rs, the interior of Lasgird fortress resembled a
spacious amphitheatre, around which hundreds of huts rose, tier above
tier, like the cells of a monster pigeon-house, affording shelter in
times of peril to all the inhabitants of Lasgird, and to such refugees as
might come in. At the first alarm of the dreaded man-stealers' approach,
the outside villagers repaired to the fortress with their portable
property; the donkeys and goats were driven inside and occupied the
interior space, and the massive stone door was closed and barricaded. The
villagers' granaries were inside the fortress, and provisions for
obtaining water were not overlooked; so that once inside, the people were
quite secure against any force of Turkomans, whose heaviest arms were
muskets.

The suggestion of an amphitheatre, as above described, is quite patent at
the present day, in something like two or three hundred tiered dwellings;
in the days of its usefulness there must have been a thousand. Thanks to
the Russian occupation of Turkestan, there is no longer any need of the
fortress, and the present population seem to be occupying it at the peril
of having it some day tumble down about their ears; for, massive though
its walls most certainly are, they are but mud, and the people are
indifferent about repairs. Failing to surprise the watchful villagers in
their fields or outside dwellings, the baffled marauders would find
confronting them fifty feet of solid mud wall without so much as an
air-hole in it, rising sheer above the mound-like foundation, and above
this, tiers of rooms or cells, from inside which archers or musketeers
could make it decidedly interesting for any hostile party attempting to
approach. This old fortress of Lasgird is very interesting, as showing
the peaceful and unwarlike Persian ryot's method of defending his life
and liberty against the savage human hawks that were ever hovering near,
ready to swoop down and carry him and his off to the slave markets of
Khiva and Bokhara. These were times when seed was sown and harvest
garnered in fear and trembling, for the Turkoman raiders were adepts at
swooping down when least expected, and they rode horses capable of making
their hundred miles a day over the roughest country. (Incredible as this
latter fact may seem, it is, nevertheless, a well-known thing in Central
Asia that the Turkoman's horse is capable of covering this remarkable
distance, and of keeping it up for days.)

A thunder-s