On Mr. MacGahan’s arrival at Fort Perovsky, he proceeded to engage a guide and horses, having fully resolved to carry out his bold enterprise. From the commandant he was fortunate enough to obtain a passport, and on the 30th of April he bade farewell to Mr. Schuyler, and set out. His _cortége_ consisted of Ak-Mamatoff, his Tartar servant, Mushuf, the guide, and a young Kirghiz attendant, all mounted, with ten horses to carry the baggage and forage. As a man of peace, he says, he went but lightly armed. Yet a heavy double-barrelled hunting rifle, a double-barrelled shot gun (both being breech-loaders), an eighteen-shooter Winchester rifle, three heavy revolvers, and one ordinary muzzle-loading shot gun throwing slugs, together with a few knives and sabres, would seem to make up a tolerable arsenal! Mr. MacGahan, however, assures us that he did not contemplate fighting, and that he encumbered himself with these “lethal weapons” only that he might be able to discuss with becoming dignity questions concerning the rights of way and of property, on which his opinions might differ from those of the nomads of the desert, who hold to Rob Roy’s good old rule, that “They should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.” That night our traveller accepted the hospitality of a Kirghiz. Next morning he and his men were in the saddle by sunrise, riding merrily away to the south-west, across a country innocent of road or path. Sometimes their course lay through tangled brushwood, sometimes through tall reeds which completely concealed each rider from his companions, sometimes over low sandy dunes, and sometimes across a bare and most desolate plain. Occasionally they heard the loud sharp cry of the golden pheasant of Turkistan; then they would pass large flocks and herds of sheep, cattle, and horses, quietly grazing; and again they would meet and salute a Kirghiz shepherd on horseback. To eyes that have been trained to _see_ no desert can be utterly barren of interest; the vigilant observer will discover, in the most sterile waste, something of fresh and novel character, something suggestive of thick-coming fancies. For example, Mr. MacGahan noted the remarkable difference between the wide stretches of the sandy plain and the occasional streaks of ground that had been under recent cultivation; and he perceived that the desert had the advantage. Parched and sun-scorched, and without a trace of vegetation, was the land that had been irrigated only the year before; while the desert assumed a delicate tint of green, with its budding brushwood and thin grass, which always springs into life as soon as the snow melts, to flourish until stricken sore by the heats of summer.