l adapted for binding together the ground as those of
_Hippophae rhamnoides_, an arbutus of the Eleagnaceous family, which is
used for binding together the sands in southern Europe.

To these plantations of saksaouls the engineers of the line have added
in different places a series of slopes of worked clay, and in the most
dangerous places a line of palisades.

These precautions are doubtless of use; but if the road is protected,
the passengers are hardly so, when the sand flies like a bullet hail,
and the wind sweeps up from the plain the whitish efflorescences of
salt. It is a good thing for us that we are not in the height of the
hot season; and it is not in June or July or August that I would advise
you to take a trip on the Grand Transasiatic.

I am sorry that Major Noltitz does not think of coming out on the
gangway to breathe the fresh air of the Kara Koum. I would offer him
one of those choice regalias with which my case is well provided. He
would tell me if these stations I see on my time-table, Balla-Ischem,
Aidine, Pereval, Kansandjik, Ouchak, are of any interest--which they do
not seem to be. But it would not do for me to disturb his siesta. And
yet his conversation ought to be interesting, for as a surgeon in the
Russian army he took part in the campaigns of Generals Skobeleff and
Annenkof. When our train ran through the little stations that it honors
only with a whistle, he could tell me if this one or that one had been
the scene of any incident of the war. As a Frenchman I am justified in
questioning him about the Russian expedition across Turkestan, and I
have no doubt that my fellow passenger will be pleased to gratify me.
He is the only one I can really trust besides Popof.

But why is Popof not in his seat? He also is not insensible to the
charms of a cigar. It would seem that his conversation with the
engineer has not finished yet.

Ah! Here he is coming from the front of the luggage van. He comes out
of it and shuts the door; he remains for a moment and is about to take
a seat. A hand which holds a cigar, is stretched out toward him. Popof
smiles and soon his perfumed puffs are mingling voluptuously with mine.

For fifteen years I think I said our guard had been in the Transcaspian
service. He knows the country up to the Chinese frontier, and five or
six times already he has been over the whole line known as the Grand
Transasiatic.

Popof was on duty on the section between Mikhailov and Kizil