THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN ON THE OXUS.* [SECOND NOTICE.] WANDERING about
the camp at Khala-ata, after his unpleasant reception by Colonel Weimarn, and summing up his posi- tion, Mr. MacGahan began to calculate how many days it. would take him to starve. He had no provisions for himself and his people,—they had been living on sour milk during the last two days of their journey ;—nor had he shelter of any kind ; an unendurable privation, if he should have to remain stationary under the scorching sun. After a while he was accosted by some officers, who gave him a cordial welcome, and expressed their sentiments in no measured terms. Mr. MacGahan was not a little surprised to hear these officers, who combine a very severe discipline with much freedom of speech, call Colonel Weimarn "canaille d'Allemand," without the slightest hesitation. One of them made room for the exhausted traveller in his kibitka, where he enjoyed food and rest while he studied the means of outwitting Colonel Weimarn with success and safety. The cavalry were to march next day, and Mr. MacGahan thought of attempting to escape from the camp with the marching column, to leave it in the darkness, make a wide circuit, reach the river, and pass the detachment,—manceuvres which he hoped to accomplish easily, as he could march twice as fast as the troops. At mid- night came an order from Kaufmann that the troops were not to march, and there was evidently "something up," which Mr. MacGahan could not make out at the time, but afterwards dis- covered to have been a dashing attack made by 600 Turcoman horsemen, under Sadyk, a famous brigand in the Khan's service, upon Kaufmann's camels at Adam-Kurulgan (a place with which he was to become acquainted later on), and which proved that he had not yet reached the river. If the traveller had carried out his plan of giving the marching column the slip, he must inevitably have fallen into the hands of the Turcomans. There was nothing for it but to wait, and he describes that waiting almost pathetically. There was dust every- where, so thick and penetrating, that a tent was not the least protection against it ; there was nothing to do, and "not the slightest scrap of anything to read "—what an image of forlorn- ness, suggestive of a state of things in which Debrett, or Brad- shaw, Moses and Sons' Price List, or even Tupper would be a god- send !—and nothing to hear but "the singing of the soldiers, which could be heard all day long, although the poor fellows had nearly nothing to eat, and no vodka to drink."
After five days, no news of Kaufmann, and the reduction of his horses to a pitiable state—for though there was a large store of barley in the fort, Colonel Weimarn refused to give him a grain ; the brave little beasts used to come whinnying to their master for something to eat, and to bite ravenously at dry brush- wood—Mr. MacGahan resolved to start, regardless of conse- quences, and offered his people a hundred roubles to go with him. They had previously refused to start, except with troops, but they ultimately consented, and he arranged his flight for the same evening. He was, curiously enough, helped by his adversary, who had been growing uneasy at receiving no news from Kauf- mann, and for exactly the same reason. He, too, feared Khiva would be taken without him, and decided to march, in hopes of meeting a courier. "He took this resolution," says Mr. Mae- Gahan, "the very day I had planned to escape, and so made it comparatively easy." The position now becomes as ludicrous on • Campaigning on the Oxus, and the Fall of Khica. By J. A. MaeGshan, Corre- spondent of the New York Herald. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Co. one side as it is serious on the other, and Mr. MacGahan relates the incidents of his flight with delightful humour and unaffected simplicity, without the very smallest infusion of boasting, charac- teristicswhich distinguish the whole of his valuable and entertaining work. The vanguard of Cossacks started, he dropped silently into the rear, and when they had gained the summit of a sand-hill, a mile from the camp, over which the road led, he as silently dropped out again, turned his horses' heads to the north, and plunged into the darkness, guided by the North Star, and exulting in the free- dom of the open desert, with the stars above, and the fresh air of morning blowing in his face. Here he lingers for a moment, to dwell on the spell of the desert-life, "the .existence full of an untold charm, that endures long after you have quitted the enchanted solitudes." Resuming the narrative, he tells how he toiled on for many hours, until he came in sight of the saline plain, bounded by sand-dunes, among which was the famous Adam-Kurnlgan, or "Fatal to Men." But Mr. MacGahan's glass showed him among the dunes the uniforms of Russian troops, and some Kirghiz guides who approached him informed him that they were Cossacks from Khala-ata, the very same whom he had quitted stealthily in the darkness ! What was to be done now ? Must he surrender to Weimarn? He knew nothing about the distance from Khala-ata to the Oxus, but dared not compute it at less than seventy-five miles ; and this could not to be accomplished without water, which was to be had only on the route of the Cossacks. Almost in despair he got Mamatoff to question the guides, and they informed him that there was a well, called Atty Kuduk, twenty miles further on, not on the road to the Oxus, but four miles to the north, and that Kaufmann had left some troops there. He rapidly calculated that the officer in command at Atty Kuduk would know nothing of his detention at Khala-ata, and could hardly be such a man as Weimam, so he resolved to push straight on to Atty Kuduk. His " people " ob- jected, they had made a detour of forty miles, the horses could not go twenty more without rest and water, they should all be left in the sands without horses. But they were sternly ordered to mount. Peculiar relations subsisted between Mr. MacGahan and his 44 people," to whom he declares that he was in every way good- statured, except on the one question of getting forward. "On that," he says, "I was inexorable, and though they possibly re- garded me as one possessed of an itinerant demon, they only said,
Allah is great !' and liked me none the less."
