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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A MAGNIFICENT REGION. 35
to its illusions. A cuckoo was singing on the decayed
branches of a small tree ; we saw some beautifully-
colored parquets (the body green, head and wings of a
rich brown color), and a flight of birds like the Indian
minas ; and, desolate as the scene was, there
was a beauty about it in the stillness of broad twilight
Occasionally, during our journey from Gorgon, we had
started a hare from her form ; many antelopes bounded
across the plain; and the desert rat (an animal rather
slighter than a common rat, with a tuft on the tip of his
tail, and which springs with four feet, like the
kangaroo) was everywhere common."
The heat and the dryness of the air in the summer in the
Turcoman steppes are appalling, but the region is not
desert, in the Sahara sense of the term, as in September
heavy rains commence to fall, and during their
continuance the country presents the appearance of plains
of saturated clay, affording abundance of water and
forage for horses. This description applies particularly
to the country between the Atrek and Sumbar rivers and
the Caspian. Eastward of those streams is a region,
belonging to the Goklan tribe and adjacent to Akhal,
which boasts of a fine climate all the year round, as
well as a magnificent soil and splendid vegetation. It
will be seen that all travelers bear out the correctness
of these laudatory expressions. Here is a sketch by
Baillie Fraser: — "Our path lay through fields
and natural meadows of the richest verdure, among groves
of oak, clothed in their young leaves of the most
delicate hues ; broken into glades and lawns like velvet.
On our left were mountains of the noblest forms, covered
with wood, or diversified with rocks, glens, and valleys,
and green
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