The intense activity displayed in railway construction did not imply neglect of the primary duty of a civilised state towards subject peoples—that of giving them peace and order. The problem before the Russian administration bristled with difficulties, for lawless habits were ingrained in the population of Turkomania. The lesson taught by Geok Teppe was the first step in the civilising process, for it inspired the Tekkes, who outnumber all other tribes combined, with a wholesome dread of the white man.654 Their marauding instincts were controlled by overwhelming military forces cantoned near the Persian and Afghan frontiers in posts connected by the line of rail which traverses the heart of the conquered territory. Thus the Turkoman tribes had to choose between starvation and honest labour. They unwillingly adopted the latter alternative, and their good resolutions were strengthened by the immense demand for unskilled labour entailed by the construction of the Transcaspian Railway. The erstwhile robbers may now be seen toiling at cotton-presses, and tilling their fields as assiduously as Indian peasants. But the demeanour of the elder men show that they have not been effectually tamed; and until the generation which harried Persia and defied the “Great White Tsar” has passed away, the old leaven will still prevail in Turkoman breasts. The influence of the hereditary chieftains was the great obstacle in the path of reform. The Russians resolved to suppress the tribal organisation with its general councils, and make the village the administrative unit. In other respects the Whig watchword, the “Government of the People by the People,” is that of the Russian Government.

Transcaspia, for so the land of the Turkomans is officially styled, is bounded on the north by the Khivan and the Kirghiz steppes. Southwards it is separated by mountain ranges from Persia and Afghanistan; while the Amu Darya and the Caspian define its limits on the east and west. In length it averages 600 miles, in breadth 350; the area being 230,000 square miles, or rather more than that of France. It is a land of startling contrasts. The northern portion, amounting to four-fifths of the whole, is a trackless desert; the remainder is made up of the oases of Akkal and Merv, and the highlands watered by the Atrak and Gurgan. The only minerals hitherto discovered are rock-salt, sulphur, and naphtha, and the latter alone has any commercial importance. The south-east corner of the Caspian is a region of geysers, petroleum springs, and hills of asphalt, which may in time rival the wonderful tract surrounding Baku on the western shore. At present, attempts at exploration are confined to Cheleken Island, in the Bay of Krasnovodsk, and have met with indifferent success.655 In the absence of mineral wealth, local industries are restricted to agriculture and stock-raising. Heavy crops of barley, juwari (sorghum), and cotton are produced by irrigated land everywhere, and the exports of the latter to Russia are enormous.656 The bulk of the live stock belongs to the nomad tribes, and it is rising in value. The Turkomans owned £5, 7s. worth per head of the population in 1890; £7 worth in 1896. This growth has taken place in spite of epidemics due to the terrible winters of the northern steppes. The Mangishlak peninsula, embracing the Ust Urt Desert, so fatal to Bekovitch’s expedition, lost 40 per cent. of its cattle and sheep from cold and starvation in 1890. Horses, on the other hand, are decreasing in number and quality, for the repression of raids by the strong arm of the law has destroyed the demand for them. The deterioration has engaged the serious attention of the Russian. A committee appointed to inquire into the cause recommended that the Turkoman breed should be encouraged by prize competitions and the introduction of English and Arab blood. But the law governing supply and demand cannot be long evaded, and we are within measurable distance of the extinction of this incomparable strain. Domestic industries, as in old times, are confined to the women, for their lords and masters disdain sedentary labour. The manufacture of carpets heads the list. Three-fourths of these are still made at Merv, where the variety of designs, handed down from long-past generations, and never committed to paper, is bewildering. Here, too, the Russian conquest has brought with it a blight, for the hideous aniline dyes exported from German chemical works are supplanting the beautiful and durable colours extracted from indigo and other vegetable substances. Exports have fallen considerably during the last seven years,657 and the case is the same with the embroidery, shawls, and dress fabrics once produced in thousands by the deft fingers of Turkoman maidens. The nomads, who constitute the vast bulk of the population, have not yet taken kindly to commerce. The people of Merv, indeed, accompany the caravans which still ply between the oasis, Persia, and Khiva, but 3 per cent. only of the merchants and shopkeepers of Transcaspia are Turkomans.658

Until 1890 Transcaspia was a province of the Caucasus, but in that year it was constituted a government, and intrusted to the care of General Alexis Kurapatkine.

