Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/459

Rh industry, and promise to make good citizens. Whatever may be their faults, they are not a lazy people; they gave up their raiding habits very unwillingly; but when once convinced that they must live by industry, they seem to have accepted the situation.

Mr. Ivanovich, the gentleman who invited our friends to cross the Caspian, was connected with the management of the Trans-Caspian Railway, as the line from Mikhailovsk is called. During the voyage from Baku

he gave the youths an account of the building of the railway, and matters connected with it, of which Frank made the following notes:

"The Trans-Caspian Railway," said Mr. Ivanovich, "owes its existence to a military necessity that arose in 1879. When the Russians first occupied the Turcoman country they built fortifications, and settled down to stay. General Skobeleff always claimed that we made a great mistake in doing so; the Government did not think it safe to make a movement directly into the Turcoman country, and consequently several years were occupied in doing what Skobeleff thought should have been done in one. The Turcomans knew nothing about regular warfare, and we might have crushed them in a little while with our trained battalions. But we waited so long that they learned how to fight, partly through our own instruction, and then it required the best of fighting to defeat them.

"It looked at one time as if the Turcomans would altogether prevent us from getting any foothold in their country beyond the shores of the Caspian. Skirmishes almost without number occurred, in which sometimes the Russians and sometimes the Turcomans had the best of the contest.