ht.

Russian slaves are not uncommon in Central Asia, though less numerous
than formerly. The Kirghese cripple their prisoners by inserting a
horse hair in a wound in the heel. A man thus treated is lamed for
life. He cannot use his feet in escaping, and care is taken that he
does not secure a horse.

The two fugitives traveled together from Bokhara, suffering great
hardships in their journey over the steppes. They avoided all towns
through fear of capture, and subsisted upon whatever chance threw in
their way. Once when near starvation they found and killed a sheep.
They ate heartily of its raw flesh, and before the supply thus
obtained was exhausted they reached the Russian boundary at Chuguchak.
One of the twain died soon afterward, and his companion in flight came
to Barnaool. The authorities would not let him go farther without a
passport, and he had been in the town nearly a year at the time of my
visit.

Through the Persian ambassador at St. Petersburg, he had communicated,
with his government at Teheran, and expected his passport in a few
weeks.

During the eight years that had elapsed since his capture this
gentleman heard nothing from his own country. He had learned to speak
Russian but could not read it. I told him of the completion of the
Indo-European telegraph by way of the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf,
and the success of electric communication between England and India.
Naturally he was less interested concerning the Atlantic cable than
about the telegraph in his own country. We shook hands at parting, and
mutually expressed a wish to meet again in Persia and America.

After his departure, the doctor commented upon the intelligent bearing
and clear eye of the Persian, and then said:

"I have done several strange and unexpected things in my life, but I
never dreamed I should be the interpreter between a Persian and an
American at the foot of the Altai mountains."

I met at Barnaool, a Prussian gentleman Mr. Radroff, who was sent to
Siberia by the Russian Academy of Science. He knew nearly all the
languages of Europe, and had spent some years in studying those of
Central Asia. He could converse and read in Chinese, Persian, and
Mongol, and I don't know how many languages and dialects of lesser
note. His special mission was to collect information about the present
and past inhabitants of Central Asia, and in this endeavor he had
made explorations in the country of the Kirghese and beyond Lake
Bal