild animal on its way from
some menagerie to some sultan of Central Asia. This case is a cage, and
if the cage opens, if the animal springs out onto the deck--here is an
incident, here is something worth chronicling; and here I am with my
professional enthusiasm running mad. I must know at all costs to whom
this wild beast is being sent; is it going to Uzon Ada, or is it going
to China? The address ought to be on the case.

I light a wax vesta, and as I am sheltered from the wind, the flame
keeps upright.

By its light what do I read?

The case containing the wild beast is the very one with the address:

"_Mademoiselle Zinca Klork, Avenue Cha-Coua, Pekin, China."_

_Fragile_, my wild beast! _Keep from damp_, my lion! Quite so! But for
what does Miss Zinca Klork, this pretty--for the Roumanian ought to be
pretty, and she is certainly a Roumanian--for what does she want a wild
beast sent in this way?

Let us think about it and be reasonable. This animal, whatever it may
be, must eat and drink. From the time it starts from Uzon Ada it will
take eleven days to cross Asia, and reach the capital of the Celestial
Empire. Well, what do they give it to drink, what do they give it to
eat, if he is not going to get out of his cage, if he is going to be
shut up during the whole of the journey? The officials of the Grand
Transasiatic will be no more careful in their attentions to the said
wild beast than if he were a glass, for he is described as such; and he
will die of inanition!

All these things sent my brain whirling. My thoughts bewildered me. "Is
it a lovely dream that dazes me, or am I awake?" as Margaret says in
Faust, more lyrically than dramatically. To resist is impossible. I
have a two-pound weight on each eyelid. I lay down along by the
tarpaulin; my rug wraps me more closely, and I fall into a deep sleep.

How long have I slept? Perhaps for three or four hours. One thing is
certain, and that is that it is not yet daylight when I awake.

I rub my eyes, I rise, I go and lean against the rail.

The _Astara_ is not so lively, for the wind has shifted to the
northeast.

The night is cold. I warm myself by walking about briskly for half an
hour. I think no more of my wild beast. Suddenly remembrance returns to
me. Should I not call the attention of the stationmaster to this
disquieting case? But that is no business of mine. We shall see before
we start.

I look at my watch. It is only three o'clock in the morning. I will go
back to my place. And I do so with my head against the side of the
case. I shut my eyes.

Suddenly there is a new sound. This time I am not mistaken. A
half-stifled sneeze shakes the side of the case. Never did an animal
sneeze like that!

Is it possible? A human being is hidden in this case and is being
fraudulently carried by the Grand Transasiatic to the pretty Roumanian!
But is it a man or a woman? It seems as though the sneeze had a
masculine sound about it.

It is impossible to sleep now. How long the day is coming! How eager I
am to examine this box! I wanted incidents--well! and here is one, and
if I do not get five lines out of this--

The eastern horizon grows brighter. The clouds in the zenith are the
first to color. The sun appears at last all watery with the mists of
the sea.

I look; it is indeed the case addressed to Pekin. I notice that certain
holes are pierced here and there, by which the air inside can be
renewed. Perhaps two eyes are looking through these holes, watching
what is going on outside? Do not be indiscreet!

At breakfast gather all the passengers whom the sea has not affected:
the young Chinaman, Major Noltitz, Ephrinell, Miss Bluett, Monsieur
Caterna, the Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer, and seven or eight other
passengers. I am careful not to let the American into the secret of the
case. He would be guilty of some indiscretion, and then good-by to my
news par!

About noon the land is reported to the eastward, a low, yellowish land,
with no rocky margin, but a few sandhills in the neighborhood of
Krasnovodsk.

In an hour we are in sight of Uzun Ada, and twenty-seven minutes
afterward we set foot in Asia.




CHAPTER V.


Travelers used to land at Mikhailov, a little port at the end of the
Transcaspian line; but ships of moderate tonnage hardly had water
enough there to come alongside. On this account, General Annenkof, the
creator of the new railway, the eminent engineer whose name will
frequently recur in my narrative, was led to found Uzun Ada, and
thereby considerably shorten the crossing of the Caspian. The station
was built in three months, and it was opened on the 8th of May, 1886.

Fortunately I had read the account given by Boulangier, the engineer,
relating to the prodigious work of General Annenkof, so that I shall
not be so very much abroad during the railway journey between Uzun Ada
and Samarkand, and, besides, I trust to Major Noltitz, who knows all
about the matter. I have a presentiment that we shall become good
friends, and in spite of the proverb which says, "Though your friend be
of honey do not lick him!" I intend to "lick" my companion often enough
for the benefit of my readers.

We often hear of the extraordinary rapidity with which the Americans
have thrown their railroads across the plains of the Far West. But the
Russians are in no whit behind them, if even they have not surpassed
them in rapidity as well as in industrial audacity.

People are fully acquainted with the adventurous campaign of General
Skobeleff against the Turkomans, a campaign of which the building of
the railway assured the definite success. Since then the political
state of Central Asia has been entirely changed, and Turkestan is
merely a province of Asiatic Russia, extending to the frontiers of the
Chinese Empire. And already Chinese Turkestan is very visibly
submitting to the Muscovite influence which the vertiginous heights of
the Pamir plateau have not been able to check in its civilizing march.

I was about to cross the countries which were formerly ravaged by
Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, those fabulous countries of which the
Russians in 1886 possessed six hundred and fifteen thousand square
kilometres, with thirteen hundred thousand inhabitants. The southern
part of this region now forms the Transcaspian province, divided into
six districts, Fort Alexandrovski, Krasnovodsk, Askhabad, Karibent,
Merv, Pendjeh, governed by Muscovite colonels or lieutenant-colonels.

As may be imagined, it hardly takes an hour to see Uzun Ada, the name
of which means Long Island. It is almost a town, but a modern town,
traced with a square, drawn with a line or a large carpet of yellow
sand. No monuments, no memories, bridges of planks, houses of wood, to
which comfort is beginning to add a few mansions in stone. One can see
what this, first station of the Transcaspian will be like in fifty
years; a great city after having been a great railway station.

Do not think that there are no hotels. Among others there is the Hôtel
du Czar, which has a good table, good rooms and good beds. But the
question of beds has no interest for me. As the train starts at four
o'clock this afternoon, to begin with, I must telegraph to the
_Twentieth Century,_ by the Caspian cable, that I am at my post at the
Uzun Ada station. That done, I can see if I can pick up anything worth
reporting.

Nothing is more simple. It consists in opening an account with those of
my companions with whom I may have to do during the journey. That is my
custom, I always find it answers, and while waiting for the unknown, I
write down the known in my pocketbook, with a number to distinguish
each:

     1. Fulk Ephrinell, American.
     2. Miss Horatia Bluett, English.
     3. Major Noltitz, Russian.
     4. Monsieur Caterna, French.
     5. Madame Caterna, French.
     6. Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer, German.

As to the Chinese, they will have a number later on, when I have made
up my mind about them. As to the individual in the box, I intend to
enter into communication with him, or her, and to be of assistance in
that quarter if I can do so without betraying the secret.

The train is already marshaled in the station. It is composed of first
and second-class cars, a restaurant car and two baggage vans. These
cars are painted of a light color, an excellent precaution against the
heat and against the cold. For in the Central Asian provinces the
temperature ranges between fifty degrees centigrade above zero and
twenty below, and in a range of seventy degrees it is only prudent to
minimize the effects.

These cars are in a convenient manner joined together by gangways, on
the American plan. Instead of being shut up in a compartment, the
traveler strolls about along the whole length of the train. There is
room to pass between the stuffed seats, and in the front and rear of
each car are the platforms united by the gangways. This facility of
communication assures the security of the train.

Our engine has a bogie on four small wheels, and is thus able to
negotiate the sharpest curves; a tender with water and fuel; then come a
front van, three first-class cars with twenty-four places each, a
restaurant car with pantry and kitchen, four second-class cars and a
rear van; in all twelve vehicles, counting in the locomotive and tender.
The first class cars are provided with dressing rooms, and their seats,
by very simple mechanism, are convertible into beds, which, in fact, are
indispensable for long journeys. The second-class travelers are not so
comfortably treated, and besides, they have to bring their victuals with
them, unless they prefer to take their meals at the stations. There are
not many, however, who travel the complete journey between the Caspian
and the eastern provinces of China--that is to say about six thousand
kilometres. Most of them go to the principal towns and villages of
Russian Turkestan, which have been reached by the Transcaspian Railway
for some years, and which up to the Chinese frontier has a length of
over 1,360 miles.

This Grand Transasiatic has only been open six weeks and the company is
as yet only running two trains a week. All has gone well up to the
present; but I ought to add the significant detail that the railway men
carry a supply of revolvers to arm the passengers with if necessary.
This is a wise precaution in crossing the Chinese deserts, where an
attack on the train is not improbable.

I believe the company are doing their best to ensure the punctuality of
their trains; but the Chinese section is managed by Celestials, and who
knows what has been the past life of those people? Will they not be
more intent on the security of their dividends than of their passengers?

As I wait for the departure I stroll about on the platform, looking
through the windows of the cars, which have no doors along the sides,
the entrances being at the ends.

Everything is new; the engine is as bright as it can be, the carriages
are brilliant in their new paint, their springs have not begun to give
with wear, and their wheels run true on the rails. Then there is the
rolling stock with which we are going to cross a continent. There is no
railway as long as this--not even in America. The Canadian line
measures five thousand kilometres, the Central Union, five thousand two
hundred and sixty, the Santa Fe line, four thousand eight hundred and
seventy-five, the Atlantic Pacific, five thousand six hundred and
thirty, the Northern Pacific, six thousand two hundred and fifty. There
is only one line which will be longer when it is finished, and that is
the Grand Transsiberian, from the Urals to Vladivostock, which will
measure six thousand five hundred kilometres.

Between Tiflis and Pekin our journey will not last more than thirteen
days, from Uzun Ada it will only last eleven. The train will only stop
at the smaller stations to take in fuel and water. At the chief towns
like Merv, Bokhara, Samarkand, Tashkend, Kachgar, Kokhand, Sou Tcheou,
Lan Tcheou, Tai Youan, it will stop a few hours--and that will enable
me to do these towns in reporter style.

Of course, the same driver and stoker will not take us through. They
will be relieved every six hours. Russians will take us up to the
frontier of Turkestan, and Chinese will take us on through China.

But there is one representative of the company who will not leave his
post, and that is Popof, our head guard, a true Russian of soldierly
bearing, hairy and bearded, with a folded overcoat and a Muscovite cap.
I intend to talk a good deal with this gallant fellow, although he is
not very talkative. If he does not despise a glass of vodka,
opportunity offered, he may have a good deal to say to me; for ten
years he has been on the Transcaspian between Uzun Ada and the Pamirs,
and during the last month he has been all along the line to Pekin.

I call him No. 7 in my notebook, and I hope he will give me information
enough. I only want a few incidents of the journey, just a few little
incidents worthy of the _Twentieth Century._

Among the passengers I see on the platform are a few Jews, recognizable
more by their faces than their attire. Formerly, in Central Asia, they
could only wear the "toppe," a sort of round cap, and a plain rope
belt, without any silk ornamentation--under pain of death. And I am
told that they could ride on asses in certain towns and walk on foot in
others. Now they wear the oriental turban and roll in their carriages
if their purse allows of it. Who would hinder them now they are
subjects of the White Czar, Russian citizens, rejoicing in civil and
political rights equal to those of their Turkoman compatriots?

There are a few Tadjiks of Persian origin, the handsomest men you can
imagine. They have booked for Merv, or Bokhara, or Samarkand, or
Tachkend, or Kokhand, and will not pass the Russo-Chinese frontier. As
a rule they are second-class passengers. Among the first-class
passengers I noticed a few Usbegs of the ordinary type, with retreating
foreheads and prominent cheek bones, and brown complexions, who were
the lords of the country, and from whose families come the emirs and
khans of Central Asia.

But are there not any Europeans in this Grand Transasiatic train? It
must be confessed that I can only count five or six. There are a few
commercial travelers from South Russia, and one of those inevitable
gentlemen from the United Kingdom, who are inevitably to be found on
the railways and steamboats. It is still necessary to obtain permission
to travel on the Transcaspian, permission which the Russian
administration does not willingly accord to an Englishman; but this man
has apparently been able to get one.

And he seems to me to be worth notice. He is tall and thin, and looks
quite the fifty years that his gray hairs proclaim him to be. His
characteristic expression is one of haughtiness, or rather disdain,
composed in equal parts of love of all things English and contempt for
all things that are not. This type is occasionally so insupportable,
even to his compatriots, that Dickens, Thackeray and others have often
made fun of it. How he turned up his nose at the station at Uzun Ada,
at the train, at the men, at the car in which he had secured a seat by
placing in it his traveling bag! Let us call him No. 8 in my pocketbook.

There seem to be no personages of importance. That is a pity. If only
the Emperor of Russia, on one side, or the Son of Heaven, on the other,
were to enter the train to meet officially on the frontier of the two
empires, what festivities there would be, what grandeur, what
descriptions, what copy for letters and telegrams!

It occurs to me to have a look at the mysterious box. Has it not a
right to be so called? Yes, certainly. I must really find out where it
has been put and how to get at it easily.

The front van is already full of Ephrinell's baggage. It does not open
at the side, but in front and behind, like the cars. It is also
furnished with a platform and a gangway. An interior passage allows the
guard to go through it to reach the tender and locomotive if necessary.
Popof's little cabin is on the platform of the first car, in the
left-hand corner. At night it will be easy for me to visit the van, for
it is only shut in by the doors at the ends of the passage arranged
between the packages. If this van is reserved for luggage registered
through to China, the luggage for the Turkestan stations ought to be in
the van at the rear.

