those frequently encountered in more westerly portions of the empire, and often before described by English travellers.

As a precaution against accident, he tells us, he carried with him an ample assortment of coachmaker's and smith's tools, a supply of fine wheaten-flour, a commodity supposed to be unprocurable en route, besides groceries and other necessaries, sufficient to stock a small "general" shop. Thus equipped, he stepped into his tarantass on the night of the 28th February, the Kirghiz drivers invoking the blessing of Allah on their cattle, shook the reins of their wiry teams, and the clumsy-looking cortège, leaving the Orenburg lines behind it, sped away across the snow towards the south-east.

They had not long to wait for an adventure. After completing a dozen versts or so, about eleven p.m., the Kirghiz missed their way, and the vehicles came to a halt. Descending from his snuggery, M. Pashino found himself apparently abandoned by his servants in the pall-like blackness of a moonless night, with the thermometer in the tarantass indicating 8° of frost (Centigrade.) All around was still, save a faint sound in the distance which he compares to the wailing of cats or of some other nocturnal animals. But he was not kept long in suspense, the wailing sound came nigher and ultimately resolved itself into the unharmonious voices of the Kirghiz who had detected the lost track by the discoloured surface of the snow, and the journey was at once resumed.

About two hundred and sixty-six versts, or two hundred English miles, brought them to the twelfth post-stage on their route-the town of Orsk; "a place of considerable importance in an administrative point of view," M. Pashino observes, but which, as he passed through it at night, be dismisses without further comment. Eight more stages brought them to Fort Karabutack, a small post held by an officer and seventy soldiers, with a doctor, and containing a small lazarette with ten berths.

A further distance of one hundred and eighty-two versts, divided into seven stages, and the military station of Ouralskoe was gained. The works here were constructed in 1845, during the disturbances in the steppe. At the time of which we write, the defences had fallen into decay. The garrison consisted of a commandant, a fort adjutant, and a surgeon, with a strong detachment of soldiers, having a due proportion of officers. Here was a large military hospital, making up sixty beds, serving also as a lock-hospital for females of a certain class. The fort contained a church with a chaplain, one of whose duties it was to visit Fort Karabutack at sacramental seasons. The cost of maintaining this post, inclusive of pay and allowances of troops amounts to 30,000 roubles per annum. The total expenditure in the year 1865 was 29,9892,2 kopecks, or £4,498 7s 0žd.

From hence the road trends in a direction nearly due south,

crossing a suppositious boundary line of the Orenburg and Turkestan commands, and entering shortly afterwards upon the dreaded Kara-Koum, or "Black Sands." M. Pashino had comforted himself with the reflection that the surface of this desert being covered with snow would materially lessen the difficulties of the passage. He was speedily undeceived. Whirlwinds of snow replaced the terrible sand-storms, presenting obstacles which even the hardy little Kirghiz horses could hardly be made to face. An attempt to substitute camels for the latter proved equally ineffectual in its results. Indeed, as M. Pashino tells us in another portion of his work, the camel is utterly useless for draught or burthen in the winter season. It is far more helpless and unmanageable in storms than is the horse, and the delicacy of its constitution requires it to be warmly clad from head to tail. At this stage of the journey the travellers thought themselves lucky if they made five versts in the hour. But the passage was effected, and there remained a further consolation, to wit, each succeeding day brought with it a more genial climate and a longer duration of daylight. At length, after skirting the north-east extremity of Lake Aral, Fort No. 1 was reached at six a.m. on the morning of 12th March. The distance between Ouralskoe and Fort No. 1 was three hundred and forty-five versts, divided between fourteen post-stages. The total distance between Orenburg and the last named post, amounting to over seven hundred and fifty English miles, was thus completed in eleven days.

Fort No. 1 stands on the right bank of the Syr-Daria, on the site of the ancient Kasala-Kasakla as the natives have it—at the

junction of the two caravan roads from Khiva and Bokhara. The road from thence into Russia, by which M. Pashino travelled, runs close by the Fort, and through Orsk, to Orenburg, where the import duties are or were paid. There is, however, another route, which is generally used by the return caravans with a view to trading amongst the Kirghiz and securing grass and water for the camels in spring and autumn, which does not pass near the Fort.

