reckon upon a prolonged continuance of apathy in this direction, that the advantages of action are so obvious that sooner or later they must induce Russian governors to sanction operations upon a large scale, and that once they are sanctioned the results must be certain and immediate. Elsewhere in Central Asia the result of geographical research, and of individual courage and labour, can only be reaped after years of patient and persistent toil; but here the prize can be secured in a few months.
And what has been said with regard to Kara Kum applies with equal force to Kizil Kum. Although the latter desert is mostly within the Russian frontier, it is so barren that the Russian Government has never been at any pains to explore it, nor has it made any attempts at improving it. The few routes which are marked across it, or which skirt its edges, are traversed by few travellers or caravans; and so long as Russians strain the resources of their country in efforts to press forward in all directions towards India, so long must the Kizil Kum expanse remain the waste which it has been since the alteration in the course of the Jaxartes. It is within the strict limits of accuracy to assert that, since the annexation of the Amou Darya district, nothing has been done in the way of exploring Kizil Kum, and that, with the securing of a waterway from Kazala to Khiva and the Oxus, even the old caravan route through Kalenderhana has been to some extent neglected by the Russian authorities. In olden days the highly prosperous and thickly populated kingdom of Khwaresm stretched on both sides
