Li'fe. in th& great desert

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UFE IN THE GREAT DESERT OF CENTRAL ASIA

749

lightened and scientifically careful atten
tion to the most recent advances of pre
ventive medicine upon the progress of
nations than the mortality statistics of
the Japanese armies in the recent Russo-
Japanese war as compared with the cor
responding statistics for the British army
¦during the Boer war immediately preced
ing, or for the American army during
the Spanish war at a somev/hat earlier
date? The consideration of these elements of

national progress has been neglected by
historians, but they are nevertheless of
deep-reaching importance and must at
tract immediate attention in this age of
advanced civilization. The world has
entered the historical age when national
greatness and national decay will be
based on physical rather than moral con
ditions, and it is vitally incumbent upon
nations to use every possible effort and
every possible means to check physical
deterioration.

LIFE IN THE GREAT DESERT OF CENTRAL
ASIA

By Ellsworth Huntington, of Yale University

IT seems a strange anomaly that the
most remarkable ruins of ancient
civilization are often closely asso
ciated with deserts. In North America
the great Aztec and Zuni ruins lie in the
arid regions of the Southwest and of
Mexico ; in South America the wonderful
remnants of the great Inca cities are lo
cated in the dry regions of Bolivia, Peru,
and northern Argentina. In Africa,
likewise, the Rhodesian ruins, the most
remarkable in the southern part of the
continent, lie near the Kalahari Desert,
while in the north the remains of some of
the most famous ancient empires border
the Sahara from Morocco to Egypt.
Asia, too, is no exception, for Arabia,
Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, northwest-
•ern India, and western China are all dis
tinguished for their ruins and their
deserts. One of the most interesting examples
of the combination of the ruins of a
mighty past with conditions of great
aridity today is found in the Russian
province of Transcaspia, east of the Cas
pian Sea. Thither in 1903 it was the
author's privilege to go as a member of
an expedition sent out by the Carnegie
Institution of Washington for archeo-
logical and geographical research under

the leadership of Mr Raphael Pumpelly.
During the course of two seasons' work
we not only studied the ruins, but gained
a fairly intimate acquaintance with the
Turkoman inhabitants of the country — its
rulers before the Russian conquest, less
than thirty years ago. In our study of
both the past and the present nothing was
more impressive than the inexorable in- /
fluence which the desert has exercised
upon living creatures of every sort.
We entered Transcaspia from oily
Baku, crossing the Caspian Sea to Kras-
novodsk, and thence going by rail to
Askhabad, the capital of the province,
and to Merv, the most famous of the an
cient cities. From the high, narrow win
dows of the deliberate train the traveler
who elects to sit on the edge of the car
seat, and sacrifice comfort to scientific
curiosity, may see all of the few simple
features which make up the physiog
raphy of Transcaspia. After the train
has left the opalescent waters of the Bay
of Krasnovodsk and has run through the
desert for some hours, it comes at length
to the Yuzboi, the broad abandoned chan
nel of an ancient river which once flowed
from the Sea of Aral or the marsh of
Sarikamish to the Caspian Sea in the
days when the climate of the country was

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

more propitious than now, and ancient
empires flourished in what is now the
desert. Soon the train begins to run parallel
to the mountains of northern Persia,
which raise their barren brown flanks
through the quivering air 20 or 30 miles
away to the south. Between their
base and the railway lies a sloping plain
of gravelly soil washed down from the
mountains by spring floods and fertile
only where a rare brook is led abroad in
canals to water the earth, or where tun
nels, marked by long lines of wells with
heaps of debris at their mouths, have
been dug for miles into the gravel to rob
it of its scanty store of water.
THE OASES OF THE DESERT
On the other side of the railway a
great plain of desert sand stretches far
away toward the north in the direction of
the bleak plateau of Ust-urt and the
famed city of "lone Khiva in the waste."
Between the desert and the mountains
lie the oases of Transcaspia, dusty green
beads, large and small, strung on a two-
stranded string of shining steel rails.
Pleasant, cool, fruitful places they seem
to the sun-blackened nomad of the desert,
although to the luxurious traveler on the
railroad thedusty streets and adobe houses
present little that is lovely. Occasionally
the house of a Russian official, low, white
washed, and red-tiled, presents a hint of
picturesqueness as it stands embowered
in fruit trees laden with mulberries, apri
cots, plums, peaches, quinces, and pome
granates ; but the ground below the trees
is dry and grassless, and the breath of the
desert blights every spot where standing
or running water is not found.
On the outskirts of almost every oasis
stand the symbols of two types of civiliza
tion whose day is past. On the one side
a cluster of round felt tents, a flock of
fat-tailed brown and white sheep, some
kneeling, grunting camels, and a group
of Turkoman nomads in long-striped
quilted gowns of native red silk and huge
caps of sheepskin represent the recent
days when the Turkomans cheerfully
plundered their neighbors, the mild Per