When I arrived the famous box was still on the platform.

In looking at it closely I observe that airholes have been bored on
each of its sides, and that on one side it has two panels, one of which
can be made to slide on the other from the inside. And I am led to
think that the prisoner has had it made so in order that he can, if
necessary, leave his prison--probably during the night.

Just now the porters are beginning to lift the box. I have the
satisfaction of seeing that they attend to the directions inscribed on
it. It is placed, with great care, near the entrance to the van, on the
left, the side with the panels outward, as if it were the door of a
cupboard. And is not the box a cupboard? A cupboard I propose to open?

It remains to be seen if the guard in charge of the luggage is to
remain in this van. No. I find that his post is just outside it.

"There it is, all right!" said one of the porters, looking to see that
the case was as it should be, top where top should be, and so on.

"There is no fear of its moving," said another porter; "the glass will
reach Pekin all right, unless the train runs off the metals."

"Or it does not run into anything," said the other; "and that remains
to be seen."

They were right--these good fellows--it remained to be seen--and it
would be seen.

The American came up to me and took a last look at his stock of
incisors, molars and canines, with a repetition of his invariable "Wait
a bit."

"You know, Monsieur Bombarnac," he said to me, "that the passengers are
going to dine at the Hôtel du Czar before the departure of the train.
It is time now. Will you come with me?"

"I follow you."

And we entered the dining room. All my numbers are there: 1, Ephrinell,
taking his place as usual by the side of 2, Miss Horatia Bluett. The
French couple, 4 and 5, are also side by side. Number 3, that is Major
Noltitz, is seated in front of numbers 9 and 10, the two Chinese to
whom I have just given numbers in my notebook. As to the fat German,
number 6, he has already got his long nose into his soup plate. I see
also that the Guard Popol, number 7, has his place at the foot of the
table. The other passengers, Europeans and Asiatics, are installed,
_passim_ with the evident intention of doing justice to the repast.

Ah! I forgot my number 8, the disdainful gentleman whose name I don't
yet know, and who seems determined to find the Russian cookery inferior
to the English.

I also notice with what attention Monsieur Caterna looks after his
wife, and encourages her to make up for the time lost when she was
unwell on board the _Astara_. He keeps her glass filled, he chooses the
best pieces for her, etc.

"What a good thing it is," I hear him say, "that we are not to leeward
of the Teuton, for there would be nothing left for us!"

He is to windward of him--that is to say, the dishes reach him before
they get to the baron, which, however, does not prevent his clearing
them without shame.

The observation, in sea language, made me smile, and Caterna, noticing
it, gave me a wink with a slight movement of the shoulder toward the
baron.

It is evident that these French people are not of high distinction,
they do not belong to the upper circles; but they are good people, I
will answer for it, and when we have to rub shoulders with compatriots,
we must not be too particular in Turkestan.

The dinner ends ten minutes before the time fixed for our departure.
The bell rings and we all make a move for the train, the engine of
which is blowing off steam.

Mentally, I offer a last prayer to the God of reporters and ask him not
to spare me adventures. Then, after satisfying myself that all my
numbers are in the first-class cars, so that I can keep an eye on them,
I take my place.

The Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer--what an interminable name--is not
behindhand this time. On the contrary, it is the train this time which
is five minutes late in starting; and the German has begun to complain,
to chafe and to swear, and threatens to sue the company for damages.
Ten thousand roubles--not a penny less!--if it causes him to fail. Fail
in what, considering that he is going to Pekin?

At length the last shriek of the whistle cleaves the air, the cars
begin to move, and a loud cheer salutes the departure of the Grand
Transasiatic express.




CHAPTER VI.


The ideas of a man on horseback are different to those which occur to
him when he is on foot. The difference is even more noticeable when he
is on the railway. The association of his thoughts, the character of
his reflections are all affected by the speed of the train. They "roll"
in his head, as he rolls in his car. And so it comes about that I am in
a particularly lively mood, desirous of observing, greedy of
instruction, and that at a speed of thirty-one miles an hour. That is
the rate at which we are to travel through Turkestan, and when we reach
the Celestial Empire we shall have to be content with eighteen.

That is what I have just ascertained by consulting my time-table, which
I bought at the station. It is accompanied by a long slip map, folded
and refolded on itself, which shows the whole length of the line
between the Caspian and the eastern coast of China. I study, then, my
Transasiatic, on leaving Uzun Ada, just as I studied my Transgeorgian
when I left Tiflis.

The gauge of the line is about sixty-three inches--as is usual on the
Russian lines, which are thus about four inches wider than those of
other European countries. It is said, with regard to this, that the
Germans have made a great number of axles of this length, in case they
have to invade Russia. I should like to think that the Russians have
taken the same precautions in the no less probable event of their
having to invade Germany.

On either side of the line are long sandhills, between which the train
runs out from Uzun Ada; when it reaches the arm of the sea which
separates Long Island from the continent, it crosses an embankment
about 1,200 yards long, edged with masses of rock to protect it against
the violence of the waves.

We have already passed several stations without stopping, among others
Mikhailov, a league from Uzun Ada. Now they are from ten to eleven
miles apart. Those I have seen, as yet, look like villas, with
balustrades and Italian roofs, which has a curious effect in Turkestan
and the neighborhood of Persia. The desert extends up to the
neighborhood of Uzun Ada, and the railway stations form so many little
oases, made by the hand of man. It is man, in fact, who has planted
these slender, sea-green poplars, which give so little shade; it is man
who, at great expense, has brought here the water whose refreshing jets
fall back into an elegant vase. Without these hydraulic works there
would not be a tree, not a corner of green in these oases. They are the
nurses of the line, and dry-nurses are of no use to locomotives.

The truth is that I have never seen such a bare, arid country, so clear
of vegetation; and it extends for one hundred and fifty miles from Uzun
Ada. When General Annenkof commenced his works at Mikhailov, he was
obliged to distil the water from the Caspian Sea, as if he were on
board ship. But if water is necessary to produce steam, coal is
necessary to vaporize the water. The readers of the _Twentieth Century_
will ask how are the furnaces fed in a country in which there is
neither coal nor wood? Are there stores of these things at the
principal stations of the Transcaspian? Not at all. They have simply
put in practice an idea which occurred to our great chemist,
Sainte-Claire Deville, when first petroleum was used in France. The
furnaces are fed, by the aid of a pulverizing apparatus, with the
residue produced from the distillation of the naphtha, which Baku and
Derbent produce in such inexhaustible quantities. At certain stations
on the line there are vast reservoirs of this combustible mineral, from
which the tenders are filled, and it is burned in specially adapted
fireboxes. In a similar way naphtha is used on the steamboats on the
Volga and the other affluents of the Caspian.

I repeat, the country is not particularly varied. The ground is nearly
flat in the sandy districts, and quite flat in the alluvial plains,
where the brackish water stagnates in pools. Nothing could be better
for a line of railway. There are no cuttings, no embankments, no
viaducts, no works of art--to use a term dear to engineers, very
"dear," I should say. Here and there are a few wooden bridges from two
hundred to three hundred feet long. Under such circumstances the cost
per kilometre of the Transcaspian did not exceed seventy-five thousand
francs.

The monotony of the journey would only be broken on the vast oases of
Merv, Bokhara and Samarkand.

But let us busy ourselves with the passengers, as we can do all the
more easily from our being able to walk from one end to the other of
the train. With a little imagination we can make ourselves believe we
are in a sort of traveling village, and I am just going to take a run
down main street.

Remember that the engine and tender are followed by the van at the
angle of which is placed the mysterious case, and that Popof's
compartment is in the left-hand corner of the platform of the first car.

Inside this car I notice a few Sarthes of tall figure and haughty face,
draped in their long robes of bright colors, from beneath which appear
the braided leather boots. 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 old one--Ta-lao-ye,
that is to say, a person well advanced in years--is incessantly turning
over the pages of his book. This volume, a small 32mo, looks like our
_Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes_, and is covered in plush, like a
breviary, and when it is shut its covers are kept in place by an
elastic band. What astonishes me is that the proprietor of this little
book does not seem to read it from right to left. Is it not written in
Chinese characters? We must see into this!

On two adjoining seats are Ephrinell and Miss Horatia Bluett. Their
talk is of nothing but figures. I don't know if the practical American
murmurs at the ear of the practical Englishwoman the adorable verse
which made the heart of Lydia palpitate:

                   "Nee tecum possum vivere sine te,"

but I do know that Ephrinell can very well live without me. I have been
quite right in not reckoning on his company to charm away the tedium of
the journey. The Yankee has completely "left" me--that is the word--for
this angular daughter of Albion.

I reach the platform. I cross the gangway and I am at the door of the
second car.

In the right-hand corner is Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer. His long
nose--this Teuton is as short-sighted as a mole--rubs the lines of the
book he reads. The book is the time-table. The impatient traveler is
ascertaining if the train passes the stations at the stated time.
Whenever it is behind there are new recriminations and menaces against
the Grand Transasiatic Company.

In this car there are also the Caternas, who have made themselves quite
comfortable. In his cheery way, the husband is talking with a good deal
of gesticulation, sometimes touching his wife's hands, sometimes
putting his arms round her waist; and then he turns his head toward the
platform and says something aside. Madame Caterna leans toward him,
makes little confused grimaces, and then leans back into the corner and
seems to reply to her husband, who in turn replies to her. And as I
leave I hear the chorus of an operetta in the deep voice of Monsieur
Caterna.

In the third car, occupied by many Turkomans and three or four
Russians, I perceive Major Noltitz. He is talking with one of his
countrymen. I will willingly join in their conversation if they make me
any advances, but I had better maintain a certain reserve; the journey
has only begun.

I then visit the dining car. It is a third longer than the other cars,
a regular dining room, with one long table. At the back is a pantry on
one side, a kitchen on the other, where the cook and steward are at
work, both of them Russians. This dining car appears to me capitally
arranged. Passing through it, I reach the second part of the train,
where the second-class passengers are installed. Kirghizes who do not
look very intelligent with their depressed heads, their prognathous
jaws stuck well out in front, their little beards, flat Cossack noses
and very brown skins. These wretched fellows are Mahometans and belong
either to the Grand Horde wandering on the frontier between China and
Siberia, or to the Little Horde between the Ural Mountains and the Aral
Sea. A second-class car, or even a third-class car, is a palace for
these people, accustomed to the encampments on the Steppes, to the
miserable "iourts" of villages. Neither their beds nor their seats are
as good as the stuffed benches on which they have seated themselves
with true Asiatic gravity.

With them are two or three Nogais going to Eastern Turkestan. Of a
higher race than the Kirghizes, being Tartars, it is from them that
come the learned men and professors who have made illustrious the
opulent cities of Bokhara and Samarkand. But science and its teaching
do not yield much of a livelihood, even when reduced to the mere
necessaries of life, in these provinces of Central Asia. And so these
Nogais take employment as interpreters. Unfortunately, since the
diffusion of the Russian language, their trade is not very remunerative.

Now I know the places of my numbers, and I know where to find them when
I want them. As to those going through to Pekin, I have no doubt of
Ephrinell and Miss Horatia Bluett nor the German baron, nor the two
Chinese, nor Major Noltitz, nor the Caternas, nor even for the haughty
gentleman whose bony outline I perceive in the corner of the second car.

As to these travelers who are not going across the frontier, they are
of most perfect insignificance in my eyes. But among my companions I
have not yet found the hero of my chronicle! let us hope he will
declare himself as we proceed.

My intention is to take notes hour by hour--what did I say? To "minute"
my journey. Before the night closes in I go out on the platform of the
car to have a last look at the surrounding country. 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.

Popof is not just now in his seat. The door of the luggage van being
open, I conclude that the guard has gone to talk with the driver. On
the left of the van the mysterious box is in its place. It is only
half-past six as yet, and there is too much daylight for me to risk the
gratification of my curiosity.

The train advances through the open desert. This is the Kara Koum, the
Black Desert. It extends from Khiva over all Turkestan comprised
between the Persian frontier and the course of the Amou Daria. In
reality the sands of the Kara Koum are no more black than the waters of
the Black Sea or than those of the White Sea are white, those of the
Red Sea red, or those of the Yellow River yellow. But I like these
colored distinctions, however erroneous they may be. In landscapes the
eye is caught by colors. And is there not a good deal of landscape
about geography?

It appears that this desert was formerly occupied by a huge central
basin. It has dried up, as the Caspian will dry up, and this
evaporation is explained by the powerful concentration of the solar
rays on the surface of the territories between the Sea of Aral and the
Plateau of the Pamir.

The Kara Koum is formed of low sandy hills which the high winds are
constantly shifting and forming. These "barkans," as the Russians call
them, vary in height from thirty to ninety feet. They expose a wide
surface to the northern hurricanes which drive them gradually
southward. And on this account there is a well-justified fear for the
safety of the Transcaspian. It had to be protected in some efficacious
way, and General Annenkof would have been much embarrassed if provident
Nature had not, at the same time as she gave the land favorable for the
railway to be laid along, given the means of stopping the shifting of
the barkanes.

Behind these sand hills grow a number of spring shrubs, clumps of
tamarisk, star thistles, and that _Haloxylon ammodendron_ which
Russians call, not so scientifically, "saksaoul." Its deep, strong
roots are as well adapted for binding together the ground as those of
_Hippophaë rhamnoides_, an arbutus of the Eleagnaceous family, which is
used for binding together the sands in southern Europe.

To these plantations of saksaouls the engineers of the line have added
in different places a series of slopes of worked clay, and in the most
dangerous places a line of palisades.

These precautions are doubtless of use; but if the road is protected,
the passengers are hardly so, when the sand flies like a bullet hail,
and the wind sweeps up from the plain the whitish efflorescences of
salt. It is a good thing for us that we are not in the height of the
hot season; and it is not in June or July or August that I would advise
you to take a trip on the Grand Transasiatic.

