Journal of the Royal United
Service Institution
VOL. XIX. 1875. No. LXXX.
LECTURE.
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it may be well to note what Mr. Taylour Thomson writes
with regard to Merv, from a visit paid in 1842. This
gentleman was then on his way to Khiva from Tehran, via
Mashhad, Sarakhs, and the Oxus. He found the city, known
to modern times as Merv Shah Jahan, and, to Persia
especially, as one of the four great cities of Khorasan
(Herat, Mashhad, and Nishapur being the other three),
"an assemblage of " wretched huts, commanded by
a small mud fort, in which a Governor " of the Khan
of Khiva resides, and defended by a few patereros and
" swivel matchlocks." It had nothing to boast
of but a small bazaar to supply the Sarik
and Salor tribes who frequented it.
Merv by
Galen Frysinger
"
Merv-i- Qajar," or Merv of the Qajar (the present
reigning dynasty in Persia), evidencing by its name that
it is the last built of the four towns of Merv, was
roofless ; but its streets, walls of houses, mosques, and
baths remained, a silent and gloomy record of the past.
The Merv of the Seljukian dynasty was marked by low
hillocks and a solitary tomb. Ancient Merv had been
utterly effaced. Merv to Khiva. — On leaving Merv,
Abbott crossed a dry channel of the Murghab, and
proceeded by a well-beaten road, in direction E.N.E. He
soon observed to the east the rains of a former Merv, of
which a mosque and several forts were prominent features.
The space covered by these remains of bygone prosperity
appeared some thirty miles in circumference; so that it
might well have included more than the city of the
Persian kings. Rejoicing to quit a plain which, in his
estimation, was "wretched, though much
vaunted," and to which the desert was “a
paradise in comparison," he mounted a lame horse,
and proceeded in a direct route across the latter towards
Khiva. Two return caravans, with slaves, were in company
with his own party. One halt, probably the first, was at
another “Kara Tepe," where was a small”
Khail," and a sluice of pure water from one of the
canals. The next morning the march was resumed “over
a plain” encumbered by sand hills, and sprinkled
“with low jungle." The lower lands ho found
occasionally cultivated, with old watercourses and
remains of habitations, speaking of a more prosperous
period; the country, rather a wilderness than a desert,
with abundance of dry firewood, and plenty of camel
thorn, but no grass. As we are without detail of the
marches of this party, Abbott's review of the ordinary
day's procedure must be taken to supply the deficiency.
He himself rose at midnight, and sitting at a blazing
fire (for the supply of dry wood continued), and sipping
tea without milk, awaited the loading and departure of
the camels. Riding after and overtaking the latter, he
alighted for half an hour, to spread his carpet at a new
fire. He then mounted a second time, to proceed silently
along a track not wide enough for two horsemen abreast,
until day dawned upon the travelers, when they pulled up
to get thawed and warmed again. By sunrise they had
continued the march, and about ten they sought a
convenient place for halting, sheltered from the wind,
but exposed to the sun. Breakfast and a short sleep
enabled them to resume operations, until about four
o'clock, when the night's bivouac was to take effect. The
cold was at times very severe. Icicles hung from the
camel's beards; on one
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