Labor cost little; forty-five francs a month for the men from the oasis, fifty centimes a day for those who came from Bokhara.
It was in this way that Skobeleff's soldiers were taken to Kizil Arvat, and then eighty-four miles beyond to Gheok Tepe.

This town did not surrender until after the destruction of its ramparts and the massacre of twelve thousand of its defenders; but the oasis of Akhal Tekke was in the power of the Russians.

The inhabitants of the Atek oasis were only too ready to submit, and that all the more willingly as they had implored the help of the czar in their struggle with Kouli Khan, the chief of the Mervians.

These latter to the number of two hundred and fifty thousand, followed their example, and the first locomotive entered Merv station in July, 1886.
"And the English ?" I asked Major Noltitz.

"In what way have they looked upon the progress of the Russians through Central Asia ?" "Jealously, of course.