Arizona republican., 1912-03-18


 syllable fell on his ear and even tho alphabet looked like a hamburger steak. until he got himself under the kindly carc of his interpreter.
 But coming home It was different again. After a month on the Turkcs- tan desert in close communion with the Russian language. he came back through Austria. Leaving the train at Vienna, which he likes better than any other European city. ,he German language began to hum around his ears in such musical sweetness that even his meaSer stock of it made him think he was q natural born German and as good as anybody The little he knew compared with what he heard going over was most appalling. But coming pack, thc little he knew of German compared with the almost to- tai absence of conversation he hal "enjoyed" during the preceding month. almost made him chesty and he tried To talk the Germans in Vienna 10 death.
 MT. Davis lcf; St. Petersburg March 3l for Moscow. where one day Was spent most delightfully."- in the historic | old city. anu then it was all aboard for the frontier. in his special car. This frontier by the way iS new only because it is so old for a thousand years ago it was one Of the most i'm 1 portant countries of the world, in some respects. With occasional stops | of a few hours it took them ten days of constant travel, covering perhaps ! 1000 miles. 10 reach Byram-Ali in ! southeastern Turkestan. where they 1 abandoned their car for a time and | took to the camels. Byram Ali is the seat Of vast estate owned by the | czar and is a place of 5000 tO 10000 | including perhaps 100 Europeans. most ! Of whom are connected with the ad- 1 ministratiCn of the estate. The people ] generally are very poor and the pop l ula ton Is mixed as the country has 1 been conquered anl reconquered time ! after time by different nations or ! tribes.
 The country he was to explore was l that through which the river Anu | Daria. once called the Oxus. runs from 1 the Hindu Rush mountains for hun dreds of miles, into the Aral sea | Anu DarIa means bad river and MT 1 Davis knows no better comparison of l il than the Colorado river as it is muddy and carries lots of silt, but it | is a big river. it's low water flow be- 1 ing 3O00O cubic feet per second. The ! dry season is tho winter flood season ! being in July when the snOws are melting. and just the time Of year the water is needed so on the point of | water supply the project is all that one could wish. This project was re ported upon adversely though. because of the forbidding character of the ! desert. which is So covered with all kali and drifting sands that il seemed hardly feasible to reclaim it. though the available land such as il is is al- most ilimlJabe.
 But near to the river and along the | smaller streams there is q great deal of irrigation of small areas by crude methods. aggrcGatinE perhaps 6,oOC.OO0 acres in the whole of Turkestdn. Thv methods are merely digging rough deep dtches by hand through long dis | :anccs to carry the water to points where it reaches the surface, or wher. it can be elevated from the ditches by old fashioned wheels operated with
 camcls But the ditchcs till rapidly with silt and are cleaned repeatedly until the banks set so high the dir, cannot longer be shovelcd out. whes
 thc farmers abandon them and dig
 new canals alongside of them. Some of the oid half filled ditches are then
 urnJd into roads as they have per
 feet grade. made by the silt washed in
 This crude irrigation is not only
 true of the settlements along the riv- CTS but of numerous places where
 mountain and perpetua'ly flowing
 streams arc finally swallowed up 1T
 the desert as is the fate of Cave creek
 northwest of Phoenix. only of course
 on much larger scale so ,hat tho
 water supply above may be depended
 upon The most notable example Of that is the city of Samarlanl, q place of about 15.O0O inhabitants now an,
 almost entirely dependent upon agri-
 culture, through the waters of q
 stream that is swallowed up in tho nearby desert. This was one of the
 most important cities of the world .
 thousand years ago but it is now Sel-
 dom heard of in the world that does
 things.
 The lands that are cultivated IT
 Turkestan, however, are intenSively tiled. the most staple crop of thf
 country being cotton. Much cotton $
 used in Russia, being imported fro l
 the United States, and the cost of Il
 plus the freight and the duty. ma'S.S lit a profitable crop for the Russian subject who can grow it.
 Returning from the desert eXplnrc- tions to Byram-Ali the party retrace' it's railroad ride for perhaps 250 miles
 and again detrained to examine the
 possibilities along the river Sir-Darld MT. Davis did not go there with tha' locality especially in mind but as tho | conditions were so unsatisfactory . along the Amu-Daria he thought he . would look the Sir -Daria over while inc
 was there and took chance on meei [ ing with government dlsapproVal. d, | there was none. However he was Vel careful not to take any measurements or do any surveying or anything etst
 that could lay him open to suspicion of any ulteIior motive IL was here he