from St. Petersburg only, and that only through the chief
executive of the province through which we were passing.

Permission to enter Turkestan is by no means easily obtained, as is well
understood by the student of Russian policy in central Asia. We were not a
little surprised, therefore, when our request to spend the winter in its
capital was graciously granted by Baron Wrevsky, as well as the privilege
for one of us to return in the mean time to London. This we had determined
on, in order to secure some much-needed bicycle supplies, and to complete
other arrangements for the success of our enterprise. By lot the return
trip fell to Sachtleben. Proceeding by the Transcaspian and Transcaucasus
railroads, the Caspian and Black seas, to Constantinople, and thence by
the "overland express" to Belgrade, Vienna, Frankfort, and Calais, he was
able to reach London in sixteen days.

Tashkend, though nearly in the same latitude as New York, is so protected
by the Alexandrovski mountains from the Siberian blizzards and the
scorching winds of the Kara-Kum desert as to have an even more moderate
climate. A tributary of the Tchirtchick river forms the line of
demarcation between the native and the European portions of the city,
although the population of the latter is by no means devoid of a native
element. Both together cover an area as extensive as Paris, though the
population is only 120,000, of which 100,000 are congregated in the
native, or Sart, quarter. There is a floating element of Kashgarians,
Bokhariots, Persians, and Afghans, and a resident majority of Kirghiz,
Tatars, Jews, Hindus, gypsies, and Sarts, the latter being a generic title
for the urban, as distinguished from the nomad, people.

[Illustration: OUR FERRY OVER THE ZERAFSHAN.]

Our winter quarters were obtained at the home of a typical Russian family,
in company with a young reserve officer. He, having finished his
university career and time of military service, was engaged in Tashkend in
the interest of his father, a wholesale merchant in Moscow. With him we
were able to converse either in French or German, both of which languages
he could speak more purely than his native Russian. Our good-natured,
corpulent host had emigrated, in the pioneer days, from the steppes of
southern Russia, and had grown wealthy through the "unearned increment."

The Russian samovar is the characteristic feature of the Russian
household. Besides a big bowl of cabbage soup a