sians, or any one else whom sad mis
chance betrayed into their hands. On the
other side huge earthen mounds or lines
of fallen walls of sun-dried brick indi
cate that centuries ago the barren wastes
which now lie desolate were the home of
a prosperous and numerous race of tillers
of the soil.
During our stay in Transcaspia we
visited the mountains to the south of the
railroad, made excursions into the desert
to the north, and lived for months among
the oases and deserts between the other
two regions. Nowhere during all our
stay did we feel that we had left the
desert behind. On our way to the
mountains at the end of May the growth
of short, sweet grass which covers the
country in early spring had already died
and shriveled. The gently sloping plain
of gravel at the base of the foot-hills was
brown and barren except for dry weeds
and little bushes.
Among the mountains themselves the
bottoms of the deep canyons were either
green with grass among which blue irises
were blooming, or else were filled with a
jungle of low trees and fragrant rose
bushes. Nevertheless a glance upward
disclosed bare walls of rock and talus so
dry that not a speck of green could be de
tected. At the heads of the canyons.
green upland valleys and plateaus ap
peared, tenanted by pastoral Kurds who
leave their stone houses in summer and
dwell in tents.
The immediate scenery at these high
altitudes of 6,000 or 8,000 feet did not
suggest the desert, but from the snow-
flecked peaks 9,000 or 10,000 feet above
the sea a yellow band on the horizon
and a dusty haze in the distant air could
be seen proclaiming the great waste of
sand a day's journey to the north, and we
knew that in a month or two even the
mountains would be parched and brown.
THE KURDS AND THE TURKOMANS
The Kurds, who inhabit the highlands
south of Transcaspia are in themselves a
forcible reminder of the desert Three
centuries ago in the days of Abbas Shah
the last great king of Persia, the Tartars'

LIFE IN THE GREAT DESERT OF CENTRAL ASIA

751

A SAMPLE OF THE MOUNTAINOUS SOUTHERN BORDER OF TRANSCASPIA, SHOWING
THE SCANTY VEGETATION AND THE STERILE NATURE OF THE MOUNTAINS
TURKOMAN TENTS ON THE EDGE OF THE TRANSCASPIAN DESERT

who preceded their Turkoman cousins in
Transcaspia, seem to have found life un
usually hard among the waterless, grass-
less pastures of sand and gravel. At
any rate, they raided the gentle, courteous
Persians with unendurable ferocity. On

the western borders of his realm lived
another race of plunderers, the Kurds,
and it occurred to Abbas Shah that the
one race might be pitted against the other.
Accordingly he transported some 100,000
Kurds to the mountains of Khorasan

752

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SCENES ALONG THE TRANSCASPIAN RAILROAD IN THE MIDST OF THE DESERT
Great fields of sand such as this often lie within only a few miles of scenes of occasional
floods like that shown in the second picture. In the sandy places much difficulty is exper
ienced in keeping the sand from drifting over the tracks and preventing the running of trains
During the floods of May the railroad often suffers severely, sections many miles in length
being sometimes washed away.