I am sorry that Major Noltitz does not think of coming out on the
gangway to breathe the fresh air of the Kara Koum. I would offer him
one of those choice regalias with which my case is well provided. He
would tell me if these stations I see on my time-table, Balla-Ischem,
Aïdine, Pereval, Kansandjik, Ouchak, are of any interest--which they do
not seem to be. But it would not do for me to disturb his siesta. And
yet his conversation ought to be interesting, for as a surgeon in the
Russian army he took part in the campaigns of Generals Skobeleff and
Annenkof. When our train ran through the little stations that it honors
only with a whistle, he could tell me if this one or that one had been
the scene of any incident of the war. As a Frenchman I am justified in
questioning him about the Russian expedition across Turkestan, and I
have no doubt that my fellow passenger will be pleased to gratify me.
He is the only one I can really trust besides Popof.

But why is Popof not in his seat? He also is not insensible to the
charms of a cigar. It would seem that his conversation with the
engineer has not finished yet.

Ah! Here he is coming from the front of the luggage van. He comes out
of it and shuts the door; he remains for a moment and is about to take
a seat. A hand which holds a cigar, is stretched out toward him. 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.

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. Now the road through Turkestan
joins the road through the Celestial Empire, and the ribbon of iron
extends without interruption from the Caspian Sea to Pekin.

When Popof had given me this information, I asked if he knew anything
of our fellow travelers, I meant those who were going through to China.
And in the first place of Major Noltitz?

"The major," said Popof, "has lived a long time in the Turkestan
provinces, and he is going to Pekin to organize the staff of a hospital
for our compatriots, with the permission of the Czar, of course."

"I like this Major Noltitz," I said, "and I hope to make his
acquaintance very soon."

"He would be equally pleased to make yours," replied Popof.

"And these two Chinese, do you know them?"

"Not in the least, Monsieur Bombarnac; all I know is the name on the
luggage."

"What is that?"

"The younger man's name is Pan-Chao, the elder's is Tio-King. Probably
they have been traveling in Europe for some years. As to saying where
they come from, I cannot. I imagine that Pan-Chao belongs to some rich
family, for he is accompanied by his doctor."

"This Tio-King?"

"Yes, Doctor Tio-King."

"And do they only speak Chinese?"

"Probably; I have not heard them speak any other language together."

On this information from Popof, I will keep to the number nine I have
given to young Pan-Chao, and to the ten with which I have labelled
Doctor Tio-King.

"The American," began Popof.

"Ephrinell?" I exclaimed, "and Miss Horatia Bluett, the Englishwoman?
Oh! You can tell me nothing about them I don't know."

"Shall I tell you what I think about that couple, Monsieur Bombarnac?"

"What do you think?"

"That as soon as they reach Pekin, Miss Bluett will become Mrs.
Ephrinell."

"And may Heaven bless their union, Popof, for they are really made for
each other."

I saw that on this subject Popof and I held similar ideas.

"And the two French people, that couple so affectionate." I asked, "who
are they?"

"Have they not told you?"

"No, Popof."

"You need not be anxious, Monsieur Bombarnac. Besides, if you wish to
know their profession, it is written at full length on all their
luggage.

"And that is?"

"Stage people who are going to a theater in China."

Stage people! If that explains the attitudes, and mobile physiognomy,
and demonstrative gestures of Caterna, it does not explain his maritime
allusions.

"And do you know what line these players are in?"

"The husband is comic lead."

"And the wife?"

"She is leading lady."

"And where are these lyrical people going?"

"To Shanghai, where they have an engagement at the French theater."

That is capital. I will talk about the theater, and behind the scenes,
and such matters, and, as Popof said, I shall soon make the
acquaintance of the cheery comedian and his charming wife. But it is
not in their company that I shall discover the hero of romance who is
the object of my desire.

As to the scornful gentleman, our guide knew nothing beyond that his
luggage bore the address in full: Sir Francis Trevellyan, Trevellyan
Hall, Trevellyanshire.

"A gentleman who does not answer when he is spoken to!" added Popof.

Well, my number eight will have to be dumb man, and that will do very
well.

"Now we get to the German," said I.

"Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer?"

"He is going to Pekin, I think."

"To Pekin and beyond."

"Beyond?"

"Yes; he is on a trip round the world."

"A trip round the world?"

"In thirty-nine days."

And so after Mrs. Bisland who did the famous tour in seventy-three
days, and Train who did it in seventy, this German was attempting to do
it in thirty-nine?

True, the means of communication are more rapid the line is more
direct, and by using the Grand Transasiatic which puts Pekin within a
fortnight of the Prussian capital, the baron might halve the old time
by Suez and Singapore--but--

"He will never do it!" I exclaimed.

"Why not?" asked Popof.

"Because he is always late. He nearly missed the train at Tiflis, he
nearly missed the boat at Baku--"

"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."

*     *     *     *     *




CHAPTER VII.


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.

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. My good
fortune furnished me with a companion, or I should rather say a guide,
in Major Noltitz.

Our acquaintance was made very simply. The major came up to me, and I
went up to him as soon as we set foot on the platform of the railway
station.

"Sir," said I, "I am a Frenchman, Claudius Bombarnac, special
correspondent of the _Twentieth Century_, and you are Major Noltitz of
the Russian army. You are going to Pekin, so am I. I can speak your
language, and it is very likely that you can speak mine."

The major made a sign of assent.

"Well, Major Noltitz, instead of remaining strangers to each other
during the long transit of Central Asia, would it please you for us to
become more than mere traveling companions? You know all about this
country that I do not know, and it would be a pleasure for me to learn
from you."

"Monsieur Bombarnac," replied the major in French, without a trace of
accent, "I quite agree with you."

Then he added with a smile:

"As to learning from me, one of your most eminent critics, if I
remember rightly, has said that the French only like to learn what they
know."

"I see that you have read Sainte Beuve, Major Noltitz; perhaps this
sceptical academician was right in a general way. But for my part, I am
an exception to the rule, and I wish to learn what I do not know. And
in all that concerns Russian Turkestan, I am in a state of ignorance."

"I am entirely at your disposal," said the major, "and I will be happy
to tell you all about General Annenkof, for I was all through the work
with him."

"I thank you, Major Noltitz. I expected no less than the courtesy of a
Russian towards a Frenchman."

"And," said the major, "if you will allow me to quote that celebrated
sentence in the _Danicheffs_, 'It will be always thus so long as there
are Frenchmen and Russians.'"

"The younger Dumas after Sainte Beuve?" I exclaimed. "I see, major,
that I am talking to a Parisian--"

"Of Petersburg, Monsieur Bombarnac."

And we cordially shook hands. 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. But before telling me how this extraordinary work was
accomplished, Major Noltitz reminded me of the facts which had
gradually prepared the conquest of Turkestan and its definite
incorporation with the Russian Empire.

As far back as 1854 the Russians had imposed a treaty of alliance on
the Khan of Khiva. Some years afterwards, eager to pursue their march
towards the east, the campaigns of 1860 and 1864 had given them the
Khanats of Kokhand and Bokhara. Two years later, Samarkand passed under
their dominion after the battles of Irdjar and Zera-Buleh.

There remained to be conquered the southern portion of Turkestan, and
chiefly the oasis of Akhal Tekke, which is contiguous to Persia.
Generals Sourakine and Lazareff attempted this in their expeditions of
1878 and 1879. Their plans failed, and it was to the celebrated
Skobeleff, the hero of Plevna, that the czar confided the task of
subduing the valiant Turkoman tribes.

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.

This is how the Russians built the line with a rapidity superior, as I
have said, to that of the Americans in the far west, a line that was to
be of use for commerce and for war.

To begin with, the general got together a construction train consisting
of thirty-four wagons. Four of these were two-decked for the officers,
twenty more had two decks and were used by the workmen and soldiers;
one wagon served as a dining room, four as kitchens, one as an
ambulance, one as a telegraph office, one as a forge, one as a
provision store, and one was held in reserve. These were his traveling
workshops and also his barracks in which fifteen hundred workmen,
soldiers and otherwise, found their board and lodging. The train
advanced as the rails were laid. The workmen were divided into two
brigades; they each worked six hours a day, with the assistance of the
country people who lived in tents and numbered about fifteen thousand.
A telegraph wire united the works with Mikhailov, and from there a
little Decauville engine worked the trains which brought along the
rails and sleepers.

In this way, helped by the horizontality of the ground, a day's work
yielded nearly five miles of track, whereas in the plains of the United
States only about half that rate was accomplished. 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. This town did not
surrender until after the destruction of its ramparts and the massacre
of twelve thousand of its defenders; but the oasis of Akhal Tekke was
in the power of the Russians. The inhabitants of the Atek oasis were
only too ready to submit, and that all the more willingly as they had
implored the help of the czar in their struggle with Kouli Khan, the
chief of the Mervians. These latter to the number of two hundred and
fifty thousand, followed their example, and the first locomotive
entered Merv station in July, 1886.

"And the English?" I asked Major Noltitz. "In what way have they looked
upon the progress of the Russians through Central Asia?"

"Jealously, of course. Think for a moment what it means when the
Russian railways are united with the Chinese, instead of the Indian.
The Transcaspian in connection with the line between Herat and Delhi!
And consider that the English have not been as fortunate in Afghanistan
as we have been in Turkestan. You have noticed the gentleman in our
train?"

"I have. He is Sir Francis Trevellyan of Trevellyan Hall,
Trevellyanshire."

"Well, Sir Francis Trevellyan has nothing but looks of contempt and
shrugs of the shoulder for all we have done. His nation's jealousy is
incarnate in him, and England will never be content that our railways
should go from Europe to the Pacific Ocean, while the British railways
end at the Indian Ocean."

This interesting conversation had lasted for the hour and a half during
which we walked about the streets of Kizil Arvat. It was time to return
to the station, and we did so.

Of course, matters did not end here. It was agreed that the major
should leave his seat in the third car and occupy that next to mine in
the first. We had already been two inhabitants of the same town; well,
we would become two neighbors in the house, or, rather, two friends in
the same room.

At nine o'clock the signal to start was given. The train leaving Kizil
Arvat went off in a southwesterly direction towards Askhabad, along the
Persian frontier.

For another half hour the major and I continued to talk of one thing or
another. He told me that if the sun had not set, I should have been
able to see the summits of the Great and Little Balkans of Asia which
rise above the bay of Krasnovodsk.

Already most of our companions had taken up their quarters for the
night on their seats, which by an ingenious mechanism could be
transformed into beds, on which you could stretch yourself at full
length, lay your head on a pillow, wrap yourself in rugs, and if you
didn't sleep well it would be on account of a troubled conscience.

Major Noltitz had nothing to reproach himself with apparently, for a
few minutes after he had said good night he was deep in the sleep of
the just.

As for me, if I remained awake it was because I was troubled in my
mind. I was thinking of my famous packing case, of the man it
contained, and this very night I had resolved to enter into
communication with him. I thought of the people who had done this sort
of thing before. In 1889, 1891, and 1892, an Austrian tailor, Hermann
Zeitung, had come from Vienna to Paris, from Amsterdam to Brussels,
from Antwerp to Christiania in a box, and two sweethearts of Barcelona,
Erres and Flora Anglora, had shared a box between them from Spain into
France.

But I must wait until Popof had retired to rest. 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? It
ought to be Zeitung, it must be! Confound it! he is not at all
interesting! And here was I reckoning on this fellow. Well, we shall
see. I shall know him by his photographs, and perhaps I may make use of
him.

Half an hour went by, and the noise of a door shutting on the platform
of the car told me that our guard had just entered his little box. In
spite of my desire to visit the baggage car I waited patiently, for it
was possible that Popof was not yet sound asleep.

Within, all is quiet under the veiled light of the lamps.

Without, the night is very dark, and the rattle of the train mingles
with the whistling of the rather high wind.

I rise. I draw aside the curtain of one of the lamps. I look at my
watch.

It is a few minutes past eleven. Still two hours to Gheok Tepe.

The moment has come. I glide between the seats to the door of the car.
I open it gently and shut it after me without being heard by my
companions, without waking any one.

Here I am on the platform, which shakes as the train travels. Amid the
unfathomable darkness which envelops the Kara Koum, I experience the
feeling of a night at sea when on shipboard.

A feeble light filters through the blind of the guard's box. Shall I
wait till it is extinct, or, as is very probable, will it not last till
the morning?

Anyhow, Popof is not asleep, as I discover by the noise he makes in
turning over. I keep quiet, leaning against the balustrade of the
platform.

Leaning forward my looks are attracted by the luminous ray thrown
forward by the headlight of the engine. It seems as though we are
running on a road of fire. Above me the clouds are racing across with
great rapidity, and a few constellations glitter through their rifts,
Cassiopeia, the Little Bear, in the north, and in the zenith Vega of
Lyra.

At length absolute silence reigns on the platforms. Popof, who is in
charge of the train, has his eyes closed in sleep. Assured of safety I
cross the gangway and am in front of the baggage van.

The door is only fastened with a bar which is hung between two staples.

I open it and shut it behind me.

I do this without noise, for if I do not want to attract Popof's
attention, I do not want as yet to attract the attention of the man in
the packing case.

Although the darkness is deep in the van, although there is no side
window, I know my position. I know where the case is placed; it is in
the left corner as I enter. The thing is not to knock against any other
case--not against one of those belonging to Ephrinell, for what a row
there would be if I set all those artificial teeth chattering!

Carefully feeling with feet and hands, I reach the case. No cat could
have been more gentle or more silent as I felt its edges.

I leaned over and placed my ear timidly against the outer panel.

There was no sound of breathing.

