Page:England & Russia in Central Asia,Vol-I.djvu/24

in the Russian administration over the Trans-Caspian district, it is the law that every Turcoman and every Kirghiz within that zone shall pay an annual tax to the Russian Government. The district or governorship is divided into two sections, that of Mangishlak and that of Krasnovodsk. The latter is the more important, and under the immediate supervision of the governor of the whole region. In the Mangishlak sub-division the Kirghiz element greatly preponderates, and we may suppose that their taxes are paid with a certain amount of regularity. The wells that the Russians have sunk in two directions across the Ust Urt plateau as far as the Aral Sea, and Khiva, place in the hands of their officers the means of acting with promptitude against any turbulent Kirghiz. Moreover, since the days of that daring leader, Kutebar, the Kirghiz appear to have lost all their former courage, and have never dared to resist in any form the demands, just or unjust, of the Russian officials. We may assume that the Kibitka tax of three roubles for each tent is paid without murmuring, and at the stipulated season. But it has been far different in the Krasnovodsk district, where the people are not Kirghiz, but Turcomans. It will be more to the purpose to defer any remarks upon these people until a later chapter, but we may say here that the reconnoissances of General Lomakine have resulted in the acquisition of precise information concerning the river Atrek to a distance of one hundred miles from its mouth, that is to say, to its junction with the river Sunbur, as well as of the country between Krasnovodsk and Beurma, a