At that epoch the Ersaris roamed over the Upper Oxus, and were equally numerous with the Tekkes. The Merv oasis was inhabited by the Sāriks, numbering 20,000 tents, who were engaged in a struggle with the Khivans, then temporary masters of Merv. The Yamuds, about as numerous as the Sāriks, wandered between Khiva and Astrabad in Khorāsān, while the territory watered by the Atrak and Gurgān was inhabited by the Gokhlans, who acknowledged the sway of Persia. Finally the Salors, who made up by courage for the paucity of their numbers, held the upper reaches of the Tajand near Sarakhs. In 1832 their constant ravages led to reprisals on the Persian side. They were attacked by an overwhelming force under `Abbās Mīrzā, son of Shāh Fath `Alī, and after a desperate resistance their stronghold, Sarakhs, was captured. The survivors fled northwards and occupied the Yoletan oasis, south of Merv. Meantime the Tekkes, who had settled in the upper reaches of the Tajand, had been desolating the northern possessions of Persia, and the cry of the harassed inhabitants reached the capital. Vigorous measures were ordered by the Shāh, and in 1845 Āsaf ud-Dawlé, the governor of Khorāsān, fell on their settlements and utterly destroyed them. The Tekkes, ousted from their coign of vantage, sought refuge in the Akkal oasis, but it was already over-peopled, and their brethren there were constrained to refuse them ingress. They finally obtained Āsaf ud-Dawlé’s leave to settle in Sarakhs, which had been depopulated thirteen years earlier by the expulsion of the Salors. At first they respected the Persian territory, for the energetic governor of Khorāsān had shown that he knew how to deal with them. Their relations with Khiva were very different, for that Khānate was surrounded by nomad tribes, and had no outlet for the prowess of their cavalry save in conflict with them. Mohammad Amīn Khān, then sovereign of Khiva, stormed Sarakhs and left a viceroy with a garrison there. Hardly was his back turned when the Tekkes rose at the intruders and put them to the sword. This outrage brought the Khān again into the field. He laid siege to Sarakhs, but, while directing the operations upon a mound on the right bank of the Harī Rūd, was surprised by a body of Turkomans and decapitated. His head was sent to the Shāh and his body to Khiva for burial. The Tekkes were encouraged by this brilliant success to resume their raids into Persia, and again the governor of Khorāsān was provoked to retaliate. He burnt Sarakhs and drove the Tekkes northwards as far as Merv, which had, with one brief interval, been held by the Sāriks since its devastation by the Amīr of Bokhārā in 1784. The inhabitants resisted the Tekkes’ invasion with the fierce jealousy which reigned between all Turkoman tribes. They implored help of the Persians, and the governor of Khorāsān forthwith marched on Merv with 18 battalions and 7000 cavalry. The Tekkes, finding themselves between