The products of the house of Strong, Bulbul & Co., of New York, could
not be more noiseless in their boxes.

A fear seizes upon me--the fear of seeing all my reporter's hopes
vanish. Was I deceived on board the _Astara_? That respiration, that
sneeze; had I dreamed it all? Was there no one in the case, not even
Zeitung? Were these really glass goods exported to Miss Zinca Klork,
Avenue Cha-Coua, Pekin, China?

No! Feeble as it is, I detect a movement inside the case! It becomes
more distinct, and I ask if the panel is going to slide, if the
prisoner is coming out of his prison to breathe the fresh air?

What I had better do to see and not to be seen is to hide between two
cases. Thanks to the darkness there is nothing to fear.

Suddenly a slight cracking greets my ear. I am not the sport of an
illusion; it is the crack of a match being lighted.

Almost immediately a few feeble rays pierce the ventilation holes of
the case.

If I had had any doubts as to the position held by the prisoner in the
scale of being, I have none now. At the least it must be an ape who
knows the use of fire, and also the handling of matches. Travelers tell
us that such animals exist, but we have to take the statement on trust.

Why should I not confess it? A certain emotion came over me and I had
to take care I did not run away.

A minute elapsed. Nothing shows that the panel has been moved, nothing
gives me reason to suppose that the unknown is coming out.

Cautiously I wait. Then I have an idea to make something out of this
light. The case is lighted within; if I were to peep through those
holes?

I creep toward the case. A single apprehension chills my brain. If the
light were suddenly extinguished!

I am against the panel, which I take care not to touch, and I put my
eyes close to one of the holes.

There is a man in the box, and it is not the Austrian tailor, Zeitung!
Thank Heaven! I will soon make him my No. 11.

The man's features I can make out clearly. He is from twenty-five to
twenty-six years of age. He does not shave, and his beard is brown. He
is of the true Roumanian type, and that confirms me in my notion
regarding his Roumanian correspondent. He is good-looking, although his
face denotes great energy of character, and he must be energetic to
have shut himself up in a box like this for such a long journey. But if
he has nothing of the malefactor about him, I must confess that he does
not look like the hero I am in search of as the chief personage in my
story.

After all, they were not heroes, that Austrian and that Spaniard who
traveled in their packing cases. They were young men, very simple, very
ordinary, and yet they yielded columns of copy. And so this brave No.
11, with amplifications, antonyms, diaphoreses, epitases, tropes,
metaphors, and other figures of that sort, I will beat out, I will
enlarge, I will develop--as they develop a photographic negative.

Besides to travel in a box from Tiflis to Pekin is quite another affair
than traveling from Vienna or Barcelona to Paris, as was done by
Zeitung, Erres and Flora Anglora.

I add that I will not betray my Roumanian; I will report him to no one.
He may rely on my discretion; he may reckon on my good offices if I can
be of use to him when he is found out.

But what is he doing now? Well, he is seated on the bottom of his case
and placidly eating his supper by the light of a little lamp. A box of
preserves is on his knee, biscuit is not wanting, and in a little
cupboard I notice some full bottles, besides a rug and overcoat hooked
up on the wall.

Evidently No. 11 is quite at home. He is there in his cell like a snail
in his shell. His house goes with him; and he saves the thousand francs
it would have cost him to journey from Tiflis to Pekin, second-class. I
know he is committing a fraud, and that the law punishes such fraud. He
can come out of his box when he likes and take a walk in the van, or
even at night venture on the platform. No! I do not blame him, and when
I think of his being sent to the pretty Roumanian, I would willingly
take his place.

An idea occurs to me which may not perhaps be as good as it seems. That
is to rap lightly on the box so as to enter into communication with my
new companion, and learn who he is, and whence he comes, for I know
whither he goes. An ardent curiosity devours me, I must gratify it.
There are moments when a special correspondent is metamorphosed into a
daughter of Eve.

But how will the poor fellow take it? Very well, I am sure. I will tell
him that I am a Frenchman, and a Roumanian knows he can always trust a
Frenchman. I will offer him my services. I will propose to soften the
rigors of his imprisonment by my interviews, and to make up the
scarcity of his meals by little odds and ends. He will have nothing to
fear from my imprudences.

I rap the panel.

The light suddenly goes out.

The prisoner has suspended his respiration.

I must reassure him.

"Open!" I say to him gently in Russian.

"Open--"

I cannot finish the sentence; for the train gives a sudden jump and
slackens speed.

But we cannot yet have reached Gheok Tepe?

There is a noise outside.

I rush out of the van and shut the door behind me.

It was time.

I have scarcely reached the platform before Popofs door opens, and
without seeing me he hurries through the van on to the engine.

Almost immediately the train resumes its normal speed and Popof
reappears a minute afterwards.

"What is the matter, Popof?"

"What is often the matter, Monsieur Bombarnac. We have smashed a
dromedary."

"Poor brute!"

"Poor brute? He might have thrown us off the line!"

"Stupid brute, then!"




CHAPTER VIII.


Before the train reaches Gheok Tepe I am back in the car. Confound this
dromedary! If he had not managed to get smashed so clumsily No. 11
would no longer be unknown to me. He would have opened his panel, we
would have talked in a friendly way, and separated with a friendly
shake of the hand. Now he will be full of anxiety, he knows his fraud
is discovered, that there is some one who has reason to suspect his
intentions, some one who may not hesitate to betray his secret. And
then, after being taken out of his case, he will be put under guard at
the next station, and it will be useless for Mademoiselle Zinca Klork
to expect him in the capital of the Chinese Empire!

Yes! It would be better for me to relieve his anxiety this very night.
That is impossible, for the train will soon stop at Gheok Tepe, and
then at Askhabad which it will leave in the first hour of daylight. I
can no longer trust to Popof's going to sleep.

I am absorbed in these reflections, when the locomotive stops in Gheok
Tepe station at one o'clock in the morning. None of my companions have
left their beds.

I get out on to the platform and prowl around the van. It would be too
risky to try and get inside. I should have been glad to visit the town,
but the darkness prevents me from seeing anything. According to what
Major Noltitz says it still retains the traces of Skobeleffs terrible
assault in 1880--dismantled walls, bastions in ruins. I must content
myself with having seen all that with the major's eyes.

The train starts at two o'clock in the morning, after having been
joined by a few passengers who Popof tells me are Turkomans. I will
have a look at them when daylight comes.

For ten minutes I remained on the car platform and watched the heights
of the Persian frontier on the extreme limit of the horizon. Beyond the
stretch of verdant oasis watered by a number of creeks, we crossed wide
cultivated plains through which the line made frequent diversions.

Having discovered that Popof did not intend to go to sleep again, I
went back to my corner.

At three o'clock there was another stop. The name of Askhabad was
shouted along the platform. As I could not remain still I got out,
leaving my companions sound asleep, and I ventured into the town.

Askhabad is the headquarters of the Transcaspian, and I opportunely
remembered what Boulangier, the engineer, had said about it in the
course of that interesting journey he had made to Merv. All that I saw
on the left as I went out of the station, was the gloomy outline of the
Turkoman Fort, dominating the new town, the population of which has
doubled since 1887. It forms a confused mass behind a thick curtain of
trees.

When I returned at half-past three, Popof was going through the luggage
van, I know not why. What must be the Roumanian's anxiety during this
movement to and fro in front of his box!

As soon as Popof reappeared I said to him: "Anything fresh?"

"Nothing, except the morning breeze!" said he.

"Very fresh!" said I. "Is there a refreshment bar in the station?"

"There is one for the convenience of the passengers."

"And for the convenience of the guards, I suppose? Come along, Popof."

And Popof did not want asking twice.

The bar was open, but there did not seem to be much to choose from. The
only liquor was "Koumiss," which is fermented mare's milk, and is the
color of faded ink, very nourishing, although very liquid. You must be
a Tartar to appreciate this koumiss. At least that is the effect it
produced on me. But Popof thought it excellent, and that was the
important point.

Most of the Sarthes and Kirghizes who got out at Askhabad, have been
replaced by other second-class passengers, Afghan merchants and
smugglers, the latter particularly clever in their line of business.
All the green tea consumed in Central Asia is brought by them from
China through India, and although the transport is much longer, they
sell it at a much lower price than the Russian tea. I need not say that
their luggage was examined with Muscovite minuteness.

The train started again at four o'clock. Our car was still a sleeper. I
envied the sleep of my companions, and as that was all I could do, I
returned to the platform.

The dawn was appearing in the east. Here and there were the ruins of
the ancient city, a citadel girdled with high ramparts and a succession
of long porticos extending over fifteen hundred yards. Running over a
few embankments, necessitated by the inequalities of the sandy ground,
the train reaches the horizontal steppe.

We are running at a speed of thirty miles an hour in a southwesterly
direction, along the Persian frontier. It is only beyond Douchak that
the line begins to leave it. During this three hours' run the two
stations at which the train stops are Gheours, the junction for the
road to Mesched, whence the heights of the Iran plateau are visible,
and Artyk where water is abundant although slightly brackish.

The train then traverses the oasis of the Atek, which is an important
tributary of the Caspian. Verdure and trees are everywhere. This oasis
justifies its name, and would not disgrace the Sahara. It extends to
the station of Douchak at the six hundred and sixtieth verst, which we
reach at six o'clock in the morning.

We stop here two hours, that is to say, there are two hours for us to
walk about. I am off to look at Douchak with Major Noltitz as my
cicerone.

A traveler precedes us out of the railway station; I recognize Sir
Francis Trevellyan. The major makes me notice that this gentleman's
face is more sullen than usual, his lip more scornful, his attitude
more Anglo-Saxon.

"And do you know why, Monsieur Bombarnac? Because this station at
Douchak might be the terminus of a line from British India through the
Afghan frontier, Kandahar, the Bolan Pass and the Pendjeh oasis, that
would unite the two systems."

"And how long would the line be?"

"About six hundred miles. But the English will not meet the Russians in
a friendly way. But if we could put Calcutta within twelve days of
London, what an advantage that would be for their trade!"

Talking in this way the major and I "did" Douchak. Some years ago it
was foreseen how important this village would be. A branch line unites
it with Teheran in Persia, while there has, as yet, been no survey for
a line to India. 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. The Russian
police keep constant watch over it; there is a regular police force at
the stations, and as the stations are not far apart, I don't think the
travelers have much to fear from the nomad tribes. Besides, the
Turkomans are kept in their place by the Russian administration. During
the years the Transcaspian has been at work, there has been no attack
to hinder the train service.

"That is comforting, Major Noltitz. And as to the section between the
frontier and Pekin?"

"That is another matter," replied the major. "Over the Pamir plateau,
up to Kachgar, the road is carefully guarded; but beyond that, the
Grand Transasiatic is under Chinese control, and I have not much
confidence in that."

"Are the stations very far from each other?" I asked.

"Very far, sometimes."

"And the Russians in charge of the train are replaced by Chinese, are
they not?"

"Yes, with the exception of Popof, who goes through with us."

"So that we shall have Chinese engine drivers and stokers? Well, major,
that seems rather alarming, and the safety of the travelers--"

"Let me undeceive you, Monsieur Bombarnac. These Chinese are just as
clever as we are. They are excellent mechanics, and it is the same with
the engineers who laid out the line through the Celestial Empire. They
are certainly a very intelligent race, and very fit for industrial
progress."

"I think, major, that they will one day become masters of the
world--after the Slavs, of course!"

"I do not know what the future may have in store," said Major Noltitz,
with a smile. "But, returning to the Chinese, I say that they are of
quick comprehension, with an astonishing facility of assimilation. I
have seen them at work, and I speak from experience."

"Agreed," said I; "but if there is no danger under this head, are there
not a lot of scoundrels prowling about Mongolia and Northern China?"

"And you think these scoundrels will be daring enough to attack the
train?"

"Exactly, major, and that is what makes me feel easy."

"What? Makes you feel easy?"

"Quite so, for my sole anxiety is that our journey may not be devoid of
incident."

"Really, Mr. Special Correspondent, I admire you. You must have
incidents--"

"As a doctor must have patients. Now a real good adventure--"

"Well, Monsieur Bombarnac, I am afraid you will be disappointed, as I
have heard that the company has treated several chiefs of the robber
bands--"

"As the Greek Government treated Hadji Stavros in About's romance."

"Precisely; and who knows that if in their wisdom--"

"I don't believe it."

"Why not? It would be quite in the modern style, this way of assuring
the safety of the trains during the run through the Celestial Empire.
Anyhow, there is one of these highwaymen, who has retained his
independence and liberty of action, a certain Ki-Tsang."

"Who is he?"

"A bold bandit chief, half-Chinaman, half-Mongol. Having for some time
been a terror to Yunnan, he was being too closely pursued, and has now
moved into the northern provinces. His presence has ever been reported
in that part of Mongolia served by the Grand Transasiatic."

"Well, he ought to furnish a few paragraphs."

"The paragraphs Ki-Tsang will furnish you with may cost you too dearly."

"Bah! major, the _Twentieth Century_ is quite rich enough to pay for
its glory."

"To pay with its money, perhaps, but we may have to pay with our lives!
Luckily our companions have not heard you talk in this way, or they
might come in a body and demand your expulsion from the train. So be
careful, and keep a guard on your desires as a newspaper man in quest
of adventures. Above all, don't have anything to do with this Ki-Tsang.
It would be all the better in the interest of the passengers."

"But not of the passage, major."

We returned towards the station. The stoppage at Douchak had another
half hour to last. As I walked on the quay, I observed something going
on which would change the make-up of our train.

Another van had arrived from Teheran by the branch line to Mesphed,
which puts the Persian capital in communication with the Transcaspian.

