Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/454

448 "That is a very difficult question to answer," said the Doctor, "in fact it is impossible to do so exactly. The census-taker is unknown in Central Asia, except in the cities and towns; even there he does not enumerate the whole population, but only the heads of families and the men capable of bearing arms. Turkestan includes all the country between the Caspian

Sea and the 110th degree of longitude east, and from Siberia southward to Persia, Afghanistan, and Thibet. Turkestan means 'The land of the Turks.' On the maps it is generally divided into Eastern and Western Turkestan, the former lying partly in the Chinese Empire, and the latter covering the vast plain of the Caspian and Aral seas. The population is variously estimated at from eight to twelve millions. Russia has absorbed nearly all of Western Turkestan, and the Russian officials think they have at least eight millions of people in their new possessions.

"The tribes and provinces are divided and subdivided so that they are not easy to name. Western Turkestan was formerly known as