•south of Transcaspia. For a time they
put a stop to the raids of the warriors of
the desert, but not permanently, perhaps
because among the mountains life was
easier than in the desert, and there was
•consequently less temptation to commit

robbery when a dry season or swarms of
locusts ruined the scanty crops and pas
turage. The Tartars and their Turkoman suc
cessors did not often rob the Kurds, for
that was dangerous, but until the coming

LIFE IN THE GREAT DESERT OF CENTRAL ASIA

753

of the Russians less than a generation
ago, their dearest delight was long, hard
rides of 80 or 100 miles in a single day
on slave-taking raids among the timid
Persians. No pity was shown to the
poor captives; with chained hands and
blistered feet, stumbling and faint, they
were driven hundreds of miles at the
point of the spear to be finally sold in the
slave markets of the rich oases of Bok
hara and Khiva.
Far in the interior of eastern Persia,
beyond the mountain home of the trans
ported Kurds, the traveler is often sur
prised by being addressed by native Per
sians in Turki, the language of the Tur
komans, as the writer discovered during a
journey which succeeded the one here de
scribed. Time and again they tell the
same tale : "Years ago in my boyhood I
was working in the fields toward sunset,
when some one in the watch tower
shouted, 'The Turkomans, the Turko
mans.' We dropped our work and ran
for shelter, but the Turkomans caught us.
Six men they killed that day, and fifteen
of us they drove to Khiva. There we
lived and worked for hard masters twelve
years until the Russians came and freed
us. God bless the Russians. The Tur
komans are fiends."
In spite of their cruel raids the Turko
mans are admirable people — brave, gen
erous, and honest, faithful and indus
trious, and possessing that greatest of
virtues, profound respect for women. At
least such was the case till recently, al
though of late contact with Russian civili
zation is beginning to have the same sad
effect which contact with American civi
lization has had upon the Indians.
A RIDE INTO THE DESERT
A week's ride out into the sand north
of Merv at the end of June gave oppor
tunity to see how friendly the Turkomans
are and how terrible is their desert. At
first our way led through the unkempt
fringe of brown stubble and weed-bor
dered ditches which surrounds every
oasis ; then came stretches of clayey plain
with just a trace of grass ; and finally the
sand itself, a vast undulating expanse of

dunes, indescribably graceful in their
smooth crescentic curves, and strangely
beautiful in tint and shading during the
cool sunrise hours when the long shadows
bring out every slightest hollow or ripple.
As the midsummer sun rises higher the
landscape flattens and assumes a garish
tint of yellowish gray, inexpressibly
wearisome. Strange mirages torment
the vision, but never are really deceit
ful — perchance a group of tents beside a
pool of sparkling blue water, or a string
of camels pacing slowly along above the
horizon in the lower portion of the sky
with heads to earth and feet to the un
substantial floor of heaven.
"By Allah !" .remarked the guide on the
first day of our journey, "I wish I had
brought a thicker robe. I had no idea it
would be so hot. The sun beats right
through this thin thing, and only the
grace of Allah keeps me from being
burned to a cinder."
During the heat of the day we rested
for two or three hours ; that is, we lay
down on the burning sand in the shade
of a bit of cloth or of our horses — thin,
patient animals — and wrote up notes, the
bane of the explorer's life, or tried to
sleep and forget the heat. The end of
the noon siesta was always the worst part
of the day. We fairly staggered when
we rose to mount our horses ; and the
still, suffocating heat made us clutch at
the saddles to keep from swaying and
falling as the dispirited creatures plodded
heavily on. Soon, however, a little
breeze arose regularly, the horses began
to step more lightly, the shadows length
ened, and the world grew interesting.
By sunset we had reached a group of
tents, a well, some tamarisk bushes, and
flocks of bleating sheep, with here and
there a camel from whose gaunt leather
sides a few handfuls of last winter's coat
of hair still clung. Friendly Turkomans
took our horses and gave us cool drafts
of the acrid sour milk, which all men love
in the desert. In the cool of the evening
we sat and talked with our hosts while
waiting for dinner of curdled milk, coarse
wheaten bread, and the flesh of a young
lamb pulled to pieces with the fingers.