No living soldier has had a more brilliant career. It began at the storming of Samarkand in 1868, when, as a sub-lieutenant of the Turkestan Rifles, he won the Orders of St. Stanislaus and St. Anne for special gallantry. Three years later he was promoted lieutenant-captain, and entered the Military Staff College for a course of special training, which lasted till 1874. Then, having attained the rank of captain, he was posted to the Turkestan Staff. In the following year he was despatched on a special mission to Germany and France, in the course of which he took part in an expedition from Algiers into the Sahara, and became a Knight of the Legion of Honour. Returning to his old love, Turkestan, he was employed in 1876 in the reduction of Tashkent, and gained the crosses of St. George and St. Vladimir. In the same year he was sent as envoy to Ya`kub Beg, a Mohammedan chieftain who had wrested Kashghar from the Chinese, and obtained the cession of the town and district of Karashara. In 1877 came the Russo-Turkish War, and the Tsar needed the help of his best and bravest soldiers to hold his own against the stubborn Nizams. Kurapatkine became lieutenant-colonel and chief of the Staff under General Skobeleff, commanding the 16th Division. He covered himself with glory at Lovsha, in the expedition to the Green Mountain, and at Plevna; and gained the rank of colonel, with more of those baubles so dear to the military heart. In 1879 he exchanged the sword for the pen, and became professor of Military Statistics at the Staff College. But he pined, as all true soldiers must, for active service, and his wish was speedily gratified. He was appointed commandant of his old corps, the Turkestan Rifles, and in 1880 commanded as brigadier-general in the reduction of Kulja. Towards the close of that year he was sent in charge of reinforcements to General Skobeleff, then engaged in a death-struggle with the Tekkes of the Akkal oasis. His prowess in that memorable campaign has been already noticed. In the next eight years he was attached to the St. Petersburg Staff, and was employed in framing schemes for mobilisation and the defence of the western frontier of the empire. He also gained the Tsar’s special thanks for his services on a commission for settling the system of government in Turkestan. As governor and commander-in-chief of Transcaspia he showed that he possessed a rare combination of the qualities which adorn civil life as well as win battles.

His methods were based on an intimate knowledge of native character, and a keen appreciation of its noble qualities; and on his translation, in the beginning of 1898, to the great office of Minister of War, he left behind him the reputation of a firm but sympathetic ruler.659 The charge for which he had laboured so strenuously then became a province of Turkestan, and was placed under the control of the governor-general residing at Tashkent.

Transcaspia is divided for administrative purposes into five districts—Mangishlak and Krasnovodsk, on the Caspian littoral; Askabad, which includes the Akkal oasis; Tajand, watered by the river of that name; and Merv. At the head of each is a military officer, termed the district chief, who is responsible for the executive and fiscal administration. The districts are parcelled out into pristatvos, or subdivisions,660 created in order to facilitate police work, and again into groups of twenty-five villages for judicial purposes. The village, which, as we have remarked, is the administrative unit, is called, if permanent, volost; and if inhabited by nomads, aÜl. It is governed by a mayor, on the old Russian model, termed volostnoi, or aÜlnoi, as the case might be, but more commonly starshina.661 The village chiefs who replaced the Khans of old time are elected by the inhabitants, subject to the governor’s veto. General Kurapatkine’s attention was, at an early stage, directed to the defects of the judicial mechanism, which was wholly independent of the executive power, and directed by a professional lawyer sent out from St. Petersburg. The Supreme Court sat at Baku, and appellants had then to face a journey of 200 miles across the stormy Caspian.

