Semi-weekly herald., 1910-09-05
times the passengers are packed m

times the passengers are packed ,r
so tightly that they arc very uncom.
Portable, because the windows are ke,t
closed. Somehow or other-and # is
difficult to understandable Russians
although living in frigid country
are the enemies of fresh air. In tho
aters, offices of government officials
waiting rooms in railway stations res.
taurants and other places where tbe
public assemble the atmosphere is AL
ways sitting. and whoever is required
to occupy the same compartment of
a railway carriage with n Russian is
an object of sympathy.
The oasis of Bokhara and that of
SamaTkand. which is $50 miles dis.
tant by rail, are due to the abundant
waters of the Zerafshan river. which
rises in the mountains of India and
runs for 425 miles through Russian
| Turkestan, inundating with its branch
es $50 square miles of territory of the
| lost fertile part of Central Asia. For.
| ty-three large canals, with a total
length of 600 miles. divert the wafer
| upon the fields far and wide, and there
are 600 miles of smaller canals and 92s
| miles of bitches, which reach every
fpart OF the oasis.
This system of irrigation is very
primitive and dates back to prehistoric
times. 1t is described by Arabian.
E'p.yntiDn Dnt-sion
| the Christian era, and the Greeks
called the River Zerafshan The "Poly.
timetus," which means very precious,
| while the name means in the native
| tongue ''the golden strewer." It is
| a remarkable fact that the largest sup.
ply of water comes in July from the
melting SHOWS in the mountains, when
| it is most needed, and the river is at
its lowest level in January
| Cotton is the most important prod.
uct, and after that wheat and other
grain. Cotton has been grown here
from the earliest times. The Spanish
ambassador who visited this country
in 1404, during the reign of Tamerlane,
speaks of the cotton plantations and
describes the vineyards and gardens
and melon fields, which he said pro
duced wonderful quantities of delicious
fruit
| Between Bokhara and Samarkand
all the land is under cultivation and
the grain and alfalfa are now being
| I,tr1 in, AL ro 81,
way with sickles. Men cut it labori-
ously, creeping along on their knees,
and other men, following after, pick
up the stalks by handfuls and bind
them with their hands in small
sheayes, which are then loaded upon
the back of a donkey or camel or
a man and carried to mud hut, where
| it is stored until it can be thrashed,
or rather trampled out, as used to be
done in the days of the patriarchs OF
the Old Testament.
| Every few miles the train passes
a village of mud huts where the labor
ing farmers live; one-story cabins like
those of Egypt, of mud walls made
with very little, If any, straw to hold
| them together. They look as If
heavy rain would melt them and wash
them away. That has been the fate
of several villages whose ruins we saw
by the roadside. Acres and indeed
miles of the steppe are covered with
roofless walls that have crumbled or
have been washed down to about half
their original height by the winds and
the rains, and the inhabitants have
calmly picked up their beds and other
furniture and moved away. These mud
houses are tolerable only In rainless
regions, and the rainfall here varies
from nothing to thirteen to fourteen
inches. Sometimes the entire twelve
months will pass without a drop of
moisture, either rain or dew, while
another year may be frightened with
frequent showers, and all OF the oldest
inhabitants are familiar with snow.
| Around the railway station are cab
ins built OF railway ties placed on
end, such as you see in similar situ-
| dtlons III NOW MeAlCO, ArlIOnd
other timberless regions of our own
west Several of the railway officials
and military officers have erected log
houses on the Russian plan, which
are familiar to those who have trav-
eled in the northern part of the EN-
pire, and have painted them green and
blue and other bright eolors. There
are Russian peasants at every station,
ilnmistakable mujiks with long blond
boards and their hair chopped off
around the neck as If It were cut by
wash bowl. They wear the same linen
blouses and broad-crowned caps that
you see around the villages near Mos
COW and Petersburg.
| The houses are windowless. All the
light and ventilation come through
the doors, and the owners have to
keep patching up the walls all the time
TO prevent them from being worn away
by the constant beating of the wind