754

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pw

w

¦MP

'$&> '
¦^¦¦:'S:y~'-:,;r.' RUIN OF AN OLD MOSQUE IN THE LOWER PORTION OF THE MERV OASIS WHERE
CULTIVATION HAS NOW BEEN GIVEN UP
RUINS IN THE UPPER PORTION OF THE MERV OASIS WHERE CULTIVATION IS STILL
CARRIED ON
In the background may be seen the mud walls of the last of the great cities of Merv

LIFE IN THE GREAT DESERT OF CENTRAL ASIA

755

When conversation at length gave place
to idle reverie we went to sleep in the
open air, regretting the pleasant weari
ness which made it impossible to remain
awake in order to watch the surpassing-
beauty of the flawless sky and feel the
caress of the gentle breeze of the desert.
The purpose of our ride into the desert
was the examination of numerous great
mounds from 30 to 80 feet high and from
100 to 600 feet in diameter, which are
located outside the oasis of Merv. Here
in ancient days, when the water supply
was greater than it now is, the chief men
of the land appear to have lived, raised
above the heat of the plain and protected
by moats and walls, while around them
dwelt the humble peasants whose mud
houses have now crumbled into scarcely
perceptible heaps covered with countless
potsherds. Elsewhere whole villages
seem to have been built upon mounds, as
they are today in eastern Persia in places
of especial danger.
The Turkomans were puzzled when
they saw a stranger riding from ruin to
ruin, writing, photographing, measuring.
"Have you heard what the stranger is
doing?" they said to one another, accord
ing to the report of the guide. "You
know he comes from the west, so he says,
from across a lake bigger than the desert.
Now these old mounds were built long
ago by the Giants whom our ancestors,
blessed of Allah, drove far away into the
western mountains. There some of the
infidels still live. The Americans are in
fidels. It must be that the Giants are
their ancestors, and this man has come
here to see where his ancestors lived."
Another matter which puzzled the
Turkomans was the fact that I wrote a
great deal on horseback. The guide told
of their speculations. "It must be," he
reported them as saying, "that this is a
very religious man. He knows the
Koran, or his holy book, whatever it may
be, by heart, and as he rides along he
writes it down for pleasure."
The means of supporting life in Trans
caspia are much more abundant in the
oases than elsewhere, but even there they
are very precarious. During April and

May, 1903, the camp of the Pumpelly ex
pedition was pitched at Anau, a small
oasis near Askhabad, the Transcaspian
capital. There, with the aid of about
120 Turkomans, we excavated two
mounds, the remains of a village of ex
treme antiquity, founded in the days
when the camel, sheep, and pig were still
undomesticated and were hunted by the
villagers who later tamed them, appar
ently in the very village into the fuins of
which we dug.
A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS
One day in April a spirit of unrest ap
peared among our Turkoman workmen,
for a whisper went abroad that this was
to be a year of grasshoppers. The rumor
was only too true, for before many days
the green grass and the fields of tender
wheat nearest the mountains were full of
round, dark spots no bigger than a dollar,
and composed of almost microscopic liv
ing creatures.
Day by day the spots grew larger, like
the spreading of a plague, at first a foot
in diameter, then three feet, and soon ten.
Little by little, too, the tiny swarming
creatures became visible as individuals —
genuine grasshoppers, minute, but ap
pallingly voracious. Here and there a
Turkoman could be seen with a spade
attempting to cover the plague-spots with
earth, but in general the grasshoppers
were left unmolested.
The faces of the Turkomans grew
graver day by day as the creatures in
creased in size, and the men stuck to
their work of digging more faithfully
than before, seeming to feel that they
must earn as much as possible to support
their families in the hard days to come.
There was no complaint, no cursing;
they seemed to look upon the myriad-
mouthed horde of grasshoppers as an
affliction sent by Allah, and not to be op
posed by ordinary human means.
At length there came a day when the
grasshoppers, now nearly half an inch in
length, began to move more widely, and
broad patches of sere brown stubble could
be seen where they had devastated parts
of the wheat fields. About the same

75b'

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jfc. *'

•*&*

A KURDISH WRESTLING MATCI-I OUTSIDE A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE
The inhabitants are descended from the Kurds brought by Abbas Shah to oppose the
Turkomans
A VILLAGE OF TURKOMANS WHO HAVE GIVEN UP THE NOMADIC LIFE IN LARGE
MEASURE
The houses are built entirely of mud, even the domes containing no wood whatever

time a new and most welcome factor en
tered into the situation ; rose starlings,
northward bound on their annual migra
tion, appeared upon the scene one morn
ing. A pleasant light came into the faces
of the Turkomans as they pointed to the
great flocks of rosy-breasted, black-

winged birds which circled over the plain
in troops like blackbirds in America dur
ing the fall of the year. They ate vora
ciously ; and thousands, nay, millions, of
the pestiferous insects were devoured in
a single day.
On the following morning the number

