Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/18

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to us to make use of the Transcaspian railway as far as Samarcand, and that the local authorities had been duly informed. This railway, being a purely military one, is under the direction of the Ministry of War at St. Petersburg, and is not open for ordinary passenger traffic. Application for leave to travel on it had been made on our behalf three months previously by the English Foreign Office, at the request of Sir H. D. Wolff, and the long delay which ensued before a favourable reply was received threatened at one time to prevent the due accomplishment of the object we had in view. Nor was this the only difficulty which we had to encounter. Kind and anxious friends warned us of the risks and hardships which a lady especially would have to encounter during a seven hundred mile journey on horseback through Khorassan, and although our experience of journeys on horseback in Bulgaria and in Roumania enabled us to gauge pretty accurately our own powers of endurance, it was difficult to maintain our determination to carry out our purpose in the face of strongly worded advice, without appearing unduly obstinate and