Not without suffering and difficulty—one of his brave little horses dropped hi the desert, and was (again inexplicably) left to die—did Mr. MaeGalian reach Atty Kuduk, where he was most hospitably received and entertained by the Russian officers ; and where Kaufmann had passed one week, the most critical of the campaign, which indeed witnessed the only serious check re- ceived by the Russian arms during the whole of it. Kaufmann had been gone six days, so that Mr. MacGahan could afford him- self only a brief space for rest. They gave him food, barley for I& horses, and water ; the latter had, however, to be procured by a permit. He was surprised during the day to hear the crowing of a cock, which sounded out of place at Atty Kuduk. They told him its story, as follows :— " He had made the whole distance from Tashkent, comfortably perched on the back of a camel. Originally destined for the table, he bad shown such a pugnacious disposition, and offered Bo courageously to fight General Kaufmann's cook, who was proceeding to wring his neck, that the soldiers unanimously decided he should not die. This valiant disposition had been cultivated by him to such an extent, that be would give the road to neither man nor beast without a fight; and -I actually saw him more than once attack and put to flight a dog in the moat daring and resolute manner."
The Russian officers strongly urged Mr. MacGalan to abandon his enterprise, assuring him that he could not escape the Turco- mans, but he believed the danger of going or staying was equally 'divided, as Weimarn must soon hear of his flight ; and persisted, So that the next noon found him on the road to the Oxus. The wisdom of his decision was proved, as he relates thus :—
"Soon after arriving at Khiva, I learned that I had loft Atty Kuduk only a few hours, when an officer, at the head of 25 Cossacks, arrived, breathless, with an order to arrest, disarm, and take me back to Tash- kent. He had come all the way from there (600 miles), hoping to inter- cept me in the desert. He had heard of me from passing caravans and wandering Kirghiz, who had seen me, had got. on my trail, lost it, gone back, and found it again; he had killed several horses, and at last arrived at Atty Kuduk, a few hours too late. They laughed at him -there, and told him to follow me if he dared. They assured him I was then either with Kaufmann or the jackals; in either case, out of his j urisdictio u."
But he was not yet with Kaufmann ; not until three more days of toil, danger, and suspense, of desert travel where dead camels marked the track, and later, dead horses, with their tails cut off,
whereby the traveller, who had a narrow escape between the Cossacks and the Khivans, learned that they had belonged to Turcomans. A tail serves a Turcoman as a certificate that his horse has been killed in the service of the Khan, who is obliged to pay for it. It was sunset on the second day, when far away on the edge of the desert horizon, beneath broad streaks of red and purple and gold, he caught the glimmer of water, and knew it for the Oxus. "When Kaufmann reached this spot, and beheld the longed-for water, he took off his cap, and devoutly crossed himself, as did every officer on his staff, while the soldiers set up a shout, in spite of the Khivans who were howling around them, such as was never before heard in those regions."
They did not reach the river till long after dark. Stealthily they gave drink to their horses, soaked a little black bread in the water, and then withdrew among the dimes to camp and wait for daylight, asking themselves, "What shall we see in the morning ?" —the white coats of the Russians, or the tall black caps of the Khivans? When the morning came, they saw neither. Up and clown the river for twenty miles the Banda gleamed bare and yellow, but there was no trace of human habitation or human being, only the dead ashes of many camp-fires. On again for another day, in constant dread of the Turcomans. A blind camel falls over a cliff, close beside the travellers, with a broken neck, and hundreds of these animals are wandering about. Distant groups of Khivans are dimly made out, and fields of clover are reached, where the horses eat ecstatically ; but the darkness falls again, and they go on, on, until they can go no farther, and Mr. MacGahan bide the others sleep, while he watches. Here is a striking picture, among the number supplied by that memorable journey :—
" In five minutes they are all sound Asleep, each with his bridle-rein tied to his wrist, and I am left alone, with the murmur of the river for company. For hours I pace up and down, for I am so sleepy and tired, that I cannot trust myself to sit even for a moment. The dark- ness is impenetrable,—I can scarcely see a yard before me. All night long I keep my gloomy watch, and listen to the voices of the river, that sound almost human in their murmur. From time to time there is a flash of lightning, and the lowering clouds, the tall bluffs, and the white faces of my people, with the tired horses standing over them motionless, start into being for an instant ; and then again darkness. With daylight we are again in the saddle. Until half an hour sitar sunrise -we push on, when suddenly our ears are struck by a report that goes through us like an electric shock. The report is succeeded by another and another at regular intervals, and they come rolling up the valley of the Oxus, awakening the long-silent echoes like distant thunder. It is the roar of cannon."
