Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/99

 small, wooden, three-roomed house at our entire disposal.

Uzun-ada, which is the present starting-point of the Transcaspian Railway, well deserves the description given of it to us by a Russian lady, Un trou sablonneux. It consists of nothing but hills and valleys of deep yellow sand, which contrasts brilliantly with the dark blue of the sea and the lighter blue of the sky. Not a tree or a vestige of vegetation is anywhere visible, and life here in the small wooden huts which constitute the 'town' must be utterly dreary. The only excitement appears to be the bi-weekly arrival of the post-train from Samarcand, and the occasional arrival and dispatch of a Caspian steamer. When, as it seems likely, the starting-point of the railway is shifted further north to Krasnovodsk, which possesses better harbour facilities, Uzun-ada will disappear as a European settlement even more rapidly than it has come into existence, to the infinite delight of the unfortunate officials, civil and military, who are now compelled to make it their headquarters. The wharf of Uzun-ada was encumbered with