Tue dull season has allowed the Times Basten questions, aibett they isi bred to publish some interesting papers on
rather late in the day. The account of the Bonded Warehouse question here which we gave last week, is one of them, and in evidently should have seen the light the Spring. Another is the story of a trip by the Central Asian railway, which the St. Petersburg correspondent of our contemporary took in order to be present at the opening some months ago, and a third is a short holiday in India early this year. The account of the run over the Central Asian railway extended we should say to the size of an ordinary quarto volume of travels, but it gives succinct description of the line, the country through which it passes, with here and there curious details about the Russian officials and glimpses of the lo who have been brought under their control. The journey over ~the desert was dreary and full of discomfort. A dull waste of sand, and heat that was almost intolerable, the thermometer rising to 120 Fahr. in the carriages, and the wide spreading plains of sand being bordered by the Kofel Dag mountains, the boundary of Persia, which ruy the whole distance of 350 miles from Balla Ishem to when the railways turns off at Dushak on the way to Merv. Those mountains supply the railway with water, sometimes in too eat abundance to be of benefit to the fine. Canals have been constructed in some places, so as to carry off the water, but the dangers to be encountered from mountain torrents do not seem to have been fully known to General Annenkoff, under whose direction the line has been constructed. Of such protection to the line as General Annenkoff has provided the correspondent!says:—' After such terrific~ storms as recently burst over the mountains here the water rushes down across the plain in boiling, noisy torrents and overflows these canals in a very few minutes. There is no ballast either worth speaking of which can offer the slightest resistance to these aquatic attacks. With few exceptions the rails appear to have been laid down along the perfectly flat plain of alternating desert and oasis almost without any raising of the ground, and it struck me and several others who expressed the same opinion, as having been one of the easiest constructed railways in the world. "There can certainly have been no engineering difficulties to contend with, and if more time, and perhaps a little more money, had been spent at the outset the line might have been made more durable and secure; but the great principles that have evidently guided the constructor, as everybody knows, have been cheapness and speed in getting the work done. It has all the time been a contest Lengo Atria sane koff, representing the Minister of War, and the Minister of Communications, Admiral Possiett, in order to prove cheapest and quickest. This competi-which of the two could build railways
tion has been going on ever since General Annenkoff built the Jabinsk-Pinsk strategical line in Poland, which was severely criticised by the opposing; authorities at the Ministry of Ways an Communications; but up to the present General Annenkoff has managed to hold his own, and even so far to get the best of his rival" It was stated to the correspondent that the heavy floods which occurred shortly before the line was opened were quite exceptional, and in fact had never been known to occur before, and if this be the case General Annenkoff could not be expected to provide for an unknown danger. The contest between the Admiral and the General in this case was probably productive of good to their personal as well as professional jean country, but it is noticeable how often
lousy has been the spur which has driven Russian affairs on in their work in Central Asia.
General Annenkoff estimated the sands between the Caspian and Ainu Danga, which the railway runs through, at 300 versts, or 200 miles, but the correspondent thinks the distance is greater, probably 400 versts. An extract which we give in another column is a lifelike picture of the line and of the different Reorle through whose countries it runs. Near Merv long caravans with several cotton bales on each camel were seen, and the only sign of progress was that, previous to the Russian occupation, these were protected by numerous armed escorts, whereas now they go their ways in perfect safety. There is a good railway station at the "Queen of the World," and behind it is the Russian town—there is no native one, the Turcoman anis being pitched some distance off—composed of some score of unpaved streets inigated by ditches filled from the Murgaub. The houses there are uniform rows, low built, mostly open shops in the bazaar fashion, This town is subject to inundation, but on the other side of the river are the residences of the military and officials which are generally white stone or stuccoed houses of one storey. The Turcomans do little trade and seem to be in the power of the Armenians, Greeks, Jews and Georgians who have all the shops in Merv, but much of whose custom has dei with the advance of the railway to Ainu Darya, Beyond Merv is another waste of sandy steppe. "The sand here is not thrown up into such lofty hills as between Oozoon Ada and Michailofsk, but is more undulating and more movable. As far as can be seen are nothing but billows of sand with the! spray flying from their summits at the slightest breeze. There was even a dis-exactly like that on water, besides which T noticed that the sand was trickling down, as it were, the sides of the mounds next to the rails, disturbed perhaps by the shaking of the train in passing." General Tchernaieff attacked General Aunenkoff's project for a permanent railway over this sea of sand, and thereby put an end to his own official career in Turkestan. The difficulty was to refect the rails from the sand and~ neral Annenkoff employed the saxaul—a_kind of plant that appears to flourish in the dry sand where there is seemingly no nourishment for it—and battens of wood. The roots of the saxaul were rapidly being consumed for fuel, and the necessity of using the plant as a shield to the railway from the insidious approach or sudden overspreading of the shifting sand, inclu the constructor to direct his attention to obtaining petroleum from Baku. It is said that the saxaul has been so successful a protector of the line, that the first part rainning through the sands has been kept open for six years, but at the cost of constantly clearing the rails. At the Chardjui oasis this sand steppe comes to ay abrupt termination as though cut off with a knife. The railway station at Bokhara is ten miles from the city, it being the intention of the Russians to build a large town there as they have already done at Samarcand. From Bokhara to the latter city the railway mostly runs through the "Garden of Central Asia" fertilized by the " gold strewing stream of the Zaraphan." correspondent says that the violent haste displayed to get the railway opened must have led to the work being scamped. So eager was General Aunenkoff to get the first train over the final section before the appointed time of opening that the last verst of rails: were laid down in thirty minutes. The only great difficulties were the sands and the want of water and these appear to have een satisfactorily met. It is to General Annenkoff that by far the greatest measure of credit for the construction of the railway issue. The following extract frow the letters will show something ofthe manner of man he The commission of investigation under General Pancker said that it would take 15 millions more to set everything in proper order, but this estimate was subsequently cut down by the Imperial Control to ten millions, General Annenkoff then stepped in and said it was all nonsense, and that he would do all that was further necessary for two millions only, so great was his fed anxiety to show that he could build the railway cheaply as well as rapidly. The correspondent says:—"The whole length of the line from the Caspian to Samar-cand—1,345 cersts, or about 900 miles, including the section to Kizil Arvat, j built for the Skobeleff' expedition—has been about seven years and a half in course of construction; but the major part from Kizil Arvat has been built in the last three years, and the terminal tinct ripple observable on their surface, section from the right bank of the Oxus to Samarcand, a distance of 846 versts, or 230 miles, was only begun in January last. The officially stated total cost of this last section is 7,198,000 roubles
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.