. All the Russias; travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, & Central Asia. n. The train that awaited me was thepost-train and con-sisted of hve corridorcarriages, the last be-ing a restaurant-carall of them paintedwhite. The lender ofthe engine was an oil-tank, and behind ir,on a fiat truck, wasan enormous woodentub, to hold water, THE TRANS-CASPIAN TRAIN for in Central Asiathere is little fuel, and water is the most precious commoditythat exists. But a glance at the train raised a most painfulsuspicion, which a visit to the ticket-office confirmed—
. All the Russias; travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, & Central Asia. n. The train that awaited me was thepost-train and con-sisted of hve corridorcarriages, the last be-ing a restaurant-carall of them paintedwhite. The lender ofthe engine was an oil-tank, and behind ir,on a fiat truck, wasan enormous woodentub, to hold water, THE TRANS-CASPIAN TRAIN for in Central Asiathere is little fuel, and water is the most precious commoditythat exists. But a glance at the train raised a most painfulsuspicion, which a visit to the ticket-office confirmed—there isnot a first-class carriage on the Trans-Caspian Railway ! It wasnot snobbery which evoked ones consternation at this thousand miles of a slow, hot, dusty journey lay before me, andeven in European Russia the prospect of a thousand miles in asecond-class carriage would be farfrom pleasant, while in CentralAsia, with ample experience in other lands of what a native crowdis, it was appalling. Let me say at once that it more than ful-filled all my expectations. The ordinary second-class, too, has. THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 233 narrow, flat wooden seats, with thin, hard cushions spread onthem. After a couple of nights ©n one of these you are stiff for aweek. There is a carriage which has stuffed seats, but it is halfsecond and half third, and the toilette arrangements are all in thethird-class half. Moreover, in the stuffed cashions are passengerswithout number who pay no fare. 1 still wriggle as I think ofthose carriages, for on one never-to-be-forgotten stage I becameperforce what a recent Act of Parliament calls a verminous per-son. Now, to go unwashed is bad, but to share your washingwith third-class Russian Asiatic passengers is not only worse—itis impossible. P^u-thermore, while the railway authorities haveseparate third-cla^-s carriages for Europeans and natives, thesecond class is open to both. Their idea probably was that thehigher fare would deter
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