Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/75

 Society, and published in the proceedings of that Society in May, 1889. For the purposes of this private Journal it is sufficient to note that this triumph of Russian engineering is due to the fertile brain and indomitable energy of Lieutenant-General Annenkoff, who was summoned by General Skobeloff to assist in retrieving the military disaster which in 1879 the Teke Turcomans had inflicted upon the Russian arms under General Lomakin. Begun originally as a purely military railway, which contributed in a great measure to the successful and bloody storming of the Turcoman stronghold of Geok Tepe, the railway, built and even now exclusively worked by officers and soldiers selected from 'the railway battalions' of the Russian army, has gradually been pushed on over sandy deserts, through fertile oases, and across broad streams, until it stretches from Uzun-Ada, on the Caspian, to Samarcand, on the Zerafshan, a distance of nine hundred and sixty-five miles.

The first station of interest at which we stopped after leaving Dushak was one which 'bore the historical name of Merv,' six hours