AN ACADEMICAL RAILROAD.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7548, 23 September 1886, Page 3

AN ACADEMICAL RAILROAD.

The following is tlip,translation of the principal parts of b. letter by the woll-lyiQwn Russian Gorieral TcliernayeflV and rcfers.tO'tho railroad now in course of construction by the Russian Government fnunHjtie, Caspian Sea to Merv, andtjienco through' (Bokhara-, to -Tashkent." ' This letter ,13 ' addressed to .the editor of the Ndvbe Vreimja:—' ■ ' . often hear' of late through the newspapers of the opening of one or, the othefstatibh, or ; the termination of 'some construction- or ''oilier on the Traiiseaspian railway/: 'Tlio' public pri .' reading' these announcements believes that the time will

soon come when we will* travel to Tashkent, not. on camels'," over shifting sands,' " mit comfortably seated in first-class carriages^ and consoles itself with tho idea that on the termination"" of this' road wo shall..? take, up, a .menacing attitude in ' 'Centra!' Asia, and the English; instead of being our perfidious enemies, will become our obedient allies. During one of my interviews with the late General Skobcleff, • previous to his departure on the Akh'al-lekke expedition, I asked him why "he allowed this to be mado, seeing that it would only.increase the, cost of the expedition. His answer was, " Let them ■ make 'it/ otherwise one only makes enemies. I know "myself that I shall finish tho expedition before the road 'will be. ready.',' And so it turned out. The , expedition was over in January, 1881, and ' tho first section of the railway was opened at Kisil-Arbit during the autumn of that year, In order to justify the construction ' ' of tho road, which was of no use to tho expedition, and which, besides tho mil- • lions* already spent, costs' annually over half a million in working expenses, tho War Department lias resolved to continue .it, hoping that the loss will ho less in proportion,- 'without having previously even surveyed ,tlie ground over which it was determined to carry tho '■ line. Tho result is that tho line will abut on shifting sands. That the reader may judge what these sands are like, it will suffice to say that the natives, as a - protection, plant their villages round with ■''poplars, which frequently attain the height of seventy feet, but that in a short time only the tops of these are left visible, . and the inhabitants are finally obliged to quit • their abodes and fix on some- new spot, whero they continue to live till once more overtaken by these inundations of sand. The extent' of these sands in tho direction.of the railwayisabout3so versts.t of which 100 versts are such that it will be impossible to contend with them . Tho whole district, from tho Caspian to the Syr-Daiya itselfy represents a fiea of sand. Tho Syr-Darya cuts this arid desert into two almost equal parts. In-the whole of "f this region there are three oases. Khiva, formad by canals from the Amou-Darya ; Merv, by tho river Murghab ; and Bokhara, by the waters of the Zerafshan. Bokhara can even now hardly contend „ with the sands moving on it from the ...north and woßt. Easy access to these ' oases is possible only from tho northern or southern extremities of the Caspian, consequently it is only by these two routes that the construction of improved means of communication between Russia and tho peoples of Central Asia is possible. The first, or southern route, leads from the Transcancasian region through v •-:. Astrabad, floorjnoord, and Mushed to the , valley of the Murghab, when it turns to . .' the north towards Merv, or goes farther

