CHAPTER XXIII.

AUT COENUM, AUT COLUM.

THE next morning it is the usual programme-half a dozen men helping each other to do nothing, and several precious hours lost to no purpose. Two Russian officers who are in the same plight as myself, having vainly exhausted themselves in anathemas, have gone into the big, bare, dingy room reserved for travellers, in order to smoke themselves into oblivion; while I, returning from my tour of inspection to find matters no farther advanced than before, am standing disconsolately in the doorway, when a well known voice suddenly greets me.

"David Stepanovitch, sure enough! So you've got loose at last, then! How are you?"

I turn round, and see beside me a tall, gaunt figure in uniform, surmounted by the iron features and bushy grey moustache of my old gaoler at Kazalinsk.

Captain Vereshtchagin! this is a strange chance! What are you doing here?"

How

"Oh, I'm here for good now. They've made me district governor, and I only hope they won't courtmartial me, as they did the late commandant. ever, they can't say that I've let any one pass without leave. I kept you pretty close, didn't I!"

"You did, indeed; and your postmaster here seems inclined to follow your example."

"What! won't they give you horses?" cries the old gentleman, in a flush of righteous indignation.

"Apparently not. I've pulled the postmaster out of bed, slanged the clerk, pitched into the stable-men all round, but they won't go a bit faster, do what I will." "Oh, they won't, won't they? We'll just see about that directly. Just you come along with me."

And, striding into the post-house, he begins to fulminate in true official style, with a vigour and fluency which makes the poor little clerk shiver in his boots; while my Tartar, awakened by the noise from a disconsolate nap, grins with delight at seeing his tormentors "getting it" in their turn.

"What the devil do you mean by not giving this gentleman horses, eh, you good-for-nothing? Is this the way you do your duty?"

"Please your honour, the postmaster's gone off to the next station, with the gentleman's travelling pass in his pocket, and we can't do anything till we get it back."

"What does that matter, you fool? Let the gentleman go on, and meet the postmaster on the road. Sharp, now, or I'll know the reason why."

The terror of this official intervention works wonders. Within an hour and a half the wheels are greased, the baggage stowed, the horses brought out and harnessed, the driver accoutred, and I, seeing one of the Russian officers above mentioned coming out with a dismal face

(for he wants a cart as well as horses, which cannot be got), offer him a seat in, or rather on, my car, where, by holding tight, he seems to think he can maintain himself. The driver cracks his whip, and away we go, the mud of the recent shower flying up around us like spray. About three miles from the fort, we cross a man at full gallop, and recognise the defaulting postmaster, who, with a torrent of apologies, tugs from his pocket my forgotten travelling pass, considerably dirtier than before. This incident gives an opening to my new guest (who is still smarting from his prolonged detention) for a furious tirade upon the iniquities of the postal system.

"It's not so bad when you have your own waggon— then you have only to wait for horses; but when you've got to change your cart at every big station, five times between Kazalinsk and Tashkent, very likely losing several hours each time, it does come rather hard upon one. As for these postmasters, I'd have 'em all flogged, every man of them. Most of them don't care a bit whether you've got a Government pass or a private one; and even when there are horses, it's as likely as not that some fellow with plenty of money just gives a rouble of drink-money to the postmaster, and gets 'em before you. Now this next station, for instance, Biroubai, that we're just coming to, you always have to wait for horses there, whether you're going up or down. Since it was first established, nobody's ever got horses at once; and it's become a kind of proverb on the road. You'll just see, now, when we get there."

His words are fatally verified when we reach Biroubai two hours later; but, as a compensation, he meets some friends at the post-house, who at once offer him a place in their comfortable travelling-waggon-a great relief to the poor fellow, after his perch on the corner of a chest in my unsheltered carriole. Meanwhile I, having plenty of time on my hands, turn out to have a look at the surroundings, which are picturesque enough.

About a hundred yards off (with its farther shore fringed to the water's edge with green thickets), winds the northern channel of the Syr-Daria, the self-willed river having, as usual, scooped itself out another course farther south. All along the hither bank extends a belt of smooth green turf, now dappled far and wide with white-frocked Cossacks, bivouacking on the march to Tashkent. Tents are springing up every here and there, and the air is alive with the crackle of camp fires and the buzz of countless voices; while the groups that fill up the background, drinking, smoking, talking, or paddling in the shallow water, would make a study for Teniers.

But my tour of inspection is suddenly and disagreeably cut short. A long low cloud that has been hovering upon the horizon unfurls itself suddenly over the whole sky, and down comes a deluge of rain, compared with which the performance of the last night but one is as nothing. Mourad and I have just time to snatch our baggage from the car and rush with it into the posthouse, where the rest of the community are already assembled; and now the storm has free course. The

thickets sway like reeds under the lashing wind, and the dark river whirls along in one great sheet of foam, and the fresh green turf bubbles into brown plashy mire, and across the deepening gloom and blinding rain comes. flash after flash of lightning, by which we catch momentary glimpses of struggling figures out in the open, trying vainly to secure their flapping tents, or to find shelter under the dripping bushes. And right overhead volleys the quick, sharp cannonade of the thunder, crash after crash, at which the two barefooted little girls who compose our host's family hide their faces in my lap, and ask plaintively "when it will stop?"

However, the genial sky of Central Asia soon recovers from its transient fits of rage; and by the middle of the afternoon (we having amused ourselves meanwhile with a prolonged orgie of tea) the sun is as bright, and the ground almost as dry, as in the morning. Towards nightfall the Russian officer goes off with his party, having acknowledged my hospitality by the gift of a grey "caftan" with a hood to match-a nondescript affair, not unlike a Capuchin's frock, but fated to do me good service, in a very unexpected way, on the return journey.

About sun-set (having refreshed myself with a swim across the river, and a mouthful or two of black bread) I scramble again into my cart, and prepare for a quiet study of my Russian map of Central Asia. of Central Asia. But I have reckoned without my host. Regarding anything which he has not seen before, the Cossack is eager and curious as a child; and I have hardly unfolded the map, when