M. Pashino's book is well illustrated, as far at least as the wood engravings are concerned, some of which are very spirited. In the vignette heading the second chapter we have a view of Fort No 1, giving however but little idea of the extent of trace or the surroundings of the work, which appears as a simple line of earthen defence topped by a little church within the enclosure with a mud-covered roof. Soldier-hands have wrought the unpromising material of the latter into some crude resemblance of a dome of the true onion-shape so dear to Russian ecclesiastical architecture, and have crowned the humble edifice with a rudely fashioned Greek cross. Were it not for these accessories, the scene might represent one of the old frontier posts of British

Kaffraria, and the similitude is heightened by a flock of smuttyfaced, fat-tailed sheep occupying the foreground.

The commandant of the post was M. Michael Paulovitch Yonei, whose name is honourably associated with the defence of Sebastopol by the gallant stand he made in the Malakoff with a handful of men after the work had been carried by McMahon's Division. At the hands of this officer and of his wife, a fascinating Bessarabian lady, M. Pashino received the most hospitable of welcomes. Whilst visiting the lions of the place, such as they were, and exercising to the full the traveller's privilege of asking questions, two or three clerks, he tells us, were employed with the permission of the commandant, in copying various documents of interest, to which we presume we are indebted for the following

details.

The post was built in 1853, by order of the Russian General Vernaye. After the work had been set out, it was discovered that the site was subject to inundation during floods. A dam was accordingly erected seven hundred yards in length which is still in existence. The walls of the buildings were constructed of unburned bricks, manufactured out of mud found in the neighbourhood. The whole of the ground around the Fort is consequently broken into holes, some of which have been partially filled with rubbish. These, however, offer one advantage, they become filled during the floods and thus leave an ample supply of water readily available for the cattle. Five years after its commencement the works being in a very unsatisfactory state, the post was rebuilt on an improved plan, but the foundations of the buildings are still very insecure, and much damage was caused by the spring floods of 1865. It was proposed, M. Pashino states, to remove the Fort to the opposite bank of the Syr-Daria, upon what pretext we do not know, seeing that the river is the recognised boundary of the Czar's dominions. The most likely plea would be, we presume, that the Kirghiz are Russian subjects, and that some of these people work the ferry, and hold land upon both sides of the stream.

At the time of which we write, the garrison of Fort No. 1 was composed of one hundred and eight Orenburg Cossacks, who were lodged in fifty-five huts. Besides these, in twenty private dwellings, were twelve discharged non-commissioned officers, six labourers, four shopkeepers, seventeen shop-clerks, nine mechanics, and one emancipated serf. These, with fifty-five females -matrons, widows, and maids, and seventeen children, made up the sum total of the resident population of the station.

The work of the little garrison was very heavy, as in addition to their military duties, they had to cultivate vegetables, and forage and collect fuel for the post, and execute repairs.

Market gardening and fishing are prosecuted with considerable

success. The crops of potatoes, melons, beet, carrots and onions, &c., are good. Cabbages do not succeed, but this is probably to be attributed to defects in the seed, which is brought from the Oural by the Orenburg Cossacks and exchanged for fish. So at least thinks M. Pashino.

The sworn accounts of the station for 1865 have furnished the annexed particulars. During the twelve months of that year, in an area of one hundred and ninety-eight Imperial Desseteena, or five hundred and sixty-six and a quarter English acres of land there were:—

Sown. Wheat, 1,059 poods; barley, 148; millet, 29; fruit (on 100 desseteena) 80 poods; besides melons, pumpkins, &c. Harvested and carried.-Wheat, 3,397 poods; barley, 538; millet, 122; potatoes, 275; melons, &c., 865 poods.*

Besides the above, the Kirghiz had under cultivation in the neighbourhood something like 20,000 English acres, the yield from which during the same period was :- Wheat 22,000 poods, Barley 62,000, Millet 89,000, Rye 16,000 poods, besides melons and pumpkins, large quantities of which are used for home consumption, as well as sold in the bazaar.