LIFE IN THE GREAT DESERT OF CENTRAL ASIA

757

of starlings had increased, and the third
day the swarms of birds almost darkened
the sky when, in their frequent flittings,
a flock passed overhead. That day the
headman of the village asked us for con
tributions to a fund for getting rid of the
grasshoppers. "These starlings," ' said he, "are the
children of a sacred spring among the
Persian mountains two days' journey to
the south of here. Wherever the water
is, there the birds gather. Allah, the
Merciful, has sent many birds to us, but
they are not enough. We must do some
thing to get more of them. There is just
one way to do it. If we can get some of
the water and bring it here, the birds will
follow it. So today I am collecting
money. Tomorrow, by the grace of
Allah, I will send Verdi, the Mullah, our
most holy man, to get the water. In his
hand he must carry a good present, for
the water is of no use unless it is taken
from the spring and blessed by the holy
sheikhs who guard it from pollution."
Three days later the headman was ra
diant. "See," said he, "how thick the
birds are," and truly they were circling
over the wheat fields in extraordinary
numbers. "Last night our messenger
reached the spring, and already the birds
have begun to come. Today he will stay
there; then it will take him two days to
get back, bringing the vessel of water.
Wait till the fourth day from now, the
morning after he arrives, and see the
multitude of birds."
On the third morning the headman.
looked old and weary, and had scarcely
a word of greeting. The birds were
gone; not a solitary starling was to be
seen. In the night, silently, swiftly, as
they had come, so they went, flying north
ward according to their wont, in response
to the changing seasons. No thought of
migrations came to the Turkomans. One
thing alone they knew — the birds had
gone, the grasshoppers remained, and the
crops were doomed to utter ruin. Per
haps a little of the unripe grain could be
cut for fodder, but nothing could be
saved for food for themselves and their
children.

Some one had blundered; perhaps
some impious deed had been committed;
therefore Allah had refused the further
aid of his sacred birds. There was no
further talk of a joyful procession to
meet the Mullah far from the village and
bringing the jar of sacred water home in
triumph. The holy man stole into the
village dejected and unnoticed, while the
villagers thought only of their ruined
crops and their families, which would
soon be hungry.
THE MARCH OF MILLIONS
The days that followed were like a
nightmare. The insects were now full
grown, and on a day they all began to
move. Northeastward they went toward
the desert — slowly, very slowly, but stead
ily, hopping, hopping, hopping, rarely
pausing, never turning to one side. A
low rattle filled the air like the steady
falling of fine sleet, and everywhere there
was a faint, sickening odor. It was im
possible to walk without stepping on the
creatures. On the morning when the grasshop
pers began to move the writer was at
work in a round native tent of felt, with
the top, perhaps 30 inches in diameter,
open to admit light and air. When the
grasshoppers reached the tent not one of
them turned aside. Straight up the wall
they crawled, and straight across the top
until they came to the opening. There
they paused a few minutes and then
jumped blindly. One after another they
landed on the table, which was neces
sarily placed under the opening for light.
Tap, tap, tap, they fell at intervals of a
few seconds until it soon became impos
sible to work. When they righted them
selves after falling to the floor, they
always turned in the original direc
tion, hopping across the floor, climbed
the wall and the inside of the roof of the
tent until they reached the opening at the
apex, and were able to continue their in
terrupted journey.
Near our tents flowed a brook about
three feet wide, which was used for irriga
tion. When the grasshoppers reached it
they paused a moment, and then, urged

758

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'

ERECTING A TURKOMAN TENT
The poles and lattice-work are made of the lightest possible wood, in order to be easily
transported
A TURKOMAN READY FOR THE TRAIL
Before the coming of the Russians, Turkomans mounted and equipped just as is this man
often rode 80 or 100 miles in a day on slave-taking raids into Persia

LIFE IN THE GREAT DESERT OF CENTRAL ASIA

759

KURDISH WOMEN AND CHILDREN AMONG THE MOUNTAINS ON THE NORTHERN
FRONTIER OF PERSIA CLOSE TO TRANSCASPIA
A GROUP OF TURKOMANS
Notice the various types of sheepskin cap and the coat of sheepskin which the right-hand man
wears even in summer.

by the crowds coming up frtem behind,
jumped into the water and struggled for
the other bank. The majority reached it
after being carried down a few hundred
feet. On the bank they rested in swarms
until their wings were dry, and then
hopped steadily on.

