The Trans-Caspian railway was so badly laid that trains frequently ran off the line.

There was no arrangement for water, travellers being frequently delayed three or four hours, while blocks of ice were melted for the boiler; while the so-called first-class carriages were filthy, and crowded with vermin.

The advance of Holy Russia had apparently not improved Merv, which had become, since its annexation, a kind of inferior Port Said, a refuge for the scum, male and female, of St.Petersburg, Moscow, and Odessa.
Drunkenness and debauchery reigned paramount.

Low gambling-houses, _cafe chantants_, and less reputable establishments flourished under the liberal patronage of the Russian officers, who, out of sheer _ennui_, ruined their pockets and constitutions with drunken orgies, night and day.

There was no order of any kind, no organized police-force, and robberies and assassinations took place almost nightly.