The Cordova daily times., 1922-08-12

Ilhiva and the Emlrate of Bokhara, both of which claimed independence after the World war, is three times as large as Texas, yet it was almost lost in the Tsar's domains. It has as many people as New York and Massachu- settS combined and there are as few Russians as there are native-bOrn Americans on Manhattan isle. Its two largest rivers empty into a sea about the size of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and do their best TO keep it from drying up into a salt pile; but they are slowly losing the battle.
 The first point of interest along the railway is the Akhal oasis, which can easily be distinguished in spring, but resembles the desert in late fall and winter It is the largest oasis in Fur kestan, 160 miles long and 10 miles wide. Here dwell the Tekke TurkO- mans-huge, fine-looking men, who. wear sheepskin hats foot high. The TurkOmans owe as much of their charm to their fantastic headgear as does a stage beauty. When they re- move them and reveal the shaved heads and gaudy embroidered skull caps beneath, they seem commonplace; yet there are many of the older men whose majesty of bearing is not a matter of costume alone. Their red cotton khalats give them a princely stateliness which the trousered and booted Russian with his shirt Hopping lacks.
 Farther east lies the romantic mud flower pot of Bokhara, which might be any desert city inclosed in crum- bling walls and composed of mud houses, which have almost no windows on the streets. A good rain would wash it away, and If left to the rav- ages of time this ancient city would soon sink to the level of the dust from which it was constructed. But Box hara like many another ancient city, does not owe it's permanence to brick, marble, or reinforced concrete, and It will probably survive for a few more centuries patching up here and. re- building there, never completely old and never wholly new.
 Architecture of Samarkand.
 What costume does for Bokhara, architecture did for Samarkand. The Registan, once the show-place of Gen. tral Asia, still retains much of It's former beauty, for the tinted tiles which encase the imposing facades of the mosque schools of Shir-Dar, Tillah Kari, and Ulug Beg have re- tained as much of their Oriental brilli- ance as is pleasing to the western eye. Time has touched the tiles of Samar- kand with loving fingers, leaving all that was beautiful and nothing that was garish.
 Baku is more cosmopolitan than Bokhara, for Bokhara is only cos mopolitan in an Asiatlc sense, while Baku contains European influences and inhabitants as well. From one end to the other, the Caucasus is a vast mine of copper, iron, tin, zinc, and other metals. In the lovely Ala gan Valley of Kakhetia some of the worlds finest wine is grown, and the North Caucasus is granary where American agricultural machinery has reaped rich harvests; but at the east end of the Caucasus 1t is oil that has made modern history and made Baku a familiar name among business men the world over.
 Baku Is well built In spots and Is tremendously wealthy; but 1t lacks the distinction of city that has grown gracefully. It savers of the nouveaux riches and the boom town still, at a time when 1t Is already declining as an oil-production center, with Grozny and Malkop rising to 'wrest it's laurels from the oil port on the Caspian.
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