parallel, then proceeding about 20 miles south of
Penjdeh, by a curve between that place and Meruchak
on the Murgab, and afterwards continuing to Khoja
Saleh. I am not aware that this map carries any
official authority ; but another map, from the Military
Topographical Department of the Russian General
Staff, had reached England by the beginning of March,
1884, with the frontier similarly altered. This latter
map is dated 1883; but, on close inspection, a tiro
may see that the old frontier has been erased by
hand, and the new substituted frontier lithographed.
Straight lines from Mertvy Kultuk to Khoja Saleh,
and to the mouth of the Atrak, measure, respectively,
800 and 550 miles, whilst the breadth of Turkmenia
at its widest, say from the mouth of the Atrak to the
town of Khiva, is 430 miles. The only estimate of its
area I have met with is that of Kouropatkin, who
mentions 9,000 German (or 197,000 English) square
miles. Thus it will be seen that Turkmenia is about
as large as France.
The country, as a whole, consists of the plains in the
east and of hills in the west. T h e western portion
includes the elevation in the north called the Ust Urt,
and in the south the mountain chain stretching to the
south-east, under the various names of the Great and
Little Balkhans, the Kuren-dagh and Kopet-dagh,
whilst the eastern portion is entirely flat, the lowest
part being the dry bed of the Oxus. The Chink, or
scarped edge o f the Ust Urt, on the east, west, and
south, looks, when seen from the lowland, as if rising,
as many think it once did, from the sea. It constitutes,
in a measure, an ethnological line of limitation between
the Kirghese and the Turkomans (Grodekoff, in his
ethnological map of Turkmenia, makes it nearly so) ;
the Kirghese not passing to the lowlands, and few of
the Turkomans ascending to the highlands. Hence
some would call the Chink the northern boundary of
T urkmenia.
On the west of Turkmenia is the Caspian littoral,
more than 1,000 miles long.*
Extending in a south-easterly direction from Balkhan
Bay is a mountain range 270 miles long, broken in
two places, and first by the old bed of the Oxus. The
part of the range between this first break and the
Caspian is called the Great Balkhan. The second
part, situated between the two breaks, is known- as the
Little Balkhan. Beyond the second break, southwards
to half the entire length of the mountain system, the
range is called Kuren- or Kioren-dagh, whilst the
most^ southerly part is called the Kopet-dagh, or
Daman-i-Kuh {skirt of the hills), f
The Kopet-dagh is joined from the south by the
The northern portion of this line is JKaidak Bay, whose eastern coast
is walled by the steep deelivities of the Ust Urt, and bounded by a
margin of lowland only a few miles wide. Next thereto is the flat,
sandy, saline, and partly reedy shore of the Buzachi peninsula, extending
to the high projecting spit of Cape Karagan. From this last
point the shore turns south, and as far as Karaboghaz Gulf it is composed
of limestone rocks, almost washed by the sea. Gradually declining
in height as they proceed southwards, these rocks merge into the
sandy steppe, except on the north coast of Balkhan Bay. The most
southerly portion of the Caspian littoral at the estuaries of the Atrak
and Gurgan rivers is a reed-grown flat.
t A recent English traveller in this region, Mr. A. Condie Stephen,
speaks of the Great Balkhan as the most imposing in appearance' of
the mountain ranges of Turkmenia. The higher portion of its southwestern
face is precipitous, the crest being estimated at 5,300 feet above
the sea.
From 25 to 30 miles south of the Great Balkhans lie the Little
Balkhans, a low, bleak ridge, not mounting higher than 2,200 feet. The
Balkhan mountains have a length of about 130 miles, and are rarely
wider than 30 miles. They are composed of molluscular limestone and
laminated rock. Springs are found in the defiles, but the little grass