The two former

English Viceroy of Afghanistan. arrived by rail from Bokhara; but his Excellency the Viceroy, still mindful of his old Eton renown, descended the Oxus from Badakshan in a Rob Roy canoe, to the great astonishment of the natives. I put up at the Turkestan Hotel, kept by a grandson of the last Khan of Khiva—a very nice, gentlemanly young fellow, who remarked to me yesterday with a knowing smile, that he, like his ancestors, levied toll on all passers-by, but that his profits far exceeded theirs. The specimens of native silk and cotton were remarkably fine, especially those from the factories recently established at Urgendj by Messrs Spinner and Yarne, of Manchester; and a large trade in these articles is anticipated with Persia, immediately upon the opening of the railway to Meshed, which is expected to take place during the autumn. Among the curiosities of the antiquarian department were some fossil biscuits, originally forming part of General Kaufmann's commissariat during the campaign of 1873, and, I am told, but slightly altered in consistency. The mineral department contains several specimens of the gold found in the channel through which the Oxus formerly discharged itself into the Aral Sea, before its final diversion into the Caspian ;* the precious metal is said to be abundant, and a Turkoman company has already been formed for the

* Here the Correspondent of the Future must be corrected. Owing to the progressive diminution of the Oxus since its last diversion into the Caspian, the best Russian engineers pronounce the undertaking impossible. See Chapter xiii.

working of it. The statue of M. Vambéry in the centre of the refreshment room is by a native sculptor, and has just received a well-merited laudation in the columns of the Khiva Daily Caravan. Among the pictures, I need only mention the chef-d'œuvre—a large oil painting of that celebrated race between the University Eights of Khiva and Bokhara, which attracted so many sporting celebrities to the banks of the Oxus a year ago. I must not forget to mention that several commodious hotels, well supplied with bathing machines, have been established by Kirghiz capitalists along the shore of the Aral Sea; so that Sir A. Cook's projected "monster excursion" to Khiva vid Orenburg and Fort No. 1, and back by Krasnovodsk and Tiflis, may rely upon finding every comfort en route."

This will probably be the style of thing a hundred years hence; but for the present, whenever I hear of Russia's "civilising progress" in the East, and the "attachment" of her Asiatic subjects, I straightway bethink myself of a great sea of treacle creeping slowly onward, with a few unhappy flies firmly attached to its surface.

M

CHAPTER XVIII.

A "CAMP DINNER IN CENTRAL ASIA.

"VITE, mein friend!" shouts my fellow-prisoner, Dr Engelbrecht, bursting into the little brick-paved room in which I am sitting over my tea and camp-biscuit. "We go to dejeûner wid de voisko in de lager, and all shall be fertig in una hora!"

By this polyglot announcement, the Doctor means to intimate that we are to lunch to-day with the officers of the newly-arrived detachment. Khiva having fallen, troops are now coming up from all points to relieve the army of occupation. One of the flying columns from Orenburg has just bivouacked on the Syr-Daria, beside Fort No. I; and to-day we are to be its guests.

"Shall I take my sauce-pan ?"

"Yes, sure! and de spirit-lamp, and de bif-extrait, and all! We must have one very good essen to-day, or de officers shall say dat I know not how to cook."

And, stimulated by this awful possibility, the Doctor hurries off to the post-house to procure a "trap," while I hasten to fish out my cooking apparatus, not forgetting the "bif-extrait"-ie., Baron Liebig's famous invention. In an hour, as my comrade prophesied, all is ready; and away we go in gallant style, over a series

of ruts, holes, banks, and pools of water, that might shake the nerves of a Tipperary carman—till at length we come out upon the great plain beyond, wind our way deftly among the countless tents with which it is studded, and finally pull up in front of a more pretentious "canvas" than the rest, at the door of which the Russian regimental doctor (a long, lean, dried-up old fellow, with a lancet-shaped face and castor-oil complexion) stands ready to greet his confrère.

And now, is not this a gallant sight? Just below the fort, the river makes a wide bend to the south, enclosing a broad sweep of grassy turf, usually tenanted only by a few stray cattle, but to-day humming like a hive with the bustle of twelve hundred fighting men.

From the outer ditch to the brink of the Syr-Daria, the whole plain is alive with the glitter of lances and bayonets, the flitting of white uniforms, the neighing and pawing of horses, the shouts and laughter of the rough, good-humoured, overgrown schoolboys, who chaff, and halloo, and play tricks on each other, without a thought of what is to come. The river, where I bathed in utter solitude two days ago, is now dotted with scores of sunburned faces; and the wild-fowl are scared from their reeds by the smoke of countless fires, upon which bubble iron pots, whose savoury steam allures the Kirghiz dogs from any distance to sniff hungrily around them. In a word, the whole tableau is an admirable specimen of one of the most picturesque sights on earth-a real Cossack camp on the steppes of Central Asia.

But at present we have no leisure for admiration. The day is wearing towards afternoon, and our meal is still to be cooked; so to work we go in earnest. The soldiers make a fire of dried manure, wood being as rare in these parts as honesty or clean linen; our host sends his servant to the river for water; I take upon myself the keeping up of the fire and the stirring of the soup-kettle; while the German doctor, turning up his sleeves with a professional air, begins chopping meat as heartily as if he were taking off a leg. And so, for the next two or three hours, the work goes on vigorously, Dr Engelbrecht every now and then tasting the soup with the air of a connoisseur, and giving his orders with the calm dignity of superior knowledge. At length all is ready; and while the chef and his aidesde-camp are serving up, I take a hasty stroll through. the camp, in order to appreciate more fully its picturesque details.

The bivouac forms a kind of irregular oblong, on three sides of which the horses are tethered and the arms piled. The fourth faces the river; and here, enjoying the cool breeze that blows across it, are to be found all who are not otherwise engaged. To my right, as I pass by, an eager circle is gathered round a greyhaired Cossack, who, between the puffs of his short black pipe, is spinning an amazing yarn about some forgotten campaign against the Turkomans. To my left sits a hulking lad astride of a half empty biscuitchest, while a comrade, standing behind him, is vigorously chopping off his hair with a pair of scissors big