[629] The official list admits only 937 casualties during the siege, including 268 killed (Marvin, _Merv_, p. 401). An iron tablet on a white-washed mound in the little cemetery behind the site of the Russian camp substantiates these figures, but the extent of the three burial-places which lie to the east of the entrenchment, including separate ones for the Cossacks and the Stavropol Regiment, would imply a much greater sacrifice of life. General Kurapatkine states the total casualties to have been 1200, including 400 killed. The Russians in Central Asia have adopted Napoleon’s system of minimising losses. [630] Telegram quoted by Marvin, p. 399. [631] Ney, p. 249. [632] Moser, p. 343. [633] See Moser, p. 344. M. Paul Lessar, who was charged by the Russian authorities with the duty of surveying the debatable land in 1884, was the first to dissipate the “Paropamisus myth,” which made these insignificant hills an impenetrable barrier to the passage of troops. [634] The meaning of Bādghīs is “windy.” It was suggested by the storms which sweep over the plateau in winter. [635] Moser, p. 345. [636] This very distinguished officer had been educated at the Petersburg Military Academy. He had seen much service in the Caucasus, when he had been governor of Southern Dāghistan, and afterwards of Darbend. He had gained eminence in the fields of archaeology and ethnology. As an administrator he was equally successful; and Askabad, the present capital of Transcaspia, owes much to his genius. [637] It was composed of four companies of Transcaspian Chasseurs, three squadrons of Cossacks from the Kuban, one of Turkoman militia, and four guns (Ney, p. 252, note). [638] Four of them now adorn a monument on the Askabad parade-ground commemorating Geok Teppe. [639] The Englishmen were particularly struck by the eagerness shown by their rivals to support the national sports of the nomads, the liberal prizes awarded and the careful observance of ceremony in their official intercourse with Asiatics,--a policy which inspired the latter with a sense of their liberality and power. This is an attitude which would do much to consolidate our own power in India (_Report of the Pamirs Boundary Commission_). [640] The late Major-General L. M. Annenkoff was then in the prime of life. He had won his spurs as a railway engineer by the rapid construction of a strategic line in Lithuania, and was afterwards appointed chief of the mobilisation department in the Ministry of War. At the outbreak of the Tekke campaign he volunteered for service under General Skobeleff, and was wounded at Geok Teppe. On returning to Russia he was appointed superintendent of transport throughout the empire (Ney, _En Asie Centrale_, p. 283).