length we were going at the rate of twelve miles
per hour down a narrow gorge-like valley toward the seventh and last ridge
that lay between us and the desert. At 9:30 P. M. we stood upon its
summit, and before us stretched the sandy wastes of Kara-Kum, enshrouded
in gloom. Thousands of feet below us the city of Askabad was ablaze with
lights, shining like beacons on the shore of the desert sea. Strains of
music from a Russian band stole faintly up through the darkness as we
dismounted, and contemplated the strange scene, until the shriek of a
locomotive-whistle startled us from our reveries. Across the desert a
train of the Transcaspian railway was gliding smoothly along toward the
city.

[Illustration: MOSQUE CONTAINING THE TOMB OF TAMERLANE AT SAMARKAND.]

A hearty welcome back to civilized life was given us the next evening by
General Kuropatkine himself, the Governor-General of Transcaspia. During
the course of a dinner with him and his friends, he kindly assured us that
no further recommendation was needed than the fact that we were American
citizens to entitle us to travel from one end of the Russian empire to the
other.

From Askabad to Samarkand there was a break in the continuity of our
bicycle journey. Our Russian friends persuaded us to take advantage of the
Transcaspian railway, and not to hazard a journey across the dreaded
Kara-Kum sands. Such a journey, made upon the railroad track, where water
and food were obtainable at regular intervals, would have entailed only a
small part of the hardships incurred on the deserts in China, yet we were
more than anxious to reach, before the advent of winter, a point whence we
could be assured of reaching the Pacific during the following season.
Through the kindness of the railway authorities at Bokhara station our car
was side-tracked to enable us to visit, ten miles away, that ancient city
of the East. On November 6 we reached Samarkand, the ancient capital of
Tamerlane, and the present terminus of the Transcaspian railway.

[Illustration: CARAVANSARY AT FAKIDAOUD.]

[Illustration: A MARKET-PLACE IN SAMARKAND, AND THE RUINS OF A
COLLEGE.]

IV

THE JOURNEY FROM SAMARKAND TO KULDJA

On the morning of November 16 we took a last look at the blue domes and
minarets of Samarkand, intermingled with the ruins of palaces and tombs,
and then wheeled away toward the banks of the Zerafshan. Our