In 1892 General Kurapatkine formed a Supreme Court, which sits at Askabad and disposes of appeals from the decisions of the lower tribunals. It consists of five judges, and observes the rules of procedure and evidence current in Revision Courts. In causes involving native law and custom, popular judges from the Courts below are summoned to attend as assessors; while Kazis, natives versed in Mohammedan law, are called in as experts when questions of marriage and inheritance are concerned. The sentences in cases of gravity, such as murder, are subject to the governor’s approval. Next in order to the Judicial Commission, as that body is called, are the District Courts, consisting of the chief aided by five “popular judges” selected from the personnel of the lower Courts. These latter hold session weekly at the headquarters of each group of twenty-five villages. They are comprised of five “candidates,” judges elected by the inhabitants of every village, who sit in rotation. These Courts of first instance bear a strong resemblance to the panchayat system of ancient India, which has been so cruelly shorn of its powers for good by a mistaken policy of centralisation. Their capacity in criminal cases extends to the infliction of fines of 100 roubles and three weeks’ “imprisonment.” On the civil side they try, without appeal, cases in which the value of the subject-matter is less than 200 roubles. Further reforms are in contemplation. The jurisdiction of the lower Courts will be extended—Kazis will be excluded, and local experts summoned in cases of marriage and inheritance. But, such as it is, the Russian system has worked with remarkable smoothness. It recognises the innate capacity for self-government which every Eastern race possesses, while the village organisation remains intact; and has thus gained the entire confidence of the people. The duty of preserving order and execution of the Courts’ decrees vests in the district chief, the pristatvos and the starshinas in their several degrees. In the quinquennial period ending with 1895 they brought 3436 offenders to justice, a proportion of nearly 25 per cent. of the population. It is undeniable that in the eastern districts crime is far more rife than on the Caspian. Merv had 1450 offenders during the five years, as compared with 419 convicted at Krasnovodsk. The classification of crimes affords curious results. The offences against person and property nearly balanced each other in the Caspian districts, while the contrary is the case at Merv. Charges of theft constituted the great bulk of Transcaspian crime; cattle-lifting came next in order of importance, followed by wounding and murder.662 Capital punishment has been abolished throughout the empire, except in cases of treason. Murderers are transported by rail and steamer to the Russian penal settlements on the North-West Pacific.663 As is the case in India, the volume of crime varies directly with that of population. The tract in the Caspian is sparsely inhabited, while in Merv the population is comparatively thick. Broadly speaking, the numbers rise with the distance from the barren seashore. The total population of the province was 235,600 in 1890, and 300,769 in 1895, showing an increase of 65,169, or nearly 26 per cent. The growth of the Kirghiz community during the same period was no less than 60 per cent. The Tekke Turkomans are still the most numerous class of the population;664 then, at a long interval, the Sariks and the Yomuds, a large proportion of whom roam over Persian as well as Russian territory. Persistent attempts have been made of late years to encourage Russian immigration, but with indifferent success. Each family of new-comers is allowed a subsidy of 100 roubles, besides seed-corn and land rent free. But the climatic conditions are unfavourable, and the water-supply is unsuited to the European constitution. In 1892 one-fifth of the immigrants succumbed to cholera, and they suffer terribly from malarial fever.665 As traders the Russians cannot compete successfully with the astute Armenian and Persian exploiters of Transcaspia. The Russian immigrants, who are mostly railway servants, are 3452 in number, not reckoning labourers who arrive at the beginning of winter and return home before the fearful tropical heats set in. The rest are scattered in the mountains south of Askabad on the Afghan frontier and the Caspian shore. There are ten colonies of agriculturists, and three of fishermen, with a total strength of 2174 souls. The besetting curse of these little settlements is drunkenness. General Kurapatkine, who strove during his whole term of office to foster Russian colonisation, endeavoured to check this vice by prohibiting the sale of spirits; but it is to be feared that enforced abstinence has only made the exiles’ lot more forlorn, and their periodical outbursts more bestial. A semi-tropical climate and a soil either barren or saturated with malarial poison is not, and can never be, adapted to the children of the icy north.

