Most of the Sarthes and Kirghizes who got out at Askhabad, have been replaced by other second-class passengers, Afghan merchants and smugglers, the latter particularly clever in their line of business.  All the green tea consumed in Central Asia is brought by them from China through India, and although the transport is much longer, they sell it at a much lower price than the Russian tea.  I need not say that their luggage was examined with Muscovite minuteness.

The train started again at four o’clock.  Our car was still a sleeper.  I envied the sleep of my companions, and as that was all I could do, I returned to the platform.

The dawn was appearing in the east.  Here and there were the ruins of the ancient city, a citadel girdled with high ramparts and a succession of long porticos extending over fifteen hundred yards.  Running over a few embankments, necessitated by the inequalities of the sandy ground, the train reaches the horizontal steppe.

We are running at a speed of thirty miles an hour in a southwesterly direction, along the Persian frontier.  It is only beyond Douchak that the line begins to leave it.  During this three hours’ run the two stations at which the train stops are Gheours, the junction for the road to Mesched, whence the heights of the Iran plateau are visible, and Artyk where water is abundant although slightly brackish.

The train then traverses the oasis of the Atek, which is an important tributary of the Caspian.  Verdure and trees are everywhere.  This oasis justifies its name, and would not disgrace the Sahara.  It extends to the station of Douchak at the six hundred and sixtieth verst, which we reach at six o’clock in the morning.

We stop here two hours, that is to say, there are two hours for us to walk about.  I am off to look at Douchak with Major Noltitz as my cicerone.

A traveler precedes us out of the railway station; I recognize Sir Francis Trevellyan.  The major makes me notice that this gentleman’s face is more sullen than usual, his lip more scornful, his attitude more Anglo-Saxon.

“And do you know why, Monsieur Bombarnac?  Because this station at Douchak might be the terminus of a line from British India through the Afghan frontier, Kandahar, the Bolan Pass and the Pendjeh oasis, that would unite the two systems.”

“And how long would the line be?”

“About six hundred miles.  But the English will not meet the Russians in a friendly way.  But if we could put Calcutta within twelve days of London, what an advantage that would be for their trade!”

Talking in this way the major and I “did” Douchak.  Some years ago it was foreseen how important this village would be.  A branch line unites it with Teheran in Persia, while there has, as yet, been no survey for a line to India.  While gentlemen cast in the mould of Sir Francis Trevellyan are in the majority in the United Kingdom, the Asiatic network of railways will never be complete.