Merv, the Queen of the
World;
and the Scourge of the Man-stealing Turcomans. With an
Exposition of the Khorassan Question:
By Charles Thomas Marvin, Published by W.H. Allen, 1881
CHAPTER II. TUKKMENIA.
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of mind can save himself, if, while
the flames are yet a great way off, he kindle the grass
in his neighborhood. He thus lays waste a space in which
the approaching fire can find no sustenance, and in this
he takes refuge. Thus only with fire can man contend
against fire with success. "
This weapon is often used by one
tribe against another, and the desolation thus caused is
terrible. It is often used by a runaway couple to secure
themselves against pursuit. As long as no wind blows they
can easily fly before the slowly advancing fire but it
often happens that the flames are hurried forward by the
least breath of wind, and the fugitives find a united
death in the very means they had taken to secure their
safety."
Conolly describes a march in the
Caspian steppes : — " We were en route again at
half-past ten, and journeyed all day over a barren white
plain, on which there was not a blade of herbage —
not a weed. In parts it was strongly impregnated with
salt, and portions of soil on which the mineral lay in a
thin crust, when refracted in the extreme distance, had
the appearance of white buildings. The hard earth sounded
under the horses' feet, but some tracks of deep camel
foot-marks, that crossed the plain, showed that earlier
in the spring it had been watered. These and the bones of
a camel which lay bleaching in the sun were the only
signs we had of any other living thing having passed over
so waste a place. Before us was apparently a forest, but,
when we neared it at evening, we found only large bushes
growing in deep sand, with here and there a small tree ;
so much did the mirage deceive us, accustomed as we had
become
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