The increase in population, large as it has been under Russian rule, would have been still greater but for the prevalence of intermittent fever. That this scourge is connected with irrigation is beyond doubt, for the western districts, where water is scarce, are comparatively free from it; while in Tajand 30, and in Merv 85, per cent. of the applications for medical relief were due to intermittent fevers.666 The conditions prevailing in the irrigated tracts are precisely the same as those in Central Bengal, which is in process of being slowly depopulated by malarial fevers. In both countries we have a waterlogged subsoil, due in the one case to excessive rainfall and inundations from the rivers; in the other, to the presence of a network of irrigating channels. The lesson to be learnt by administrators of both provinces is the necessity of providing drainage. Smallpox was as fatal in Transcaspia as malarial fever. Epidemics recurred almost annually, and 50 per cent. of the children were slain or disfigured by the pest. One of the first steps taken by the Russians was to introduce vaccination. They encountered a vast amount of prejudice, especially among the priesthood, but the value of the boon conferred on suffering humanity by Jenner has long been recognised. Vaccination is decidedly popular, and as a consequence smallpox is almost unknown.667 Enteric fever, which is increasing in an alarming ratio in Indian garrisons, is rare in Transcaspian cantonments, and unknown elsewhere in that province. Epidemics of cholera are also uncommon. The last took place in 1892, when the infection was introduced from India by way of Herat. It ravaged Meshed, the capital of Khorasan, in May, and reached Askabad on the 1st June, having travelled 100 miles in eighteen days; thence it followed the line of rail, causing a mortality of 1859 out of 3471 attacks. The health of the Russian troops in Central Asia is, as might be expected, less satisfactory than that of the civil population. The annual admissions to hospital during the six years ending with 1895 were no less than 705 per mille; the deaths, 12.5; while 20.2 were discharged as unfit for further service. Thus the loss by death and incurable disease to the Russian army serving in Transcaspia exceeds 3 per cent. annually.

Readers who have followed our description of the physical conditions encountered in Transcaspia will have grasped the fact that its tillage depends wholly on the timely supply of water by artificial means. The Turkoman farmer is not, like his European comrade, at the mercy of the seasons, for he taps the rivers and streams descending from the Persian and Afghan highlands, which enjoy a fairly constant rainfall.668 Dams erected in channels give a “head” of water which is drawn off into distributories or ariks, and these, again, are subdivided into tiny rills which afford to every plot of cultivated land its portion of the precious fluid. The parent stream thus gradually loses its speed and volume, and finally disappears in the arid desert sands. Where visible water is not met with, the springs on the mountain flanks are reached by a system of tunnelling. A well is sunk at a higher level than the area to be irrigated, and, when water is found, a lateral tunnel is excavated which carries the subterranean water several hundred feet nearer its object. At its extremity another well is dug, and the piercing process is repeated till the thirsty tract is reached. A well-known natural law compels the water in the last of the chain of wells to rise to the level of that first sunk; and thus a head is formed which supplies a system of distributors. The method is known as the Persian, and is of extreme antiquity. So great is the skill of the older labourers practising it that the mole-like excavations in which they work are barely two feet in diameter by four in height.

On assuming the government of Transcaspia, the Russians made a special study of this all-important question, and came to the conclusion that it was impossible to improve on the methods evolved by ages of practical experience. Their policy, therefore, as regards irrigation, has been one of non-interference. Steps were taken to prevent cultivators in the Persian and Afghan territory from tampering with the sources of the water-supply. A chief engineer is posted at the provincial capital, Askabad, and subordinate ones at the district headquarters; but their functions are limited to suggesting improvements and supervising the repairs to canals and distributories. The task of allotting the water-supply was left in the hands of the Mirab,669 a native official elected by the inhabitants of every village dependent on irrigation. His operations are guided by the average quantity of water required by individual peasants. The unit is termed Su,670 and is by no means a constant quantity. In some parts it implies the volume of water sufficient to irrigate a given area, varying between one and five acres. In Merv the Su implies the quantity which flows in two hours through a distributory discharging water at the rate of 1¼ quarts per second. In Tajand it is equivalent to the needs of an average garden, or to a discharge of half a gallon per second. In many parts of the Merv and Akkal oasis the process is simplified by the existence of associations of peasants, termed Artel, each of whom receives a Sarkar,671 or head of water, consisting of 8 to 36 Su. The ordinary irrigation channels are held in common by the villages which they supply, but wells and underground aqueducts vest in the person who excavates them and in his heirs. The Russians have shown great practical wisdom in avoiding unnecessary interference with a system so complex; for an attempt at stringent control would bring them in contact with fierce prejudices and lead to loss of prestige.