This van was bolted and barred, and accompanied by a squad of Persian
police, whose orders seemed to be not to lose sight of it.

I don't know what made me think so, but it seemed as though this van
had something mysterious about it, and as the major had left me, I went
and spoke to Popof, who was watching over the proceedings.

"Popof, where is that van going?"

"To Pekin."

"And what has it got in it?"

"What has it got in it? An exalted personage."

"An exalted personage?"

"Are you surprised?"

"I am. In this van?"

"It is his own idea."

"Well, Popof, when this exalted personage gets out perhaps you will let
me know?"

"He Will not get out."

"Why not?"

"Because he is dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes, and it is his body they are taking to Pekin, where he will be
interred with all the honors due to him."

So that we were to have an important personage in our train--in the
shape of a corpse, it is true. Never mind! I asked Popof to discover
the name of the defunct. He ought to be some mandarin of mark. As soon
as I knew it I would send a telegram to the _Twentieth Century_.

While I was looking at this van, a new passenger came up and examined
it with no less curiosity than I did.

This traveler was a fine-looking man of about forty, wearing gracefully
the costume of the richer Mongols, a tall fellow, with rather a gloomy
look, a military moustache, tawny complexion, and eyes that never shut.

"Here is a splendid fellow," I said to myself. "I don't know if he will
turn out the hero of the drama I am in search of, but, anyhow, I will
number him twelve in my traveling troupe."

This leading star, I soon learned from Popof, bore the name of
Faruskiar. He was accompanied by another Mongol, of inferior rank, of
about the same age, whose name was Ghangir. As they looked at the van
being attached to the tail of the train in front of the luggage van,
they exchanged a few words. As soon as the arrangements were complete
the Persians took their places in the second-class car, which preceded
the mortuary van, so as to have the precious corpse always under their
surveillance.

At this moment there was a shout on the station platform I recognized
the voice. It was the Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer shouting:

"Stop! stop!"

This time it was not a train on the start, but a hat in distress. A
sudden gust had swept through the station and borne off the baron's
hat--a helmet-shaped hat of a bluish color. It rolled on the platform,
it rolled on the rails, it skimmed the enclosure and went out over the
wall, and its owner ran his hardest to stop it.

At the sight of this wild pursuit the Caternas held their sides, the
young Chinaman, Pan Chao, shouted with laughter, while Dr. Tio-King
remained imperturbably serious.

The German purple, puffling and panting, could do no more. Twice he had
got his hand on his hat, and twice it had escaped him, and now suddenly
he fell full length with his head lost under the folds of his overcoat;
whereupon Caterna began to sing the celebrated air from "Miss Helyett":

     "Ah! the superb point of view--ew--ew--ew!
     Ah! the view unexpected by you--you--you--you!"

I know nothing more annoying than a hat carried away by the wind, which
bounds hither and thither, and spins and jumps, and glides, and slides,
and darts off just as you think you are going to catch it. And if that
should happen to me I will forgive those who laugh at the comic
endeavor.

But the baron was in no mood for forgiveness. He bounded here, and
bounded there, he jumped on to the line. They shouted to him, "Look
out! look out!" for the Merv was coming in at some speed. It brought
death to the hat, the engine smashed it pitilessly, and it was only a
torn rag when it was handed to the baron. And then began again a series
of imprecations on the Grand Transasiatic.

The signal is given. The passengers, old and new, hurry to their
places. Among the new ones I notice three Mongols, of forbidding
appearance, who get into the second-class car.

As I put my foot on the platform I hear the young Chinese say to his
companion:

"Well, Dr. Tio-King, did you see the German with his performing hat?
How I laughed!"

And so Pan Chao speaks French. What do I say? Better than French--he
speaks Persian! Most extraordinary! I must have a talk with him.




CHAPTER IX.


We started to time. The baron could not complain this time. After all,
I understood his impatience; a minute's delay might cause him to lose
the mail boat from Tien Tsin to Japan.

The day looked promising, that is to say, there might have been a wind
strong enough to put out the sun as if it were a candle, such a
hurricane as sometimes stops the locomotives of the Grand Transasiatic,
but to-day it is blowing from the west, and will be supportable, as it
blows the train along. We can remain out on the platforms.

I want to enter into conversation with Pan Chao. Popof was right; he
must be the son of some family of distinction who has been spending
some years in Paris for education and amusement. He ought to be one of
the most regular visitors at the _Twentieth Century_ "five o'clocks."

Meanwhile I will attend to other business. There is that man in the
case. A whole day will elapse before I can relieve his anxiety. In what
a state he must be! But as it would be unwise for me to enter the van
during the day, I must wait until night.

I must not forget that an interview with the Caternas is included in
the programme. There will be no difficulty in that, apparently.

What will not be so easy is to get into conversation with my No. 12,
his superb lordship Faruskiar. He seems rather stiff, does this
Oriental.

Ah! There is a name I must know as soon as possible, that of the
mandarin returning to China in the form of a mortuary parcel. With a
little ingenuity Popof may manage to ascertain it from one of the
Persians in charge of his Excellency. If it would only be that of some
grand functionary, the Pao-Wang, or the Ko-Wang, or the viceroy of the
two Kiangs, the Prince King in person!

For an hour the train is running through the oasis. We shall soon be in
the open desert. The soil is formed of alluvial beds extending up to
the environs of Merv. I must get accustomed to this monotony of the
journey which will last up to the frontier of Turkestan. Oasis and
desert, desert and oasis. As we approach the Pamir the scenery will
change a little. There are picturesque bits of landscape in that
orographic knot which the Russians have had to cut as Alexander cut the
gordian knot that was worth something to the Macedonian conqueror of
Asia. Here is a good augury for the Russian conquest.

But I must wait for this crossing of the Pamir and its varied scenery.
Beyond lay the interminable plains of Chinese Turkestan, the immense
sandy desert of Gobi, where the monotony of the journey will begin
again.

It is half-past ten. Breakfast will soon be served in the dining car.
Let us take a walk through the length of the train.

Where is Ephrinell? I do not see him at his post by the side of Miss
Horatia Bluett, whom I questioned on the subject after saluting her
politely.

"Mr. Ephrinell has gone to give an eye to his cases," she replies.

In the rear of the second car Faruskiar and Ghangir have installed
themselves; they are alone at this moment, and are talking together in
a low tone.

As I return I meet Ephrinell, who is coming back to his traveling
companion. He shakes my hand Yankee fashion. I tell him that Miss
Horatia Bluett has given me news of him.

"Oh!" says he, "what a woman yonder! What a splendid saleswoman! One of
those English--"

"Who are good enough to be Americans!" I add.

"Wait a bit!" he replies, with a significant smile.

As I am going put, I notice that the two Chinamen are already in the
dining car, and that Dr. Tio-King's little book is on the table.

I do not consider it too much of a liberty for a reporter to pick up
this little book, to open it and to read the title, which is as follows:

                    The temperate and regular life,
              Or the art of living long in perfect health.
                     Translated from the Italian of
                    Louis Cornaro, a Venetian noble.
      To which is added the way of correcting a bad constitution,
        and enjoying perfect felicity to the most advanced years.
       and to die only from the using up of the original humidity
                          in extreme old age.
                                Salerno,
                                  1782.

And this is the favorite reading of Dr. Tio-King! And that is why his
disrespectful pupil occasionally gives him the nickname of Cornaro!

I have not time to see anything else in this volume than _Abstinentia
adjicit vitam_; but this motto of the noble Venetian I have no
intention of putting in practice, at least at breakfast time.

There is no change in the order in which we sit down to table. I find
myself close to Major Noltitz, who is looking attentively at Faruskiar
and his companion, placed at the extremity of the table. We are asking
ourselves who this haughty Mongol could be.

"Ah!" said I, laughing at the thought which crossed my mind, "if that
is--"

"Who?" asked the major.

"The chief of the brigands, the famous Ki-Tsang."

"Have your joke, Monsieur Bombarnac, but under your breath, I advise
you!"

"You see, major, he would then be an interesting personage and worth a
long interview!"

We enjoyed our meal as we talked. The breakfast was excellent, the
provisions having come freshly on board at Askhabad and Douchak. For
drink we had tea, and Crimean wine, and Kazan beer; for meat we had
mutton cutlets and excellent preserves; for dessert a melon with pears
and grapes of the best quality.

After breakfast I went to smoke my cigar on the platform behind the
dining car. Caterna almost immediately joins me. Evidently the
estimable comedian has seized the opportunity to enter into
conversation with me.

His intelligent eyes, his smooth face, his cheeks accustomed to false
whiskers, his lips accustomed to false moustaches, his head accustomed
to wigs red, black, or gray, bald or hairy, according to his part,
everything denoted the actor made for the life of the boards. But he
had such an open, cheery face, such an honest look, so frank an
attitude, that he was evidently a really good fellow.

"Sir," said he to me, "are two Frenchmen going all the way from Baku to
Pekin without making each other's acquaintance?"

"Sir," I replied, "when I meet a compatriot--"

"Who is a Parisian--"

"And consequently a Frenchman twice over," I added, "I am only too glad
to shake hands with him! And so, Monsieur Caterna--"

"You know my name?"

"As you know mine, I am sure."

"Of course, Monsieur Claudius Bombarnac, correspondent of the
_Twentieth Century_."

"At your service, believe me."

"A thousand thanks, Monsieur Bombarnac, and even ten thousand, as they
say in China, whither Madame Caterna and I are bound."

"To appear at Shanghai in the French troupe at the residency as--"

"You know all that, then?"

"A reporter!"

"Quite so."

"I may add, from sundry nautical phrases I have noticed, that you have
been to sea."

"I believe you, sir. Formerly coxswain of Admiral de Boissondy's launch
on board the _Redoubtable_."

"Then I beg to ask why you, a sailor, did not go by way of the sea?"

"Ah, there it is, Monsieur Bombarnac. 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. We
will cross Russia, Turkestan, and China, without leaving _terra
firma_!' And that pleased her, the little darling, so brave and so
devoted, so--I am at a loss for a word--well, a lady who will play the
duenna in case of need, rather than leave the manager in a mess! An
artiste, a true artiste!"

It was a pleasure to listen to Caterna; he was in steam, as the
engineer says, and the only thing to do was to let him blow off.
Surprising as it may seem, he adored his wife, and I believe she was
equally fond of him. A well-matched couple, evidently, from what I
learned from my comedian, never embarrassed, very wide awake, content
with his lot, liking nothing so much as the theater--above all the
provincial theater--where he and his wife had played in drama,
vaudeville, comedy, operetta, opera comique, opera, spectacle,
pantomime, happy in the entertainment which began at five o'clock in
the afternoon and ended at one o'clock in the morning, in the grand
theaters of the chief cities, in the saloon of the mayor, in the barn
of the village, without boots, without patches, without orchestra,
sometimes even without spectators--thus saving the return of the
money--professionals fit for anything, no matter what.

As a Parisian, Caterna must have been the wag of the forecastle when he
was at sea. As clever with his instrument of brass or wood, he
possessed a most varied and complete assortment of jokes, songs,
monologues, and dialogues. This he told me with an immense amount of
attitude and gesture, now here, now there, legs, arms, hands, and feet
all going together. I should never feel dull in the company of such a
merry companion.

"And where were you before you left France?" I asked.

"At La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, where Madame Caterna achieved a genuine
success as Elsa in 'Lohengrin,' which we played without music. But it
is an interesting piece, and it was well done."

"You must have been a good deal about the world, Monsieur Caterna?"

"I believe you; Russia, England, both Americas. Ah! Monsieur Claudius."

He already called me Claudius.

"Ah! Monsieur Claudius, there was a time when I was the idol of Buenos
Ayres, and the pet of Rio Janeiro! Do not think I would tell you an
untruth! No! I know myself. Bad at Paris, I am excellent in the
provinces. In Paris you play for yourself; in the provinces you play
for the others! And then what a repertory!"

"My compliments, my dear compatriot!"

"I accept them, Monsieur Claudius, for I like my trade. What would you
haye? All the world cannot expect to be a senator or--a special
correspondent."

"There, that is wicked, Monsieur Caterna," said I, with a laugh.

"No; it is the last word."

And while the unwearied actor ran on in this way, stations appeared one
after the other between the shrieks of the whistle, Kulka, Nisachurch,
Kulla Minor and others, not particularly cheerful to look at; then
Bairam Ali at the seven hundred and ninety-fifth verst and Kourlan Kala
at the eight hundred and fifteenth.

"And to tell you the truth," continued Caterna, "we have made a little
money by going about from town to town. At the bottom of our boxes are
a few Northern debentures, of which I think a good deal, and take much
care, and they have been honestly got, Monsieur Claudius. Although we
live under a democratic government, the rule of equality, the time is
still far off when you will see the noble father dining beside the
prefect at the table of the judge of appeal, and the actress open the
ball with the prefect at the house of the general-in-chief! Well! We
can dine and dance among ourselves--"

"And be just as happy, Monsieur Caterna."

"Certainly no less, Monsieur Claudius," replied the future premier
comic of Shanghai, shaking an imaginary frill with the graceful ease of
one of Louis XV.'s noblemen.

At this point, Madame Caterna came up. She was in every way worthy of
her husband, sent into the world to reply to him in life as on the
stage, one of those genial theater folks, born one knows not where or
how, but thoroughly genuine and good-natured.

"I beg to introduce you to Caroline Caterna," said the actor, in much
the same tone as he would have introduced me to Patti or Sarah
Bernhardt.

"Having shaken hands with your husband," said I, "I shall be happy to
shake hands with you, Madame Caterna."

"There you are, then," said the actress, "and without ceremony, foot to
the front, and no prompting."

"As you see, no nonsense about her, and the best of wives--"

"As he is the best of husbands."

