Two days later (the flood of posts and passengers having begun to subside), a little wicker-work car, without covering of any kind, draws up at our door; and my landlord brings me a white roll and a cup of splendid coffee, as his parting gift for the road. A few minutes suffice to stow our baggage, of which, indeed, the remains of the provisions bought at Orenburg form by far the largest part. I pay my bill, which is still among my souvenirs of Turkestan; big Onesimus extends his broad trencher-like hand for the final "tip;" the driver shakes his reins with a wild screech, and-Eastward Ho !

It was the 17th June when we entered Kazalinsk; it is the 7th August when we leave it. Words cannot tell what that time really was; but for the sake of one-half the insight that it gave me into Russia's real position in the East, I would gladly do it all over again.

CHAPTER XXI.

UP THE SYR-DARIA.

FREE at last! and with the whole east of Central Asia

before us. Glorious August weather, just pleasantly softened from the destroying heat of June; a fresh breeze, which stirs our blood like the springing of a new life; full permission to go straight up the river for six hundred miles and more, without let or hindrance; and possibly (who knows?) a chance of getting to Khiva after all, in the track of Kaufmann's couriers. In any case, the rumoured disturbances in Kokan, or Bokhara, or wherever it may be, will be worth looking at if one can get a sight of them; and, after the long torpor of the last seven weeks, any exertion is a pleasure.

Not unnaturally, at such a moment, am I reminded of a certain famous passage, which I translate for my Tartar's benefit: "I wish them horses had been three months and better in the Fleet, sir," said Sam, addressing his master. "Why so, Sam?" asked Mr Pickwick. "Why, sir," answered Sam, "how they would go if they had!" Honest Mourad fully appreciates the joke, and laughs over it with a heartiness very un-Asiatic.

Our route, for several hundred miles to come, lies along the Syr-Daria; and, at the very outset, we come

suddenly into a new world. There are, indeed, snatches of unutterable desolation every here and there, such as I have already described in the account of my march across the steppe; but the general aspect of the country, even in this earlier stage between Fort No. I and Fort No. 2, is a refreshing contrast to the overwhelming barrenness of the Kara-Koum. For miles together we are in the midst of green pastures, and thick clusters of undergrowth, and forests of reeds swaying with the swirl of the river, and droves of grazing horses, or camels, which turn their long necks to stare at us as we scurry by. And sometimes, at long intervals, a group of horsemen come swooping past at full gallop, with their long lances glittering in the sun, and their white fangs lighting up the gaunt brown face with an ugly grin.

But, despite all these, this strange country has a dreariness of its own which is hard to describe. It is the lifelessness, not of a region which has never lived, but of one which has lived with a boundless intensity of life, only to perish at once and for ever. In the wildest and loneliest spots start up strange relics of a forgotten civilisation; vast canals, half-choked by drifting sand; pyramidal tombs, upon whose massy walls the storms of five centuries have beaten in vain; ruined fortresses, looking blankly down at us through their gaping walls with a fixed unseeing stare, like the eyes of a corpse; and, at times, whole acres of crumbling buildings, over which the wind passes with a dreary moan. These are the things which have been; and the presence of such

multiplied signs of busy and populous life in the heart of a region now "given over to desolation," has an effect indescribably weird and unearthly.

With such evidence, it is not difficult to believe the eloquent descriptions given by the Mussulman historians of what Central Asia once was, till her forests and those who planted them fell together before the unsparing sword of Timour. Ages have rolled over her unredeemed desolation; and now, in the fullness of time, Russia is come to build upon the ruins of the fallen empire, and to fill in, with slow and laborious touches, the grand outline bequeathed her by Alexander the Great.

For the first day we get along well enough, meeting with only one delay worth mentioning—a halt of four hours at the fourth station from Kazalinsk, which we reach about midnight. Under the glorious southern moonlight, the broad sweep of the Syr-Daria stands out like silver from the dark plain around; but along its shadowy bank twinkle countless fires, and the still air is stirred by a sound like the distant cawing of a thousand rooks.

"What's all this?" ask I of the postmaster, who comes tumbling out in his greasy sheepskin, lantern in hand.

"It's a column of Cossacks on the march to Tashkent, devil take them!" answers the poor fellow, with the concentrated rage of an injured man, hopeless of relief. "They kept me awake all last night, and they're not gone yet. Just hear them now! as bad as a bazaar with a lot of Jews in it!"

About four in the morning we get off again, and thenceforward go along briskly enough. As we approach Fort No. 2 the soil becomes lighter, and I see for the first time a phenomenon which afterwards recurs pretty frequently-a layer of boughs trodden into a kind of pavement, in order to solidify the deep soft sand which covers the road. Just as we halt at the last station before the fort, up come three men on horseback, and three others on foot, the latter moving with a shuffling gait, as if some one were clutching them by the ankles. They come to a halt in the shade of the posthouse, and one of the men on foot, shambling up to where I sit, holds out a lean hand with a petition for alms. I look at his feet, and see the tell-tale fetters.

"They're prisoners on the way to Siberia," whispers my Tartar, who has been exchanging a word or two with the mounted escort. "Their keepers let them beg as they go along; but they get little enough, poor fellows!"

I search my pockets, but find nothing. The payment of the posts has exhausted my small change, and no Russian post-master has ever been known to have any since roads first existed. The only thing I can think of is to cut him a huge slice of bread and water-melon, in which the poor fellow buries his thirsty lips with a look of gratitude that says more than any words. Then, remembering his two comrades, he breaks up his portion, and is about to divide it with them, when I forestall him by serving them out a slice each. The mounted men look on approvingly, and suggest to