Turning from the system to its operation, we find the most important works connected with the Murghab, that ancient source of Merv’s prosperity. It rises in Afghanistan, as do its confluents, the Kashan and Kushk, a fact which places the Merv oasis at the mercy of the Amir. It is more than probable that the next rectification of frontier demanded by Russia will comprise the whole watershed of these streams. The course of the Murghab in Russian territory is 530 miles long; its breadth at Merv is 84 feet, and its depth 7. The Panjdih oasis, with a cultivated area of 75,000 acres, owes its fertility to this river, whose waters are confined by a dam called the Kawshut Khan Band. Farther north we have the Yolatan oasis, inhabited by Sarik Turkomans, with another huge dam, known as the Kazi Keui Band, affording water to 125,000 acres, at a velocity of 1500 feet per second. Near its site are the ruins of the Sultan Band, a work far vaster than any of the present day. It gave a head of 28 feet, and made the fields and gardens of Old Merv the most fertile region on the globe’s surface. The Sultan Band was destroyed in 1784 by the Amir Murad of Bokhara,672 a piece of vandalism which ruined Merv’s prosperity and made it a robbers’ lair. Just a century later the Tsar, to whose private estates the site of Old Merv belongs, ordered the construction of an anicut 13 miles up stream. The work was carried out by Colonel Kashtalinski, superintendent of the state domains at Bahram `Ali, the first railway station east of modern Merv. It includes a dam which gives a 14 feet head of water, and is connected with a series of storage basins feeding a central canal 20 miles long. This, in its turn, supplies 35 miles of secondary canals and 105 of distributories. The area thus irrigated amounts to 15,000 acres, 5000 of which are under cotton, and 3675 grow wheat and barley. The whole is let out to Turkomans and Bokharans, and the mountains of cotton waiting for transport by rail in the season are a standing proof of the excellence of the crops; the return is indeed said to be not far short of a hundredfold. So great is the demand for farms that the natives compete for the privilege of holding one at a rent in kind amounting to a quarter of the gross produce. In spite of prohibitions, subletting is very rife, and the same plot supports several families. The cost of these splendid operations was about £105,000, an expenditure which was declared by an eminent English authority on irrigation to be one-fifth of what a similar work would entail in India. It is in contemplation to restore the Sultan Band, at a cost estimated at £210,000. There can be few better investments for capital than one which will restore to the brightest jewel of Russia’s Asiatic diadem a portion of her ancient splendour.

The policy of laissez-faire has been extended by Russian administration to popular education. Every village of importance has its Maktab,673 or primary school, where a modicum of corrupt Persian and Arabic is combined with an inordinate amount of parrot-like repetition of passages from the Koran. In 1893 these numbered 179, with an attendance of 2629 boys and 331 girls. The teachers generally belong to the priestly class, which in old days enjoyed less authority than in any Mohammedan country. Since the Russian invasion their occult influence has increased, and it is not exerted in the invaders’ favour. Throughout Islam, indeed, the mullas are irreconcilable enemies to Western progress, and a recent rebellion in Farghana has led many experts to doubt whether tenderness to indigenous institutions has not been carried too far; for the Maktabs are forcing-grounds for the Madrasas, or colleges, which are to be found at every district headquarters, and are centres of obscure intrigue. Russian education has indeed advanced with giant strides. The first school in which the difficult tongue of the conqueror was taught dates from 1882, when this was opened at Kizil Arvat for the railway staff. Mdlle. Komaroff, daughter of the first military governor, founded one in that headquarter in 1884. It has now become the “Town School,” with 184 pupils, including 62 natives. In 1890 there were but 5 schools throughout the provinces, with an attendance of 395. General Kurapatkine has spared no effort during his long term of office to promote Russian education; but, until 1894, he encountered sullen opposition. In that year the tide began to turn, and in 1896 there were no fewer than 69 Russian schools, with an attendance of 1196. It is to be hoped, in the best interest of Transcaspia, that the mistake which has had such sinister results in India will not be repeated there. Vernacular education under close Russian supervision is far preferable to a system which encourages a mechanical study of an alien tongue by classes which can never be rendered better or happier by its acquisition.

