CHAP. xxxIII.] IN RUSSIAN TURKESTAN 499
The Russian part of Andijan, stretching with broad and well-watered roads to the east of the railway head, presented in all respects the appearance of a thriving commercial town of Eastern Europe. There were numbers of well-stocked shops, offices full of Russian clerks, and, in the evening, a large gathering of European employés listening to the military band that played in the public gardens surrounding the fine church. The large native _city some miles off bore the same air of bustling life and prosperity. Andijan was an important centre long before the Russian occupation, and the great impetus given by the latter to the material progress of Farghana had only added to the wealth of its traders, particularly since the extension of the Trans-Caspian Railway, While walking through the broad, well-kept Bazars, stocked with all kinds of European manufacture, as well as the produce of home industries in Russian and Chinese Turkestan, how little could I think of the terrible doom awaiting Andijan in the earthquakes of the last year ! Every Central-Asian race seemed to be represented in the busy multitude that thronged the Bazars. Curiously enough I was greeted here by a Kashgar ` Haji,' who a little over a year before, while on his way to Bombay, had met me at the Turki Sarai of the Kashmir capital. Since performing the pilgrimage to Mecca, he had seen Egypt and Constantinople, and had chosen for his homeward journey the convenient railway route from the Black Sea and the Caspian. Our meeting here seemed a striking illustration how small the " world " is growing, even in Central Asia.
On the 11th of June I left Andijan by the Trans-Caspian Railway, which was now to carry me and my antiquities in comfort and safety towards real Europe. This journey, however hurried it had to be under the circumstances, enabled me to obtain many interesting glimpses of a part of Central Asia, which by its historical associations and its ancient culture, has had a special fascination for me ever since my Oriental studies began. Though luckily now under a civilised power and hence fully accessible, how much it still offers to the historian and archœologist to explore ! I made short halts at the provincial capitals of Margilan and Samarkand, where I was
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