Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/97

 into the Russian service,and although at present consisting of only a few hundred men, could easily, it is said, in case of war, be increased to ten thousand. The men receive twenty-five roubles a-month and their arms, but they supply their own horses and wear their own native dress. During the sham fight which we witnessed this irregular cavalry executed a series of wild charges right into the kabitkas, or tents, of the villagers of Cashi, giving vent to blood-curdling and cat-like screams and yells, eminently suggestive of blood and rapine.

During our two days' stay at Askabad we were most hospitably entertained by Madame von Schoultz, whose husband was absent at St. Petersburg, and by her daughters. In her pleasant house we met Colonel Levashoff, the chief of the staff in Transcaspia, and his wife; and it was through Madame von Schoultz's intervention that we obtained,for the first time, a separate railway compartment for ourselves on the Transcaspian Railway.

We left Askabad by the mid-day train on Saturday, the 19th, occupying a very