Many of the weaker insects, however,
never got across the stream alive. They
were carried down to the point where the
brook was distributed over the fields, and
there were deposited in great heaps,
which soon began to emit a most noisome
odor.

760

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OUR EXCAVATIONS CHOKED BY THE
INSECTS
The coming of the grasshoppers had a
disastrous effect upon our work of exca
vation. The insects jumped into the dig
gings in hordes, falling over the perpen
dicular edges in a steady stream. Cross
ing the bottom of the excavations in their
usual persistent manner, they tried again
and again to climb the steep walls, only
to grow weary before reaching the top,
and so to fall back once more. Thus they
piled up to a depth of a foot or two in
every excavation. At first we tried to
have them shoveled out, but the accumu
lation of a single night could scarcely be
removed in a day. As most of our work
was finished, we merely shoveled earth
into the pits to cover the loathsome, dying
mass of insects. Once in the bottom of
a deep, round well sunk in exploring the
ruins, we found a large snake buried in
a seething, squirming, ever-deepening
mass of living death from which his
writhing head alone protruded.
There was one excavation which we
determined not to abandon at once. As
quickly as possible, which was not till the
end of the second day, we procured
cheese-cloth and stretched it across the
top of the excavation. The grasshop
pers crossed by legions, their shadows
darkening the cloth, and the sound of
their hopping was like the patter of heavy
rain on a roof.
The work of cleaning out grasshoppers
was intensely disagreeable. Even in the
upper portions of the excavation the in
sects swarmed everywhere, and it was
continually necessary to brush the sticky
creatures from hands, arms, head, and
neck. The Turkoman laborers were clad in
baggy white cotton trousers of the com
mon full Turkish type, worn without un
derclothes. To stand in such garments
amid the grasshoppers and shovel them
into buckets or bags while the creatures
crawled everywhere must have been al
most unendurable. Every few minutes
the men stopped to remove the clinging

insects from inside their clothes. Never
theless not only did those who were at
work keep on faithfully, but scores of
others, seeing that the grasshoppers had
consumed their sustenance for the year,.
pleaded piteously for an opportunity to
earn something to support their wives
and children.
The visitation came to an end at length,
and the grasshoppers passed on into the
desert. The land was left reaped — con
sumed, as it were, by fire. There was a
strange stillness in the air, and though
our tents were pitched in what had been
the fruitful grain fields of an oasis, we
seemed to be in the midst Of the great
desert. When the locusts were gone and the
Turkomans were left idle, discouraged,
and moody, it was easy to see how the
precarious conditions of Turkoman life
have contributed to the formation of the
warlike, plundering character for which
the people of the desert are noted. Little
groups of malcontents gathered here and
there and began to talk against the Rus
sian government. "How shall we live?"
they said. "We cannot plunder our
neighbors, as our fathers did, for the
Great White King has his soldiers every
where. We have no flocks, for since the
Russians persuaded us to settle in the
oases permanently, we have kept only a
few sheep. If we and our little ones
starve, it is the fault of the Russians.
Give us the old free days again."
Devoid of genuine foundation as such
mutterings may be, they nevertheless can
not be lightly disregarded. Probably the
Turkomans are as comfortable today as
in the past, and possibly more so, for the
Russian rule is far from oppressive ; but
such a thought is remote from the minds
of the Turkomans. Now, as in the past,
when pitiless nature causes them to suf
fer, they strive to fix the blame upon
man, and to retrieve their fortunes by in
flicting pain upon those whom they deem
their enemies. Only the conquest of the
desert can free them from the constantly
recurring menace of hunger,