In the same year, there were caught 3280 poods of fish, yielding forty-eight poods of caviar, thirteen of isinglass and ten of vesuga.+

In regard of the carrying trade we learn that the caravans from Khiva and Bokhara are housed in buildings of burned bricks. These buildings can be engaged beforehand by agreements made in the bazaars at Khiva and Bokhara. Many of the Asiatic merchants have permanent shopmen resident at Fort No. 1. In the year 1865, 1500 camels were employed in carrying loads from the Fort to the Orenburg lines, at seven roubles each. From the Syr-Daria to Khiva or Bokhara the freight is ten to twelve roubles per camel load. The greater part of the merchandize from the latter places is carried straight to Orsk or Orenburg without changing hands. The charge in this case is eighteen roubles per load, a camel load being reckoned at eighteen poods or six and a half cwt. If no contracts can be obtained to Orsk, the goods are conveyed along the left bank to Kara-tepe, on the opposite side of the river to the Fort, and arrangements are there made for further transport.

The ferry, as we have already stated, is in the hands of the Kirghiz, who at one time employed rafts formed of reeds. Khivan boats are now procurable on either bank. The charge for ferrying over a camel's burthen is two or three bowls of breadcorn, for the animal itself ten to fifteen kopecks, for a horse or ox the same, for a sheep one kopeck, for one hundred sheep, a young lamb, for a yurt and all its belongings twenty kopecks. *The "pood" is equal to 40lbs English.

"Vesuga," the dried spinal nerves of the Sevruga.

It is curious to learn that these receipts were enormously increased by an event so remote as the late Civil war in America. Such, however, we are assured, was the fact. In 1866, the traffic had again diminished owing to the misunderstanding with the Emir of Bokhara and the embargo laid upon the Bokharian traders whom M. Pashino found shut up in their caravan lines outside the Fort closely guarded by Cossack sentries.

The receipts of the carrying-trade of the settlement between 1st December, 1864, and 1st November, 1865, were reckoned at 187,282 roubles, 33 kopecks.

The estimated value of the sales in the bazaar, during the same period, equalled, 162,682 roubles, 62 kopecks. The total being 349,964 roubles, 95 kopecks, or £52,500. The bazaar charges, rent of shops, &c., gave 686 roubles, 85 kopecs. The average prices during the same are quoted as follows::- a horse, twenty-one roubles (£3), a camel, forty-four roubles (£6), wheaten bread one rouble per pood (4d the quarten loaf), butter six roubles (9d per lb.), and so on.

M. Pashino testifies that the shops were well supplied, but that prices were high as compared with Orenburg. He arrived, however, towards the end of winter when they were highest. Sherry, for example, was two roubles per bottle, Cognac the same, Marsala one and a half roubles, sugar sixteenpence the pound, writing-paper sixpence to eightpence per quire, &c.

The climate of the Fort is said to be good. According to the report of the medical officer, the ailments of the garrison are usually of a mild and very ordinary type, and amongst the acclimatized portion of the population sickness is rare. Skin diseases are not uncommon; and syphilis in a primary and secondary form is common. According to the statements of the natives, up to this time they were unacquainted, except by hearsay, with epidemics like the plague and the Asiatic cholera. They are particularly partial to the Russian doctors, in whom they place great faith, but their most frequent requests are for charms to procure the fertility of their wives, to secure themselves against frost-bites and the like.

The left bank of the Syr-Daria abounds with ruins, some of which are attributed to the era of Genghiz Khan, some, we believe, to an earlier date. Many of these remains have already been minutely described by M. Levshine and other Russian writers, but it is evident that much has yet to be done here in the cause of antiquarian research.

Amongst the objects of interest within the Fort and its im mediate vicinity, M. Pashino notes the extensive cattle-kraals, or kardyé, as they are here called. The school, containing thirty Kirghiz scholars, some of whom acquitted themselves very creditably in Russian. The school was in the second or third year of its existence. There was a separate class for Russian children, U. S. MAG. No. 506, JAN., 1871.

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