[563] “In the Turkoman Desert is a species of antelope almost as numerous as the wild ass. It is smaller than a sheep, which it resembles in body, neck, and head, and has the delicate limbs, horns, and hair of the antelope; the horn, however, is not opaque but white, and like a cow’s horn. The nostrils are directly in front, and are closed by a muscle acting vertically. The nose is greatly arched, and provided with an integument which can be inflated at pleasure. The head is extremely ugly. The animal ... is called by the natives _kaigh_” (Abbott, _Narrative of a Journey to Khiva_, 1856). [564] Moser, p. 309. The Kārakūm is the portion of the Turkoman Desert lying between Khiva and the Akkal and Merv oases. [565] “Our path lay through fields and natural meadows of the richest verdure, among groves of oak clothed in young leaves of the most delicate hues, broken into glades and lawns of velvet” (_Narrative of a Journey through Khorasan in the Years 1821–1822_, by James Baillie Fraser; London, 1825). [566] M. P. Lessar, whose knowledge of Central Asian geography is profound, affirms that the Paropamisus, as the range was anciently called, offers no difficulty to the engineer. The summit is reached by an almost imperceptible incline. In fact, the traveller crosses the range almost without perceiving that he has done so. [567] Vambéry, in a lecture delivered in London on 10th April 1880. [568] See Rawlinson’s _History of Parthia_, 1873. [569] _Travels in Bokhārā_, 1834. [570] Kibitka is the Russian term for the nomads’ tent. It is composed of portable felt carpets secured by strips of raw hide to a circular collapsible wooden frame. An old tent, black with age and smoke, is called by the Turkomans “kara ev”; a new one, still whitish-grey, “ak ev.” The kibitka is the Russian administrative unit, and is supposed to connote five inhabitants. A group of kibitkas ranging between twenty-five and fifty is called _aul_, “portable village.” [571] The subsequent history of this once powerful tribe is a curious example of the process of agglomeration which raised the Tekkes to supremacy. In 1871 the remnant of the Salors were forcibly deported by the former tribe to Merv, and incorporated with themselves. Petrusevitch, quoted by Marvin (_Merv_, p. 80).