The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-12-14
grations to the mountains and steppes around the Caspian sea

grations to the mountains and steppes around the Caspian sea
 Most nomadic of all are the much dreaded Kabardihes. They arc usual ly on horseback. armed to the teeth. though not half as fierce as they look, The use of their weapon Is generally re- stricted to hunting and in defense against wild animals. All their gar ments consist of undressed. coarsely sewed animal skins. The men general ly wear fox capes. while the women, who by the way are very beautiful. wear very high headgear. such as Is seldom encountered in Russia. The Kabardines take their wives and sweet hearts along on the hunt for weeks at time The women generally ride astraddle in front of the men on the same horse. Both are usually graceful riders, and 1t is a romantic spectacle to see a company of Kabardines gallop- ing away on their fiery steeds to the chase amid the shouts of the villagers.
 Then there are the Mongrelians and Georgians. These are, perhaps. de- seconded from Turks and Persians-at least one would judge so from their love of luxury and ostentatiousness. They are also more domestic in their habits. the Georgians especially dis playing no nomadic traits whatever in their life.
 Sheep raising and farming are their principal occupations. It is ques- ton whether or not these Georgians are Identical with the nation that four ished before the victorious reign of AL exander the Great The Georgians themselves have tradition that Thor gamos, a great grandson of Japhet, is their ancestor. How they manage to xace their lineage descent through these many centuries Is a conundrum for ethnologists to solve. There Is no denying the fact on the other hand that they are a very ancient people. From the fair Georgians the Moham- medans selected the white slaves, which went to stock the Turkish and Moorish harems, and astonishing as 1t may seem through the ages, these true Caucasians have remained faithful to the Christian religion though they have suffered untold persecution. Brosset, In his Rapport sur un Voyage Arch aeologique dams la Georgie te dans FAT menia, execute en 1S47-4S," says that their literature contains an excellent translation of the Bible, both of the Old and the New Testaments, that their scholars have also translated all of the anti-Nicene fathers, Plato, Aris- totle and a number of heroic poems of the time of Queen Thamar Q1S4-12O6). With the exception of these two tribes and the Lesghians and Circas- sians, the people east and southeast of the Don and the Volga are an igno- rant, superstitious set. Nearly all of them are analphabets. It is to be hoped that the educational improvement which the government has inaugurated will at least uplift the growing gene ration, and that the vast unpopulated border districts will be placed under cultivation. The trend of immigra- ton, however, is westward, and it Is doubtful whether this vast region will ever be transformed into a land of modern culture.
 A mixed race of Kalmucks and Tar tars are the Cossacks. These occupy peculiar place in the Russian nation. There are perhaps two million of them spread over an area of sixty thousand square miles. Nearly all the males serve in the frontier regiments and have proven valuable defenders of the Czar's dominions, since they were placed under the Russian protectorate in 1854. About thirty thousand of them serve in Siberia. No soldiers so brave and so hardy as the Cossacks, and withal most of them are generous and kind-hearted, good to their wives and horses, especially to their horses.
 Of great importance to Russia's ad vance into central Asia was the build ing of the Trans-Caspian railroad. This facilitated it's political and militia " progress and rendered intercourse with the mother country easier. Agri- cultural activity has been steadily en- courag ged by the government, and mar kets have been found for the various products of the Asiatic provinces. Here is vast territory, capable of great agricultural and industrial de- velopment, long neglected by the ease loving Mongolians and Turcomans Samarcand and Tashkend, the latter lying very close to the Chinese bounda- ry and not very far from Yarkand in eastern Turkestan, promise to become great railroad centers, as surveys from here for several roads south and north have been approved by the govern ment. Soon these impenetrable, dreary deserts and mountains will be trav- ersed by the heralds of civilization. One stretch of the Trans-C Caspian rail- road cuts through the weirdest and most uninteresting scenery on earth. It connects Usun Ada with Merv be- tween the Persian line and Karakunf desert. Extensive salt basins and ap- parently endless sand plains, with here and there a very small oasis, may be viewed for hours from the train window with little. variation and with no villages, farms or inhabitants of any kind. In the whole of the Trans Caspian district and of Turkestan live less than eight million of souls, and most of these populate the cities in a territory larger than France and Ger many together. Russia is, especially anxious to promote emigration to Tur- kestan on account of the extraordina- ry fertility of the soil, and of late hun dreds of good Russian farmers have begun to till it with promising results, Cotton, silk and wine are the main