The earliest Turcoman intruders into the valley were Ersári, from the Oxus. These nomads first appeared in about 1825, and were shortly followed by Salors from Yolatan, and somewhat later by detached parties of Saryks from Merv, all the new visitors, however, acknowledging the jurisdiction of the local Jamshídí or Hazáreh chief, and paying their dues to the Afghan ruler of Herat. In 1858 a further dislocation occurred; the Ersáris, who never liked the Murgháb, returned to the Oxus, while the Salors and Saryks, retreating before the Tekkehs of Merv, took their places at Penj-deh. Later still the Salors crossed over to the Heri-rúd, leaving the Saryks alone in possession of the lands on the Murgháb and Kushk, where they remain in the same condition of squatters on Afghan lands to the present day. During all this long period, that is from the first appearance of the Ersáris at Penj-deh, an annual tax has been levied on the Turcoman cultivators and shepherds, either by the local Eymák chiefs—lords of the soil, and themselves accountable to Herat—or by an officer specially deputed for the purpose by the Afghan Governor of Herat. The names of the _naibs_, or deputy governors, who have thus acted in command of the district are all well known, and in many cases the individuals are still living to attest their employment at Penj-deh under the Afghans. In fact, no question was ever raised as to the Afghan right to Penj-deh, or as to the political condition of the Saryks, until after the Russian occupation of Merv. The Saryks were Turcoman tribesmen renting Afghan lands, and during their tenancy accounted as Afghan subjects, precisely as other divisions of the great Turcoman community who were settled temporarily in Persia, in Khiva, and in Bokhara, during their sojourn paid tribute to, and acknowledged the jurisdiction of, those States. If the Saryks of their own free will desired to quit their Afghan lands at Penj-deh and in Badgheis and migrate to their former pastures, which have passed under the rule of Russia, the Afghans could not properly interfere to prevent them; nor, indeed, with a view to avoiding friction on the frontier, is it at all clear that an arrangement of this nature might not be to the advantage of the Herat Government. But it was wholly indefensible that Russia, on the broad principle of ethnographical unity, should, as she recently did, demand as a right the registration of the Saryks as Russian subjects, and should require the transfer of the lands which they occupied to Russian jurisdiction. A frontier, too, is now boldly claimed, assigning to Russia Penj-deh, with all the adjacent lands on the Murgháb and Kuskh, and troops are moved up the river from Merv to support the claim, at the imminent risk of provoking collision and thus initiating war.