Proceedings of the
Royal Geographical Society (Great Britain)
Norton Shaw, Francis Galton, Clements Robert Markham,
William Spottiswoode, Henry Walter Bates, John Scott
Keltie
Published by, 1879
The Road
to Merv. By Major-General Sir H. C. Rawlinson, K.O.B.
(Read at
the Evening Meeting, January 27th, 1879.)
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The number of tents or families of
the Akhal is variously computed, some estimates giving as
high as 20,000. A comparison of Persian and Turkmen
estimates, the first being usually depreciatory, the
latter always exaggerated, gives an average of about 8000
tents, or 40,000 souls, which is probably very near the
truth. One- fifth of this number must be adult males. The
principal settlements of the " Akhal " are at
Akhal, a permanent camp of 500 tents often increased to
1000 of various sections; Goombali, 1000 tents; Kariz,
occupied only temporarily ; Harrik-Kileh, Ashkabat, and
Annau.
A very few additions to this
description are all that is necessary. Firstly, I would
remark that this Akhal country is the true Nisaean Plain
of the ancients, where the famous Nisaean horses were
produced. The city of Nissa, whose ruins Captain Napier
had heard of, was the old Parthian capital, containing
the royal sepulchers. Originally, no doubt, it was an
Aryan settlement, as it is mentioned in the scheme of
primitive colonization recorded in the Vendidad; * but it
attained its chief celebrity under the Parthians, and
indeed has continued as late as the time of Abulghazi,
that is, to within the last 250 years, to be the most
considerable place on the frontier, this pre-eminence
being as much owing to the richness of the neighboring
pastures as to the importance of the position, at the
point where the high road from Khorazm after crossing the
desert entered the Khorasan Hills.
There seem to have always been
three great roads from the north joining Khorezm with
Khorasan and independently of the western caravan route
by Dehistan. One of these entered the hills at Duran, and
conducted through the Abzar Pass to Bojnurd; the second
emerged from the desert at Nissa, and passed by the Garmab
Valleyto Kuchan, while the third led from Abiverd by
Deregez to Toos and Xishapoor.
The second line, by Nissa,
which was continued to Nishapoor, was the most frequented
and was furnished with a line of caravansaries at the
different halting-places in the desert. It occupied 12
stages, but except Suburni on the northern limit of the
desert, 20 farsakhs from Khorezm and Shaharistan of
Nissa, on the southern border of the Steppe, the
geographers supply no names. {Near to Nissa is the
“Obah" of Geok Tepe, or “the blue
mound," which the Russians are said to have *
- Having already fully
explained the ancient history of Nissa in the
Society's ' Proceedings, 1 vol. xx. p. 179, 1
need not give any farther references.
- The chief places noticed
by Abulghazi along this frontier are Duran
(always given Duruhn in the French translation),
Nissa, Yaursurdi (which I take to be
Gauxirs-urdu, '* camp of Gawars "). Abiverd
and Mehna, Fardwch seems to have been no longer
known. The Gudar of Isidore, a city of Parthiansand
dependent on Nissa, may possibly be represented
by Gawars.
- Yacut, the geographer,
fleeing from Khorezm on the approach of the
Tartars in 1220 A.D., crossed the desert by this
route, and does not seem to have suffered any
particular hardship in the journey. For Suburni,
see Ibn Athir, vol. xi. p. 247. Birimi gives the
distance across the Steppe from fat (near the
present Russian fort of Petro-Alexandrovsk) to
Nissa as ten caravan stages, and he names the
central station in the desert Miyan-gah,
“the middle place."
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