So the intrepid Special Correspondent arrived in time, after all, to witness the " battle " of Sheik Arik, the most important fight of the campaign. Five times before the Russians had attempted to reach this spot in vain ; they had been driven back, beaten, and demoralised, either by the difficulties of the way, the in- clemency of the season, or the treachery of the Khivans. The one detachment which had succeeded in capturing Shiva had after- wards been slaughtered to the het man;. and now the Russian stood at last, this bright May morning, on the bank of that historic river, with their old enemy once more before them. The cannon- ade had been going on for an hour, when the traveller reached the flat river-bank, whence he beheld the scene whieh he describes thus :— " The Oxus here was about three-quarters of a mile wide. The opposite shore was covered with horsemen, who were galloping about, while two pieces of cannon, placed down near the water's edge, were booming away with might and main. Looking down the river on my side, I beheld the Russians quietly looking on, while the two six-pounders were throwing shells. The opposite bank was about fifty feet high, while that on our side was low and flat. Opposite, and resembling earthworks, were the high banks of the canal of Sheik Arik, which here entered the oasis. On the top of these the Khivans had built their fort to dispute the passage. Beyond, glimpses could be caught of gardens and trees. They were the com- mencement of those of Khiva. I sat on my horse watching the progress of events with all-absorbing interest. There was a sense of difficulties overcome and 'dangers passed after my thirty days' chase, which, with the exciting scene before me, was well calculated to pat a war-correspondent into good-humour. Suddenly a shell, which exploded among the cavalry on the opposite bank, produced panic and confusion. There was a scampering off in every direction ; a moment after horses were brought down, the two pieces at the water's edge were hauled off, and a few minutes later there was not a soul to be seen on the other shore. Thus ended the battle of Sheik Arik."
Shortly after, Mr. MacGahan, making his way towards the Russians, was accosted by an officer, who asked him, "Who are you ?" "An American," was the reply. "You are the man who crossed the Kyzil-Kum alone ? All right. Come along, and I will present you to the General," said the officer. The General was Golovatchoff, but a few hours afterwards the thirty days' chase came to an end. Mr. MacGahan had returned to the camp with the officers, and paid his respects to General Kaufmann, who
shooklands with him, told him he was a motodyetz, or" brave fellow," gave him an account of the campaign up to that time (which we find in the second section of the book), and freely accorded him permission to accompany the army to Khiva. They crossed the Oxus on the 1st of June, and camped within ten miles of the city on the 9th. All the way the people came in groups to meet Kaufmann, whom they called the " Yanin- Padahah," or "Half-emperor," which title he accepted with grave composure. They brought him offerings of bread, apricots, and sometimes a lamb or a sheep. The Khan, who had written several times to Kaufmann, professing the greatest astonishment at hearing that the Russians were invading his domains, and requesting them to withdraw immediately, sent him, on the 9th, a last letter, in which, humbly proffering his submis- sion, he professed his readiness to surrender at discretion, and to throw himself on Kaufmann's mercy. Kaufmann stopped the bombardment, and wrote to the Khan, directing him to ride out the next morning, with 100 followers, before the gates of the city, and there the terms of surrender would be dictated to him. But the Turcomams, whose bravery Mr. MacGahan extols, wanted to fight, and the Khan was embarrassed between them and the Russians ; so he ran away, and left his uncle to surrender the town. This was done, to the perfect satisfaction of the people, though the fight was renewed in a desultory way ; and on the 14th, the Khan came back, rode humbly into his own garden, with about 20 followers, dismounted at the foot of the avenue of poplars leading to Kaufmann's tent, bared his head, and bowing low, ascended the little platform on which he was accustomed to receive the homage of his subjects, and knelt before the camp-stool whereon sat the renowned Governor of Tarkestan.
The interest of this book (which is beautifully illustrated) is so manifold that we can only indicate its variety. Perhaps the personal narrative will prove most generally attractive, though such a result is not within Mr. MacGahan's intention. He care- fully recounts the proceedings of each of the Russian detach- ments, and of the negotiations subsequent to the fall of Khiva, thus producing a thoroughly complete military and political history of the campaign. He gives a picturesque and vivid deseription of the mysterious Central-Asian city, its palaces and_ people, its extraordinary fanatics, its trades, industries, and cruel- ties. He enters fully into the manners and whys of the Russian Officers and soldiers, He says so much that is pleasant and promising of the Grand' Duke Nicholas, that he makes the reader' sorry for the, family disgrace that has befallen the C
in the person of his nephew. He relates the incidents of the ruthless campaign of Kaufmann against the Turcomails in a spirit- stirring style indeed, but with no palliation of its needless severity, and with human kindness and sympathy which make Ins book appeal to other feelings beside admiration ; and he strictly abstains from discussing the political situation of the Russians in Central Asia, though he anticipates that the fall of the last stronghold of Islamism in Central Asia "will tend to confirm the belief, already wide-spread in these countries, that the Russians are invincible."
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