Transcaspia, for so the land of the Turkomans is officially styled, is bounded on the north by the Khivan and the Kirghiz steppes. Southwards it is separated by mountain ranges from Persia and Afghanistān; while the Amū Daryā and the Caspian define its limits on the east and west. In length it averages 600 miles, in breadth 350; the area being 230,000 square miles, or rather more than that of France. It is a land of startling contrasts. The northern portion, amounting to four-fifths of the whole, is a trackless desert; the remainder is made up of the oases of Akkal and Merv, and the highlands watered by the Atrak and Gurgan. The only minerals hitherto discovered are rock-salt, sulphur, and naphtha, and the latter alone has any commercial importance. The south-east corner of the Caspian is a region of geysers, petroleum springs, and hills of asphalt, which may in time rival the wonderful tract surrounding Baku on the western shore. At present, attempts at exploration are confined to Cheleken Island, in the Bay of Krasnovodsk, and have met with indifferent success.[655] In the absence of mineral wealth, local industries are restricted to agriculture and stock-raising. Heavy crops of barley, juwārī (_sorghum_), and cotton are produced by irrigated land everywhere, and the exports of the latter to Russia are enormous.[656] The bulk of the live stock belongs to the nomad tribes, and it is rising in value. The Turkomans owned £5, 7s. worth per head of the population in 1890; £7 worth in 1896. This growth has taken place in spite of epidemics due to the terrible winters of the northern steppes. The Mangishlāk peninsula, embracing the Ust Urt Desert, so fatal to Bekovitch’s expedition, lost 40 per cent. of its cattle and sheep from cold and starvation in 1890. Horses, on the other hand, are decreasing in number and quality, for the repression of raids by the strong arm of the law has destroyed the demand for them. The deterioration has engaged the serious attention of the Russian. A committee appointed to inquire into the cause recommended that the Turkoman breed should be encouraged by prize competitions and the introduction of English and Arab blood. But the law governing supply and demand cannot be long evaded, and we are within measurable distance of the extinction of this incomparable strain. Domestic industries, as in old times, are confined to the women, for their lords and masters disdain sedentary labour. The manufacture of carpets heads the list. Three-fourths of these are still made at Merv, where the variety of designs, handed down from long-past generations, and never committed to paper, is bewildering. Here, too, the Russian conquest has brought with it a blight, for the hideous aniline dyes exported from German chemical works are supplanting the beautiful and durable colours extracted from indigo and other vegetable substances. Exports have fallen considerably during the last