Historical Reference

The Merv Oasis: Travels and Adventures East of the Caspian During the Years 1879-80-81,
Including Five Months' Residence Among the Tekkes of Merv
By Edmund O'Donovan
Published by G. P. Putnam's sons, 1883 Volume II

BORDER POPULATIONS. 57
the East — they prefer, when the pressure of the calamity has been removed, to build a new town somewhere in the neighborhood rather than to re-erect abodes upon the depopulated site. South-east of Deregez lies the district of Kelat-i-Nadri, beyond which is Sarakhs — all three being border provinces, and subject, nominally at least, to the jurisdiction of the Prince Governor of Meshed whose power extends over all Khorasan.

The population of these frontier provinces is entirely of Turkish, Turkmen, or Kurdish origin, there being little or no pure Persian blood among the inhabitants. The Turks are descendants of settlers from Bokhara and Khiva, and are a better-looking race than the Turkmen, whose features bear much of a Kalmuck type, with little or no beard. Even when they renounce the nomad life, and settle down somewhat permanently as cultivators, the Turkmen show a strong reluctance to living within walls.

Their houses are an imitation in shape of the movable dwellings, or aladjaks, of the roving population, and are built of reeds and mud. Architects who can trace the features of the original timber hut in the lintels and triglyphs of the Parthenon would find an interest in studying this first development of permanent buildings from a movable original. The whole population of Deregez, Kelat, and the Attock, is not over eighty thousand — a very scanty number indeed, considering the extent and fertility of the country. One is painfully struck everywhere throughout these countries, and, indeed, through most of Central Asia, by the evidences of a once dense population. Ruined towns and cities abound, some of which were places of wealth a couple of generations ago, but are now only inhabited by foxes and jackals. Abiverd, the most advanced Persian outpost in the Attock, was a flourishing city in the time of Nadir Shah, but now a dozen of Guebre shepherds are the

Chapter 30 - Chapter 31 - Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Page 55 - Page 56 - Page 57 - Page 58 - Page 59 - Page 60 - Page 61 - Page 62 - Page 63 - Page 64 - Page 65 - Page 66 - Page 67 - Page 68 - Page 69 - Page 70 - Chapter 34

Some other works:

• Balfour on the Turkmen 1883
• Basin of the Helmand. By Markham
• Care and feeding of the Akhal Teke/Tekke Horses by Boulger
• On Journeys Between Herat, and Khiva.By Goldsmid
• Origin of the Turkmen, with an Account of the Minor Tribes by Marvin
• Road to Merv. By Rawlinson
• The Turkmen by Boulger

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