"I believe I am, Monsieur Claudius," said the actor, "and why? Because
I believe that marriage consists entirely in the precept to which
husbands should always conform, and that is, that what the wife likes
the husband should eat often."

It will be understood that it was touching to see this honest
give-and-take, so different from the dry business style of the two
commercials who were in conversation in the adjoining car.

But here is Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer, wearing a traveling cap, coming
out of the dining car, where I imagine he has not spent his time
consulting the time-table.

"The good man of the hat trick!" said Caterna, after the baron went
back into the car without favoring us with a salute.

"He is quite German enough!" said Madame Caterna.

"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."

"Thirty-nine days!" exclaimed Gaterna. "You should say a hundred and
thirty-nine!"

And in a voice like a husky clarinet the actor struck up the well-known
air from the Cloches de Corneville:

                 "I thrice have been around the world."

Adding, for the baron's benefit:

                       "He will not do the half."




CHAPTER X.


At a quarter-past twelve our train passed the station of Kari Bata,
which resembles one of the stations on the line from Naples to
Sorrento, with its Italian roofs. I noticed a vast Asiatico-Russian
camp, the flags waving in the fresh breeze. We have entered the Mervian
oasis, eighty miles long and eight wide, and containing about six
hundred thousand hectares--there is nothing like being precise at the
finish. Right and left are cultivated fields, clumps of fine trees, an
uninterrupted succession of villages, huts among the thickets, fruit
gardens between the houses, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle among
the pastures. All this rich country is watered by the Mourgab--the
White Water--or its tributaries, and pheasants swarm like crows on the
plains of Normandy. At one o'clock in the afternoon the train stopped
at Merv Station, over five hundred miles from Uzun Ada.

The town has been often destroyed and rebuilt. The wars of Turkestan
have not spared it. Formerly, it seems, it was a haunt of robbers and
bandits, and it is a pity that the renowned Ki-Tsang did not live in
those days. Perhaps he would have become a Genghis Khan?

Major Noltitz told me of a Turkoman saying to the following effect: "If
you meet a Mervian and a viper, begin by killing the Mervian and leave
the viper till afterwards."

I fancy it would be better to begin with killing the viper now that the
Mervian has become a Russian.

We have seven hours to stop at Merv. I shall have time to visit this
curious town. Its physical and moral transformation has been profound,
owing to the somewhat arbitrary proceedings of the Russian
administration. It is fortunate that its fortress, five miles round,
built by Nour Verdy in 1873, was not strong enough to prevent its
capture by the czar, so that the old nest of malefactors has become one
of the most important cities of the Transcaspian.

I said to Major Noltitz:

"If it is not trespassing on your kindness, may I ask you to go with
me?"

"Willingly," he answered; "and as far as I am concerned, I shall be
very pleased to see Merv again."

We set out at a good pace.

"I ought to tell you," said the major, "that it is the new town we are
going to see."

"And why not the old one first? That would be more logical and more
chronological."

"Because old Merv is eighteen miles away, and you will hardly see it as
you pass. So you must refer to the accurate description given of it by
your great geographer Elisée Reclus."

And certainly readers will not lose anything by the change.

The distance from the station to new Merv is not great. But what an
abominable dust! The commercial town is built on the left of the
river--a town in the American style, which would please Ephrinell, wide
streets straight as a line crossing at right angles; straight
boulevards with rows of trees; much bustle and movement among the
merchants in Oriental costume, in Jewish costume, merchants of every
kind; a number of camels and dromedaries, the latter much in request
for their powers of withstanding fatigue and which differ in their
hinder parts from their African congeners. Not many women along the
sunny roads which seem white hot. Some of the feminine types are,
however, sufficiently remarkable, dressed out in a quasi-military
costume, wearing soft boots and a cartouche belt in the Circassian
style. You must take care of the stray dogs, hungry brutes with long
hair and disquieting fangs, of a breed reminding one of the dogs of the
Caucasus, and these animals--according to Boulangier the engineer--have
eaten a Russian general.

"Not entirely," replies the major, confirming the statement. "They left
his boots."

In the commercial quarter, in the depths of the gloomy ground floors,
inhabited by the Persians and the Jews, within the miserable shops are
sold carpets of incredible fineness, and colors artistically combined,
woven mostly by old women without any Jacquard cards.

On both banks of the Mourgab the Russians have their military
establishment. There parade the Turkoman soldiers in the service of the
czar. They wear the blue cap and the white epaulettes with their
ordinary uniform, and drill under the orders of Russian officers.

A wooden bridge, fifty yards long, crosses the river. It is practicable
not only for foot-passengers, but for trains, and telegraph wires are
stretched above its parapets.

On the opposite bank is the administrative town, which contains a
considerable number of civil servants, wearing the usual Russian cap.

In reality the most interesting place to see is a sort of annexe, a
Tekke village, in the middle of Merv, whose inhabitants have retained
the villainous characteristics of this decaying race, the muscular
bodies, large ears, thick lips, black beard. And this gives the last
bit of local color to be found in the new town.

At a turning in the commercial quarter we met the commercials, American
and English.

"Mr. Ephrinell," I said, "there is nothing curious in this modern Merv."

"On the contrary, Mr. Bombarnac, the town is almost Yankee, and it will
soon see the day when the Russians will give it tramways and gaslights!"

"That will come!"

"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! The men all have teeth--"

"And the women all have hair," added Horatia Bluett.

"Well, miss, buy their hair, and you will not lose your time."

"That is exactly what Holmes-Holme of London will do as soon as we have
exhausted the capillary stock of the Celestial Empire."

And thereupon the pair left us.

I then suggested to Major Noltitz--it was six o'clock--to dine at Merv,
before the departure of the train. He consented, but he was wrong to
consent. An ill-fortune took us to the Hotel Slav, which is very
inferior to our dining car--at least as regards its bill of fare. It
contained, in particular, a national soup called "borchtch," prepared
with sour milk, which I would carefully refrain from recommending to
the gourmets of the _Twentieth Century_.

With regard to my newspaper, and that telegram relative to the mandarin
our train is "conveying" in the funereal acceptation of the word? Has
Popof obtained from the mutes who are on guard the name of this high
personage?

Yes, at last! And hardly are we within the station than he runs up to
me, saying:

"I know the name."

"And it is?"

"Yen Lou, the great mandarin Yen Lou of Pekin."

"Thank you, Popof."

I rush to the telegraph office, and from there I send a telegram to the
_Twentieth Century_.

"Merv, 16th May, 7 p.m.

"Train, Grand Transasiatic, just leaving Merv. Took from Douchak the
body of the great mandarin Yen Lou coming from Persia to Pekin."

It cost a good deal, did this telegram, but you will admit it was well
worth its price.

The name of Yen Lou was immediately communicated to our fellow
travelers, and it seemed to me that my lord Faruskiar smiled when he
heard it.

We left the station at eight o'clock precisely. Forty minutes
afterwards we passed near old Merv, and the night being dark I could
see nothing of it. There was, however, a fortress with square towers
and a wall of some burned bricks, and ruined tombs, and a palace and
remains of mosques, and a collection of archaeological things, which
would have run to quite two hundred lines of small text.

"Console yourself," said Major Noltitz. "Your satisfaction could not be
complete, for old Merv has been rebuilt four times. If you had seen the
fourth town, Bairam Ali of the Persian period, you would not have seen
the third, which was Mongol, still less the Musalman village of the
second epoch, which was called Sultan Sandjar Kala, and still less the
town of the first epoch. That was called by some Iskander Kala, in
honor of Alexander the Macedonian, and by others Ghiaour Kala,
attributing its foundation to Zoroaster, the founder of the Magian
religion, a thousand years before Christ. So I should advise you to put
your regrets in the waste-paper basket."

And that is what I did, as I could do no better with them.

Our train is running northeast. 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.

The major tells me that the engineers experienced immense difficulty in
fixing the sandhills on this part of the railway. If the palisades had
not been sloped obliquely, like the barbs of a feather, the line would
have been covered by the sand to such an extent as to stop the running
of the trains. As soon as this region of sandhills had been passed we
were again on the level plain on which the rails had been laid so
easily.

Gradually my companions go to sleep, and our carriage is transformed
into a sleeping car.

I then return to my Roumanian. Ought I to attempt to see him to-night?
Undoubtedly; and not only to satisfy a very natural curiosity, but also
to calm his anxiety. In fact, knowing his secret is known to the person
who spoke to him through the panel of his case, suppose the idea
occurred to him to get out at one of the stations, give up his journey,
and abandon his attempt to rejoin Mademoiselle Zinca Klork, so as to
escape the company's pursuit? That is possible, after all, and my
intervention may have done the poor fellow harm--to say nothing of my
losing No. 11, one of the most valuable in my collection.

I am resolved to visit him before the coming dawn. But, in order to be
as careful as possible, I will wait until the train has passed
Tchardjoui, where it ought to arrive at twenty-seven past two in the
morning. There we shall stop a quarter of an hour before proceeding
towards the Amu-Daria. Popof will then retire to his den, and I shall
be able to slip into the van, without fear of being seen.

How long the hours appear! Several times I have almost fallen asleep,
and twice or thrice I have had to go out into the fresh air on the
platform.

The train enters Tchardjoui Station to the minute. It is an important
town of the Khanate of Bokhara, which the Transcaspian reached towards
the end of 1886, seventeen months after the first sleeper was laid. We
are not more than twelve versts from the Amu-Daria, and beyond that
river I shall enter on my adventure.

I have said that the stop at Tchardjoui ought to last a quarter of an
hour. A few travelers alight, for they have booked to this town which
contains about thirty thousand inhabitants. Others get in to proceed to
Bokhara and Samarkand, but these are only second-class passengers. This
produces a certain amount of bustle on the platform.

I also get out and take a walk up and down by the side of the front
van, and I notice the door silently open and shut. A man creeps out on
to the platform and slips away through the station, which is dimly
lighted by a few petroleum lamps.

It is my Roumanian. It can be no one else. He has not been seen, and
there he is, lost among the other travelers. Why this escape? Is it to
renew his provisions at the refreshment bar? On the contrary, is not
his intention, as I am afraid it is, to get away from us?

Shall I stop him? I will make myself known to him; promise to help him.
I will speak to him in French, in English, in German, in Russian--as he
pleases. I will say to him: "My friend, trust to my discretion; I will
not betray you. Provisions? I will bring them to you during the night.
Encouragements? I will heap them on you as I will the refreshments. Do
not forget that Mademoiselle Zinca Klork, evidently the most lovely of
Roumanians, is expecting you at Pekin, etc."

Behold me then following him without appearing to do so. Amid all this
hurry to and fro he is in little danger of being noticed. Neither Popof
nor any of the company's servants would suspect him to be a swindler.
Is he going towards the gate to escape me?

No! He only wants to stretch his legs better than he can do in the van.
After an imprisonment which has lasted since he left Baku--that is to
say, about sixty hours--he has earned ten minutes of freedom.

He is a man of middle height, lithe in his movements, and with a
gliding kind of walk. He could roll himself up like a cat and find
quite room enough in his case. He wears an old vest, his trousers are
held up by a belt, and his cap is a fur one--all of dark color.

I am at ease regarding his intentions. He returns towards the van,
mounts the platform, and shuts the door gently behind him. As soon as
the train is on the move I will knock at the panel, and this time--

More of the unexpected. Instead of waiting at Tchardjoui one-quarter of
an hour we have to wait three. A slight injury to one of the brakes of
the engine has had to be repaired, and, notwithstanding the German
baron's remonstrances, we do not leave the station before half-past
three, as the day is beginning to dawn.

It follows from this that if I cannot visit the van I shall at least
see the Amou-Daria.

The Amou-Daria is the Oxus of the Ancients, the rival of the Indus and
the Ganges. It used to be a tributary of the Caspian, as shown on the
maps, but now it flows into the Sea of Aral. Fed by the snows and rains
of the Pamir plateau, its sluggish waters flow between low clay cliffs
and banks of sand. It is the River-Sea in the Turkoman tongue, and it
is about two thousand five hundred kilometres long.

The train crosses it by a bridge a league long, the line being a
hundred feet and more above its surface at low water, and the roadway
trembles on the thousand piles which support it, grouped in fives
between each of the spans, which are thirty feet wide.

In ten months, at a cost of thirty-five thousand roubles, General
Annenkof built this bridge, the most important one on the Grand
Transasiatic.

The river is of a dull-yellow color. A few islands emerge from the
current here and there, as far as one can see.

Popof pointed out the stations for the guards on the parapet of the
bridge.

"What are they for?" I asked.

"For the accommodation of a special staff, whose duty it is to give the
alarm in case of fire, and who are provided with fire-extinguishers."

This is a wise precaution. Not only have sparks from the engines set it
on fire in several places, but there are other disasters possible. A
large number of boats, for the most part laden with petroleum, pass up
and down the Amou-Daria, and it frequently happens that these become
fire-ships. A constant watch is thus only too well justified, for if
the bridge were destroyed, its reconstruction would take a year, during
which the transport of passengers from one bank to the other would not
be without its difficulties.

At last the train is going slowly across the bridge. It is broad
daylight. The desert begins again at the second station, that of
Karakoul. Beyond can be seen the windings of an affluent of the
Amou-Daria, the Zarafchane, "the river that rolls with gold," the
course of which extends up to the valley of the Sogd, in that fertile
oasis on which stands the city of Samarkand.

At five o'clock in the morning the train stops at the capital of the
Khanate of Bokhara, eleven hundred and seven versts from Uzun Ada.




CHAPTER XI.


The Khanates of Bokhara and Samarkand used to form Sogdiana, a Persian
satrapy inhabited by the Tadjiks and afterwards by the Usbegs, who
invaded the country at the close of the fifteenth century. But another
invasion, much more modern, is to be feared, that of the sands, now
that the saksaouls intended to bring the sandhills to a standstill,
have almost completely disappeared.

