CHAPTER III.
THE ARALO-CASPIAN BASIN.
Russian Turkestan, the Turkoman Country, Khiva, Bokhara, Region of the Upper Oxus.
I.—GENERAL SURVEY.
EST of the Caspian the limits of Europe are clearly defined by the ancient Ponto-Caspian Strait, which runs as a natural dividing line along the foot of the Caucasus. But north and east of the Caspian Europe and Asia are merged together in a vast plain, where dreary wastes of sand, clay, or rock, saline steppes and muddy swamps, stretch from horizon to horizon. Here the only natural limit of the two continents is the lowest part of the elevated tract between the Aral basin and the Ob valley. Both sides of this ridge are studded with countless ill-defined lakelets, the remains of dried-up seas. But beyond it the lowlands stretch away to the foot of the plateaux and highlands forming part of the main continental mountain system.
Thus the Aralo-Caspian slope of the Central Asiatic tablelands blends north-westwards with the Russian steppes between Ural and Caspian, while scarcely separated northwards from the Ob valley. But everywhere else it is sharply defined westwards by the Caspian, southwards by the highlands separating it from Persia and Afghanistan, and stretching in an elongated curve from the south-east corner of the Caspian to the Hindu-Kush. Eastwards and north-eastwards rise the upland pastures and snowy peaks of the Pamir, the Tian-shan, and Tarbagatai ranges. The whole region, including the Russian protected states, Wakhan, Badakshan, Balkh, and the Turkoman country, has an estimated area of over 1,200,000 square miles, and to this has now been added a tract of over 400,000 square miles in the Ob basin, henceforth administratively included in the general government of Russian Turkestan.*
* Area and population of the Aralo-Caspian lands:—
| Area in Square Miles. |
Probable Population in 1880. | ||
| Russian possessions from the Atrek to the Irtish | 1,520,000 | 4,500,000 | |
| Khiva | 23,000 | 300,000 | |
| Bokhara | 95,500 | 2,150,000 | |
| Turkoman country | 60,000 | 200,000 | |
| Afghan Turkestan | 54,000 | 950,000 | |
| Total | 1,752,500 | 8,100,000 | |