The method of collecting revenue in Transcaspia displays the simplicity and reliance on native agency which are seen in other branches of the administration. The principal tax is one levied on each “kibitka,” a term which conventionally includes fixed as well as movable dwellings. The rate in force at the present day is six roubles, or nearly thirteen shillings; and the incidence per head of the population, assuming the kibitka to shelter five persons, is only two shillings and sevenpence. The starshina is held responsible for the realisation of an amount equivalent to the number of kibitkas in the village multiplied by six, and he pays the sum directly into the district treasury. In practice the tax is treated as one on income, and a wide latitude is left to the starshina. He reduces the demand from widows and daily labourers to a few pence, and exempts paupers altogether; while wealthy families are made to pay as much as £22. As the kibitka tax amounts to no more than a twenty-fifth of the average family’s earnings, there is rarely any difficulty in collecting the entire demand. Malversation is extremely rare, and, in one case at least, the villagers voluntarily subscribed a sum sufficient to cover its mayor’s defalcations. In the Sarakhs district a different system is in force. There a tax is levied proportionately to the Su, or unit of water, used in irrigation. Small excise duties are levied on tobacco, matches, and kerosene oil, and the owners of cattle driven from Persian territory to Transcaspian grazing-grounds pay a trifle on each head. The only other tax is one on trade, which has long been current in the Central Asian Khanates. Merchants who are not Russian subjects pay Government one-fortieth of the value of wares received or despatched by caravans. No budgets as we understand the term are published by the provincial governor; for the immense cost of the garrisons maintained in Central Asia should fairly be set off against the receipts from taxation. It is tolerably certain, however, that Russia finds her Asiatic possessions a source of heavy expenditure from the imperial treasury, which she is content to endure in view of indirect advantages which she reaps from them. Their strategical value is incalculable, for they place Persia, Afghanistan, and Western China at her mercy; while the benefit to Russian commerce, by the daily increasing movement of goods on the Transcaspian railway system, is equally conspicuous.

The proceeds of taxation are allotted to local as well as imperial purposes. Among the former, roads are of the greatest importance. The province possesses 458 miles of metalled roads, exclusive of one constructed in 1888 between Askabad and Meshed, the capital of Khorasan. On this a waggon service plies daily, and every high-road has its line of telegraph wires. The latter are connected with 17 offices, which dealt in 1896 with 113,434 messages. There are 25 postal stations, connected by a series of hand vehicles, which in the same year cost nearly £50,000 sterling.674

The entire system of transport, however, is in a transition state, for the railway has already revolutionised the mechanism of commerce. Its length in Transcaspian territory is 663 miles, and an extension from Merv to Kushk, on the Afghan frontier, a distance of 192 miles, will be completed before the 1st June 1899. The old caravan roads southward lay through Persia and Afghanistan; but the insecurity which reigns there, and the transit duties levied, have driven merchants to adopt the longer but safer route by steamer and railway. Thus goods for China and India travel by way of Bombay, Batum, and Baku. The Caspian is traversed by steamer,675 and at Krasnovodsk the railway is met with. The whole line was placed under the charge of General Kurapatkine in 1892; but on his transfer in the beginning of 1898 to the Ministry of War it passed under the control of the Minister of Ways and Communications.

This necessarily brief sketch of Transcaspian administration reveals an honest attempt on the part of the Russians to promote the material welfare of her former foes. It is too often repeated by writers who are blinded by political passion, or have no personal knowledge of Central Asia, that the subject peoples there are groaning under the heel of a ruthless military oppression. Englishmen who have visited the heart of the great continent, and mixed freely with every class of the population, agree in denying the truth of these charges. General Kurapatkine, when on the eve of laying down his high office, declared that Russian policy might be defined as the maintenance of peace, order, and prosperity in every class of the population. Those, he went on to say, who fill responsible positions are expressly informed by Government that the assumption of sovereignty over other nationalities must not be attempted without very serious deliberation, inasmuch as such become, on annexation, Russian subjects, children of the Tsar, and invested with every privilege enjoyed by citizens of the empire.676 These noble words reflect the attitude of General Kurapatkine and his lieutenants. Many of the latter had a lifelong experience of native manners and mode of thought; and one at least, Colonel Arandarenko, district officer of Merv, is adored by the inhabitants of the oasis. That the forces of disorder have been rendered impotent is certainly not the case. The contrast between the prosaic present and the wild romance of that past which is fast fading into legend must be bitter indeed to the half-tamed Turkomans. Nature, we know, nihil facit per saltum; and governments, however despotic, are incapable of suddenly changing the trend of a nation’s instincts, the legacy of unnumbered generations. It may, however, be said with perfect truth that the Russians in Central Asia strive earnestly, and with a great measure of success, to promote the greatest good of the greatest number.