Bokhara, the capital of the Khanate, is the Rome of Islam, the Noble
City, the City of Temples, the revered centre of the Mahometan
religion. It was the town with the seven gates, which an immense wall
surrounded in the days of its splendor, and its trade with China has
always been considerable. Today it contains eighty thousand inhabitants.

I was told this by Major Noltitz, who advised me to visit the town in
which he had lived several times. He could not accompany me, having
several visits to pay. We were to start again at eleven o'clock in the
morning. Five hours only to wait and the town some distance from the
railway station! If the one were not connected with the other by a
Decauville--a French name that sounds well in Sogdiana--time would fail
for having even a slight glimpse of Bokhara.

It is agreed that the major will accompany me on the Decauville; and
when we reach our destination he will leave me to attend to his private
affairs. I cannot reckon on him. Is it possible that I shall have to do
without the company of any of my numbers?

Let us recapitulate. My Lord Faruskiar? Surely he will not have to
worry himself about the mandarin Yen Lou, shut up in this traveling
catafalque! Fulk Ephrinell and Miss Horatia Bluett? Useless to think of
them when we are talking about palaces, minarets, mosques and other
archaeological inutilities. The actor and the actress? Impossible, for
Madame Caterna is tired, and Monsieur Caterna will consider it his duty
to stay with her. The two Celestials? They have already left the
railway station. Ah! Sir Francis Trevellyan. Why not? I am not a
Russian, and it is the Russians he cannot stand. I am not the man who
conquered Central Asia. I will try and open this closely shut gentleman.

I approach him; I bow; I am about to speak. He gives me a slight
inclination and turns on his heel and walks off! The animal!

But the Decauville gives its last whistle. The major and I occupy one
of the open carriages. Half an hour afterwards we are through the
Dervaze gate, the major leaves me, and here am I, wandering through the
streets of Bokhara.

If I told the readers of the _Twentieth Century_ that I visited the
hundred schools of the town, its three hundred mosques--almost as many
mosques as there are churches in Rome, they would not believe me, in
spite of the confidence that reporters invariably receive. And so I
will confine myself to the strict truth.

As I passed along the dusty roads of the city, I entered at a venture
any of the buildings I found open. Here it was a bazaar where they sold
cotton materials of alternate colors called "al adjas," handkerchiefs
as fine as spider webs, leather marvelously worked, silks the rustle of
which is called "tchakhtchukh," in Bokhariot, a name that Meilhac and
Halevy did wisely in not adopting for their celebrated heroine. There
it was a shop where you could buy sixteen sorts of tea, eleven of which
are green, that being the only kind used in the interior of China and
Central Asia, and among these the most sought after, the "louka," one
leaf of which will perfume a whole teapot.

Farther on I emerged on the quay of the Divanbeghi, reservoirs,
bordering one side of a square planted with elms. Not far off is the
Arche, which is the fortified palace of the emir and has a modern clock
over the door. Arminius Vambery thought the palace had a gloomy look,
and so do I, although the bronze cannon which defend the entrance
appear more artistic than destructive. Do not forget that the Bokhariot
soldiers, who perambulate the streets in white breeches, black tunics,
astrakan caps, and enormous boots, are commanded by Russian officers
freely decorated with golden embroidery.

Near the palace to the right is the largest mosque of the town, the
mosque of Mesjidi Kelan, which was built by Abdallah Khan Sheibani. It
is a world of cupolas, clock towers, and minarets, which the storks
appear to make their home, and there are thousands of these birds in
the town.

Rambling on at a venture I reach the shores of the Zarafchane on the
northeast of the town. Its fresh limpid waters fill its bed once or
twice a fortnight. Excellent this for health! When the waters appear
men, women, children, dogs, bipeds, quadrupeds, bathe together in
tumultuous promiscuousness, of which I can give no idea, nor recommend
as an example.

Going northwest towards the centre of the city, I came across groups of
dervishes with pointed hats, a big stick in their hands, their hair
straggling in the breeze, stopping occasionally to take their part in a
dance which would not have disgraced the fanatics of the Elysée
Montmartre during a chant, literally vociferated, and accentuated by
the most characteristic steps.

Let us not forget that I went through the book market. There are no
less than twenty-six shops where printed books and manuscripts are
sold, not by weight like tea or by the box like vegetables, but in the
ordinary way. As to the numerous "medresses," the colleges which have
given Bokhara its renown as a university--I must confess that I did not
visit one. Weary and worn I sat down under the elms of the Divanbeghi
quay. There, enormous samovars are continually on the boil, and for a
"tenghe," or six pence three farthings, I refreshed myself with
"shivin," a tea of superior quality which only in the slightest degree
resembles that we consume in Europe, which has already been used, so
they say, to clean the carpets in the Celestial Empire.

That is the only remembrance I retain of the Rome of Turkestan.
Besides, as I was not able to stay a month there, it was as well to
stay there only a few hours.

At half-past ten, accompanied by Major Noltitz, whom I found at the
terminus of the Decauville, I alighted at the railway station, the
warehouses of which are crowded with bales of Bokhariot cotton, and
packs of Mervian wool.

I see at a glance that all my numbers are on the platform, including my
German baron. In the rear of the train the Persians are keeping
faithful guard round the mandarin Yen Lou. It seems that three of our
traveling companions are observing them with persistent curiosity;
these are the suspicious-looking Mongols we picked up at Douchak. As I
pass near them I fancy that Faruskiar makes a signal to them, which I
do not understand. Does he know them? Anyhow, this circumstance rather
puzzles me.

The train is no sooner off than the passengers go to the dining car.
The places next to mine and the major's, which had been occupied since
the start, are now vacant, and the young Chinaman, followed by Dr.
Tio-King, take advantage of it to come near us. Pan Chao knows I am on
the staff of the _Twentieth Century_, and he is apparently as desirous
of talking to me as I am of talking to him.

I am not mistaken. He is a true Parisian of the boulevard, in the
clothes of a Celestial. He has spent three years in the world where
people amuse themselves, and also in the world where they learn. The
only son of a rich merchant in Pekin, he has traveled under the wing of
this Tio-King, a doctor of some sort, who is really the most stupid of
baboons, and of whom his pupil makes a good deal of fun.

Dr. Tio-King, since he discovered Cornaro's little book on the quays of
the Seine, has been seeking to make his existence conform to the "art
of living long in perfect health." This credulous Chinaman of the
Chinese had become thoroughly absorbed in the study of the precepts so
magisterially laid down by the noble Venetian. And Pan Chao is always
chaffing him thereupon, though the good man takes no notice.

We were not long before we had a few specimens of his monomania, for
the doctor, like his pupil, spoke very good French.

"Before we begin," said Pan Chao, "tell me, doctor, how many
fundamental rules there are for finding the correct amounts of food and
drink?"

"Seven, my young friend," replied Tio-King with the greatest
seriousness. "The first is to take only just so much nourishment as to
enable you to perform the purely spiritual functions."

"And the second?"

"The second is to take only such an amount of nourishment as will not
cause you to feel any dullness, or heaviness, or bodily lassitude. The
third--"

"Ah! We will wait there, to-day, if you don't mind, doctor," replied
Pan Chao. "Here is a certain maintuy, which seems rather good, and--"

"Take care, my dear pupil! That is a sort of pudding made of hashed
meat mixed with fat and spices. I fear it may be heavy--"

"Then, doctor, I would advise you not to eat it. For my part, I will
follow these gentlemen."

And Pan Chao did--and rightly so, for the maintuy was delicious--while
Doctor Tio-King contented himself with the lightest dish on the bill of
fare. It appeared from what Major Noltitz said that these maintuys
fried in fat are even more savory. And why should they not be,
considering that they take the name of "zenbusis," which signifies
"women's kisses?"

When Caterna heard this flattering phrase, he expressed his regret that
zenbusis did not figure on the breakfast table. To which his wife
replied by so tender a look that I ventured to say to him:

"You can find zenbusis elsewhere than in Central Asia, it seems to me."

"Yes," he replied, "they are to be met with wherever there are lovable
women to make them."

And Pan Chao added, with a laugh:

"And it is again at Paris that they make them the best."

He spoke like a man of experience, did my young Celestial.

I looked at Pan Chao; I admired him.

How he eats! What an appetite! Not of much use to him are the
observations of the doctor on the immoderate consumption of his radical
humidity.

The breakfast continued pleasantly. Conversation turned on the work of
the Russians in Asia. Pan Chao seemed to me well posted up in their
progress. Not only have they made the Transcaspian, but the
Transsiberian, surveyed in 1888, is being made, and is already
considerably advanced. For the first route through Iscim, Omsk, Tomsk,
Krasnojarsk, Nijni-Ufimsk, and Irkutsk, a second route has been
substituted more to the south, passing by Orenburg, Akmolinsk,
Minoussinsk, Abatoni and Vladivostock. When these six thousand
kilometres of rails are laid, Petersburg will be within six days of the
Japan Sea. And this Transsiberian, which will exceed in length the
Transcontinental of the United States, will cost no more than seven
hundred and fifty millions.

It will be easily imagined that this conversation on the Russian
enterprise is not very pleasing to Sir Francis Trevellyan. Although he
says not a word and does not lift his eyes from the plate, his long
face flushes a little.

"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. Travelers will go
from Pekin to the Cape of Good Hope without change of carriage."

"And the Straits of Gibraltar?" asked Pan Chao.

At this Sir Francis Trevellyan raised his ears.

"Yes, Gibraltar?" said the major.

"Go under it!" said I. "A tunnel fifteen kilometres long is a mere
nothing! There will be no English Parliament to oppose it as there is
to oppose that between Dover and Calais! It will all be done some day,
all--and that will justify the vein:

"_Omnia jam fieri quae posse negabam_."

My sample of Latin erudition was only understood by Major Noltitz, and
I heard Caterna say to his wife:

"That is volapuk."

"There is no doubt," said Pan Chap, "that the Emperor of China has been
well advised in giving his hand to the Russians instead of the English.
Instead of building strategic railways in Manchouria, which would never
have had the approbation of the czar, the Son of Heaven has preferred
to continue the Transcaspian across China and Chinese Turkestan."

"And he has done wisely," said the major. "With the English it is only
the trade of India that goes to Europe, with the Russians it is that of
the whole Asiatic continent."

I look at Sir Francis Trevellyan. The color heightens on his cheeks,
but he makes no movement. I ask if these attacks in a language he
understands perfectly will not oblige him to speak out. And yet I
should have been very much embarrassed if I had had to bet on or
against it.

Major Noltitz then resumed the conversation by pointing out the
incontestable advantages of the Transasiatic with regard to the trade
between Grand Asia and Europe in the security and rapidity of its
communications. The old hatreds will gradually disappear under European
influence, and in that respect alone Russia deserves the approbation of
every civilized nation. Is there not a justification for those fine
words of Skobeleff after the capture of Gheok Tepe, when the conquered
feared reprisals from the victors: "In Central Asian politics we know
no outcasts?"

"And in that policy," said the major, "lies our superiority over
England."

"No one can be superior to the English."

Such was the phrase I expected from Sir Francis Trevellyan--the phrase
I understand English gentlemen always use when traveling about the
world. But he said nothing. But when I rose to propose a toast to the
Emperor of Russia and the Russians, and the Emperor of China and the
Chinese, Sir Francis Trevellyan abruptly left the table. Assuredly I
was not to have the pleasure of hearing his voice to-day.

I need not say that during all this talk the Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer
was fully occupied in clearing dish after dish, to the extreme
amazement of Doctor Tio-King. Here was a German who had never read the
precepts of Cornaro, or, if he had read them, transgressed them in the
most outrageous fashion.

For the same reason, I suppose, neither Faruskiar nor Ghangir took part
in it, for they only exchanged a few words in Chinese.

But I noted rather a strange circumstance which did not escape the
major.

We were talking about the safety of the Grand Transasiatic across
Central Asia, and Pan Chao had said that the road was not so safe as it
might be beyond the Turkestan frontier, as, in fact, Major Noltitz had
told me. I was then led to ask if he had ever heard of the famous Ki
Tsang before his departure from Europe.

"Often," he said, "for Ki Tsang was then in the Yunnan provinces. I
hope we shall not meet him on our road."

My pronunciation of the name of the famous bandit was evidently
incorrect, for I hardly understood Pan Chao when he repeated it with
the accent of his native tongue.

But one thing I can say, and that is that when he uttered the name of
Ki Tsang, Faruskiar knitted his brows and his eyes flashed. Then, with
a look at his companion, he resumed his habitual indifference to all
that was being said around him.

Assuredly I shall have some difficulty in making the acquaintance of
this man. These Mongols are as close as a safe, and when you have not
the word it is difficult to open them.

The train is running at high speed. In the ordinary service, when it
stops at the eleven stations between Bokhara and Samarkand, it takes a
whole day over the distance. This time it took but three hours to cover
the two hundred kilometres which separate the two towns, and at two
o'clock in the afternoon it entered the illustrious city of Tamerlane.




CHAPTER XII.


Samarkand is situated in the rich oasis watered by the Zarafchane in
the valley of Sogd. A small pamphlet I bought at the railway station
informs me that this great city is one of the four sites in which
geographers "agree" to place the terrestrial paradise. I leave this
discussion to the exegetists of the profession.

Burned by the armies of Cyrus in B.C. 329, Samarkand was in part
destroyed by Genghis Khan, about 1219. When it had become the capital
of Tamerlane, its position, which certainly could not be improved upon,
did not prevent its being ravaged by the nomads of the eighteenth
century. Such alternations of grandeur and ruin have been the fate of
all the important towns of Central Asia.