to tho east along the edgo of the sands to Andkhoo and Kirkee on the AmoiiDarya. The first part of this road up, to tho Murghab region belongs to Persia, and is its best part, so. much praised by the poets : the second half was ceded to us by England after Koroaroffs victory at Perijdd. ' Thus tho result of our late operations in Central Asia is the acquisition of the oasis of Mew, tho access to which is iv the hands of others. In order to open out direct communication with Morv, Wo resolved to cut through the shifting, waterless sands surrounding it, by nieans, of a railway, .the sante to bo extended. th rdiigit liokliara to Tashkent. Whilst tile lino! was being made through a locality which,, though sandy and without . water, compared witli the sands arq'nnd Merv,may be called favorable, the problem seemed to have been solved ;' but now that, -after having constructed^ 450 verats, we have abutted iv a desert with a movable 'surface, the aspect is critical, and tile-thoughtlessness of our conduct in this part.of Central Asia becomes evident —a thoughtlessness of which our opponents so- cleverly took advantage. In spite of the unusual firmness with winch the pourparlers wero carried on, we finished by! ceding to the English more, ■than they^lemanded from us. Instead of anentral zofie, as was previously intended, they have closed in directly with our territory, thus shutting us up in the sands. Herat, which might have been captured by thp same body of troops which beat the Afghans at Penjdd, will now require a siege train and all the usual appliances and materiel. It is not tobe wondered at after this that the newspapers tell us the joyful news of the most perfect harmony reigning between the Boundary Commissioners. After these changes, our prestige in' Asia has decreased; and God grant that wo may not in a short time be in the same position in Bokhara that we t are now in Belgrade and Sophia. .The continuation of the line through Merv to Bokhara' l consider practically impossible, although the contractors promise to -complete it by noxt June. The means employed against tho sands on the first section of the road, and which consists in watering them with a solution of clay and water, 'cannot be adopted in the country around Merv, if only for the reason that there is neither clay nor water tobefouud there. -But oven if such. did exist, this system' of • guarding against sands, borne along by the winds for hundred of versts, can only be compared to that of guarding tho road against a driving ''snowstorm oy watering the snow on the sides of the line. The only way of overcoming the shifting sands is, in my opinion, by the- building or covered galleries, but this' cannot be entertained for a moment over a distance of 100 versts in a country where there is neither wood, nor stone,' nor' lime, nor even Waten It seems to mo that it is time to suspend for a while this confidence in the engineers, and to despatch to the spot a special commission so as td prevent the burying in the sands of hundreds of thousands of poodsj of rails and sleepers brought from the end of the world. Let us now proceed to examine to what extent this Transcaspiah railway will serve to satisfy military and ' commercial needs. As a. military line, or,_ to use academical language, as an operative road of action from Russia in the direction of the English possessions, it is against all the rules of common senso y traversing a waterless district along the Very frontier of Persia. To make it secure, we should have to guard it with so many men that most of them would have nothing to drink, so that water wonld have to be conveyed to them daily. Besides which, we should have to occupy several points at a distance from it on Persian territory, and keep a strong corps d 'observation on tile Transcaucasian side. After all this, Would it not be simpler to move from Transcaucasia, straight through Persian territory, through Astrahad and Mushed to Herat, along a most fertile arid populous valley? - As a means of transport, tho line is" so Insignificant that it would take three years from tlie date of the declaration of war to convey over it an army of 200,000 men, with the cavalry, artillery, baggage, &c, necessary in case of a collision with England. From a commercial point of view the line has still less sense than from a military. If, then, t the ' Transcaspian railway does not satisfy either of these wants, why is it being made? Merely with the academical object of proving the possibility of constructing a railroad over arid, shifting sands. Hence the road, in all justice, ought to bo named "academical." We maybe told, 450 versts are ; already made; wo cannot get back the millions spent ; what is to be done? In my opinion there is nothing to be done but to stop the work, and, in expectation of better times, continue to pay annually two inilllon roubles as Interest and working expenses. After, the waste of so much money on a useless, road, lam far from recommending the construction of ft new line to Asia, -which wonld cost many millions more, although our relations with that part of the world are so slight ; but I consider that : the formation of a regular and powerful steamboat navigation on the Amou-Darya a State necessity. It is so essential for us to have a line of steamers on that river, that its importance, both from a military and commercial point of view, I consider quite unnecessary to prove. This question was raised three years ago, but haying lain about a year at the Head Staff, it was handed over to tho Department of Trade nnd Manufactures, where it remained untounched for a year and ahalf, after which it was transferred to the Ministry of Roads and Ways, where a special commission having been formed from all departments, came to the resolution to leave the question open, so as to cause no'disagreeableness to England, waiting, probably, till the appearance of English steamers (under the name of Afghan ditto) on the Aniou-Darya will cause to ourselves an irrep^rabledisagreeableness.— (Signed), M. TCHEBNAYKFF.