servant for £2 io.y. and all found, and to make himself
generally useful ; ornamental he could never be, for
his eyes were at cross purposes, he was sadly pitted
with small-pox, and looked many removes from one
o f nature’s gentlemen. The Russians at Petro-
Alexandrovsk had said we should be able to get on
without a Turki-speaking interpreter, but I declined
the obvious risk ; and our short experience between
A KIRGHESE EQUESTRIENNE.
Pitniak and the Russian fort, where we had left
Yakoob in the boat, warned me that there might be
many extremely unpleasant little episodes if unable
to say so much as “ Y e s ” or “ No ” with our guides
during a fortnight’s journey in the wilderness.
I was inclined, therefore, to settle with | Rosy, as
we afterwards flatteringly called him, especially as we
heard nothing of the interpreter promised by the Khan.
Yakoob, however, suggested that we should keep Rosi
Mahmet as a reserve, and wait to see if the promised
one came, and what he was like. A t length, on the
afternoon before we started, one Jumagala Mataief
arrived from Nukus, concerning whom Yakoob came
in to report that he feared he was “ too great a swell ”
to do any cooking. Yakoob had also heard him say
that he should not think of asking less than £20 for
accompanying us to Krasnovodsk !
Accordingly, when the grand man was introduced,
he appeared in a cloth tunic, respectably dressed
throughout, and carrying a watch, with its silver chain
dangling from his breast and shoulders. Almost
before we had ascertained his powers of interpretation,
we had to ask the ignoble question whether he could
cook, to which he replied with the Frenchman, who
was asked if he could play the fiddle, that “ he had
never tried,” but he was willing to do so.
He said that he had been engaged for 3 years,
winters excepted, as one of five interpreters who accompanied
10 Russian engineers, engaged in surveying
the old bed of the Oxus, with a view to ascertain
whether water communication could be again established
between the Caspian and the Amu-daria. He
had evidently profited by his intercourse with the
Russians, and, I should imagine, had proved a faithful
servant, for, at the end of his 3 years’ service, the
principal officer had given him, as a parting reward,
the silver watch and chain he now displayed. He
appeared, too, to be highly intelligent, and I quite took
to him as a man to be depended on ; but the cooking
difficulty was too serious, as a mere question of health,
to be treated lightly.
We thought it better, therefore, to forego this grand