We had five hours to stop at Samarkand during the day, and that
promised something pleasant and several pages of copy. But there was no
time to lose. As usual, the town is double; one half, built by the
Russians, is quite modern, with its verdant parks, its avenues of
birches, its palaces, its cottages; the other is the old town, still
rich in magnificent remains of its splendor, and requiring many weeks
to be conscientiously studied.

This time I shall not be alone. Major Noltitz is free; he will
accompany me. We had already left the station when the Caternas
presented themselves.

"Are you going for a run round the town, Monsieur Claudius?" asked the
actor, with a comprehensive gesture to show the vast surroundings of
Samarkand.

"Such is our intention."

"Will Major Noltitz and you allow me to join you?"

"How so?"

"With Madame Caterna, for I do nothing without her."

"Our explorations will be so much the more agreeable," said the major,
with a bow to the charming actress.

"And," I added, with a view to save fatigue and gain time, "my dear
friends, allow me to offer you an arba."

"An arba!" exclaimed Caterna, with a swing of his hips. "What may that
be, an arba?"

"One of the local vehicles."

"Let us have an arba."

We entered one of the boxes on wheels which were on the rank in front
of the railway station. Under promise of a good "silao," that is to
say, something to drink, the yemtchik or coachman undertook to give
wings to his two doves, otherwise his two little horses, and we went
off at a good pace.

On the left we leave the Russian town, arranged like a fan, the
governor's house, surrounded by beautiful gardens, the public park and
its shady walks, then the house of the chief of the district which is
just on the boundary of the old town.

As we passed, the major showed us the fortress, round which our arba
turned. There are the graves of the Russian soldiers who died in the
attack in 1868, near the ancient palace of the Emir of Bokhara.

From this point, by a straight narrow road, our arba reached the
Righistan square, which, as my pamphlet says, "must not be confounded
with the square of the same name at Bokhara."

It is a fine quadrilateral, perhaps a little spoiled by the fact that
the Russians have paved it and ornamented it with lamps--which would
certainly, please Ephrinell, if he decides upon visiting Samarkand. On
three sides of the square are the well-preserved ruins of three
medresses, where the mollahs give children a good education. These
medresses--there are seventeen of these colleges at Samarkand, besides
eighty-five mosques--are called Tilla-Kari, Chir Dar and Oulong Beg.

In a general way they resemble each other; a portico in the middle
leading to interior courts, built of enameled brick, tinted pale blue
or pale yellow, arabesques designed in gold lines on a ground of
turquoise blue, the dominant color; leaning minarets threatening to
fall and never falling, luckily for their coating of enamel, which the
intrepid traveller Madame De Ujfalvy-Bourdon, declares to be much
superior to the finest of our crackle enamels--and these are not vases
to put on a mantelpiece or on a stand, but minarets of good height.

These marvels are still in the state described by Marco Polo, the
Venetian traveler of the thirteenth century.

"Well, Monsieur Bombarnac," asked the major, "do you not admire the
square?"

"It is superb," I say.

"Yes," says the actor, "what a splendid scene it would make for a
ballet, Caroline! That mosque, with a garden alongside, and that other
one with a court--"

"You are right, Adolphe," said his wife; "but we would have to put
those towers up straight and have a few luminous fountains."

"Excellent notion, Caroline! Write us a drama, Monsieur Claudius, a
spectacle piece, with a third act in this square. As for the title--"

"Tamerlane is at once suggested!" I reply. The actor made a significant
grimace. The conqueror of Asia seemed to him to be wanting in
actuality. And leaning toward his wife, Caterna hastened to say:

"As a scene, I have seen a better at the Porte-Saint Martin, in the
_Fils de la Nuit_--"

"And I have at the Châtelet in _Michael Strogoff_."

We cannot do better than leave our comedians alone. They look at
everything from the theatrical point of view. They prefer the air gauze
and the sky-blue foliage, the branches of the stage trees, the agitated
canvas of the ocean waves, the prospectives of the drop scene, to the
sites the curtain represents, a set scene by Cambon or Rubé or Jambon
to no matter what landscape; in short, they would rather have art than
nature. And I am not the man to try and change their opinions on the
subject.

As I have mentioned the name of Tamerlane, I asked Major Noltitz if we
were going to visit the tomb of the famous Tartar. The major replied
that we would see it as we returned; and our itinerary brought us in
front of the Samarkand bazaar.

The arba stopped at one of the entrances to this vast rotunda, after
taking us in and out through the old town, the houses of which consist
of only one story, and seem very comfortless.

Here is the bazaar in which are accumulated enormous quantities of
woollen stuffs, velvet-pile carpets in the brightest of colors, shawls
of graceful patterns, all thrown anyhow on the counters of the shops.
Before these samples the sellers and buyers stand, noisily arriving at
the lowest price. Among the fabrics is a silk tissue known as Kanaous,
which is held in high esteem by the Samarkand ladies, although they are
very far from appreciating the similar product of Lyons manufacture,
which it excels neither in quality nor appearance.

Madame Caterna appeared extraordinarily tempted, as if she were among
the counters of the _Bon Marché_ or the _Louvre_.

"That stuff would do well for my costume in the _Grande Duchesse_!" she
said.

"And those slippers would suit me down to the ground as Ali Bajou in
the _Caid_!" said Caterna.

And while the actress was investing in a remnant of Kanaous, the actor
paid for a pair of those green slippers which the Turkomans wear when
they enter a mosque. But this was not without recourse to the kindness
of the major, who acted as interpreter between the Caternas and the
merchant, whose "Yoks! Yoks!" sounded like a lot of crackers in his
large mouth.

The arba started again and went off toward the square of Ribi-Khanym,
where stands the mosque of that name which was that of one of
Tamerlane's wives. If the square is not as regular as that of
Righistan, it is in my opinion rather more picturesque. There are
strangely grouped ruins, the remains of arcades, half-unroofed cupolas,
columns without capitals, the shafts of which have retained all the
brightness of their enamelling; then a long row of elliptical porticoes
closing in one side of the vast quadrilateral. The effect is really
grand, for these old monuments of the splendor of Samarkand stand out
from a background of sky and verdure that you would seek in vain, even
at the Grand Opera, if our actor does not object. But I must confess we
experienced a deeper impression when, toward the northeast of the town,
our arba deposited us in front of the finest of the mosques of Central
Asia, which dates from the year 795 of the Hegira (1392 of our era).

I cannot, writing straight away, give you an idea of this marvel. If I
were to thread the words, mosaics, pediments, spandrels, bas-reliefs,
niches, enamels, corbels, all on a string in a sentence, the picture
would still be incomplete. It is strokes of the brush that are wanted,
not strokes of the pen. Imagination remains abashed at the remains of
the most splendid architecture left us by Asiatic genius.

It is in the farthest depths of this mosque that the faithful go to
worship at the tomb of Kassimben-Abbas, a venerated Mussulman saint,
and we are told that if we open the tomb a living man will come forth
from it in all his glory. But the experiment has not been made as yet,
and we prefer to believe in the legend.

We had to make an effort to throw off our contemplative mood; and
fortunately the Caternas did not trouble our ecstasy by evoking any of
their recollections of the theater. Doubtless they had shared in our
impressions.

We resumed our seats in the arba, and the yemtchik took us at the
gallop of his doves along shady roads which the Russian administration
keeps up with care.

Along these roads we met and passed many figures worthy of notice.
Their costumes were varied enough, "Khalats," in startling colors, and
their heads enturbaned most coquettishly. In a population of forty
thousand there was, of course, a great mingling of races. Most of them
seemed to be Tadjiks of Iranian origin. They are fine strong fellows,
whose white skin has disappeared beneath the tan of the open air and
the unclouded sun. Here is what Madame de Ujfalvy-Bourdon says of them
in her interesting book: "Their hair is generally black, as is also
their beard, which is very abundant. Their eyes are never turned up at
the corners, and are almost always brown. The nose is very handsome,
the lips are not thick, the teeth are small. The forehead is high,
broad, and the general shape of the face is oval."

And I cannot refrain from mentioning a note of approval from Caterna
when he saw one of these Tadjiks superbly draped in his many-colored
Khalat.

"What a splendid lead! What an admirable Melingue! You can see him in
Richepins's _Nana Sahib_ or Meurice's _Schamyl_."

"He would make a lot of money! replied Madame Caterna.

"He just would--I believe you, Caroline!" replied the enthusiastic
actor.

And for him, as for all other theatrical folks, is not the money the
most serious and the least disputable manifestation of the dramatic art?

It was already five o clock, and in this incomparable city of Samarkand
scene succeeded scene. There! I am getting into that way of looking at
it now. Certainly the spectacle should finish before midnight. But as
we start at eight o'clock, we shall have to lose the end of the piece.
But as I considered that, for the honor of special correspondents in
general, it would never do to have been at Samarkand without seeing
Tamerlane's tomb, our arba returned to the southwest, and drew up near
the mosque of Gour Emir, close to the Russian town. What a sordid
neighborhood, what a heap of mud huts and straw huts, what an
agglomeration of miserable hovels we have just been through!

The mosque has a grand appearance. It is crowned with its dome, in
which the raw blue of the turquoise is the chief color, and which looks
like a Persian cap; and on its only minaret, which has now lost its
head, there glitter the enamelled arabesques which have retained their
ancient purity.

We visited the central hall beneath the cupola. There stands the tomb
of the lame Timour the Conqueror. Surrounded by the four tombs of his
sons and his patron saint, beneath a stone of black jade covered with
inscriptions, whiten the bones of Tamerlane, in whose name is gathered
the whole fourteenth century of Asiatic history. The walls of the hall
are covered with slabs of jade, on which are engraven innumerable
scrolls of foliage, and in the southwest stands a little column marking
the direction of Mecca. Madame De Ujfalvy-Bourdon has justly compared
this part of the mosque of Gour Emir to a sanctuary, and we had the
same impression. This impression took a still more religious tone when,
by a dark and narrow stairway, we descended to the crypt in which are
the tombs of Tamerlane's wives and daughters.

"But who was this Tamerlane?" asked Caterna. "This Tamerlane everybody
is talking about."

"Tamerlane," replied Major Noltitz, "was one of the greatest conquerors
of the world, perhaps the greatest, if you measure greatness by the
extent of the conquests. Asia to the east of the Caspian Sea, Persia
and the provinces to the north of it, Russia to the Sea of Azof, India,
Syria, Asia Minor, China, on which he threw two hundred thousand
men--he had a whole continent as the theater of his wars."

"And he was lame!" said Madame Caterna.

"Yes, madame, like Genseric, like Shakespeare, like Byron, like Walter
Scott, like Talleyrand, but that did not hinder his getting along in
the world. But how fanatic and bloodthirsty he was! History affirms
that at Delhi he massacred a hundred thousand captives, and at Bagdad
he erected an obelisk of eighty thousand heads."

"I like the one in the Place de la Concorde better," said Caterna, "and
that is only in one piece."

At this observation we left the mosque of Gour Emir, and as it was time
to "hurry up," as our actor said, the arba was driven briskly toward
the station.

For my part, in spite of the observations of the Caternas, I was fully
in tone with the local color due to the marvels of Samarkand, when I
was roughly shaken back into modern reality.

In the streets--yes--in the streets near the railway station, in the
very center of Tamerlane's capital, I passed two bicyclists.

"Ah!" exclaimed Caterna. "Messrs. Wheeler!"

And they were Turkomans!

After that nothing more could be done than leave a town so dishonored
by the masterpiece of mechanical locomotion, and that was what we did
at eight o'clock.




CHAPTER XIII.


We dined an hour after the train left. In the dining car were several
newcomers, among others two negroes whom Caterna began to speak of as
darkies.

None of these travelers, Popof told me, would cross the Russo-Chinese
frontier, so that they interested me little or not at all.

During dinner, at which all my numbers were present--I have twelve now,
and I do not suppose I shall go beyond that--I noticed that Major
Noltitz continued to keep his eye on his lordship Faruskiar. Had he
begun to suspect him? Was it of any importance in his opinion that this
Mongol seemed to know, without appearing to do so, the three
second-class travelers, who were also Mongols? Was his imagination
working with the same activity as mine, and was he taking seriously
what was only a joke on my part? That I, a man of letters, a chronicler
in search of scenes and incidents, should be pleased to see in his
personage a rival of the famous Ki Tsang, or Ki Tsang himself, could be
understood; but that he, a serious man, doctor in the Russian army,
should abandon himself to such speculations no one would believe. Never
mind now, we shall have something more to say about it by and by.

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. The
train will not get in there before seven o'clock in the morning. It will
stop three times at small stations for water and fuel--circumstances
favorable to the success of my project. I add that the night is dark,
the sky overcast, no moon, no stars. It threatens rain; the wind is
freshening. It is no time for walking on platforms, and nobody walks
there. It is important to choose the moment when Popof is sound asleep.

It is not necessary for the interview to be a long one. That the
gallant fellow should be reassured--that is the essential point--and he
will be, as soon as I have made his acquaintance. A little information
concerning him, concerning Mademoiselle Zinca Klork, whence he comes,
why he is going to Pekin, why he chose such a mode of transport, his
provisions for the journey, how he gets into the case, his age, his
trade, his birthplace, what he has done in the past, what he hopes to
do in the future, etc., etc., and I have done all that a conscientious
reporter can do. That is what I want to know; that is what I will ask
him. It is not so very much.

And in the first place let us wait until the car is asleep. That will
not be long, for my companions are more or less fatigued by the hours
they have spent in Samarkand. The beds were ready immediately after
dinner. A few of the passengers tried a smoke on the platform, but the
gust drove them in very quickly. They have all taken up their places
under the curtained lamps, and toward half-past ten the respiration of
some and the snoring

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