DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15174#0227
CHAP. VII.
THE TOORKMUNS.
211
Merve River, and the Tejend, which passes Shu-
rukhs. This country is destitute of towns and vil-
lages ; for the Toorkmuns are an erratic tribe, and
wander from one well to another with their herds
and flocks, taking their conical " khirgahs" or huts
along with them, in search of water and pasture.
The desert of the Toorkmuns is a vast ocean of
sand, flat in some places, and rising in others to
mounds, such as are seen on the sea-shore. It
increases in volume towards the Caspian ; and in
that vicinity the sand-hills attain a height of sixty
and eighty feet. They appeared to rise from a
hard caked surface of clay, which was observable in
several places. There was little difficulty in cross-
ing these sand-hills; and the wells, though few in
number, offer their supply of water at no great
distance from the surface, seldom exceeding the
depth of forty feet. Such is the desert of the
Toorkmuns ; inhabited, too, by a tribe of people
who boast that they neither rest under the shade of
a tree or a king. They do not exaggerate, since a
garden is unknown among them ; and their desert
is not enlivened by a single tree : neither do they
live under a fixed or permanent ruler. They only
acknowledge the patriarchal government of their
" Aksukals" or elders; though now and then, and
in limited parts, subjected to the power of the
neighbouring nations. The life of a Toorkmun is
passed in the most reckless plunder of property and
human beings; and his children are brought up
from their earliest years in the same occupation.
The proverb among them, which boasts that a
p 2
THE TOORKMUNS.
211
Merve River, and the Tejend, which passes Shu-
rukhs. This country is destitute of towns and vil-
lages ; for the Toorkmuns are an erratic tribe, and
wander from one well to another with their herds
and flocks, taking their conical " khirgahs" or huts
along with them, in search of water and pasture.
The desert of the Toorkmuns is a vast ocean of
sand, flat in some places, and rising in others to
mounds, such as are seen on the sea-shore. It
increases in volume towards the Caspian ; and in
that vicinity the sand-hills attain a height of sixty
and eighty feet. They appeared to rise from a
hard caked surface of clay, which was observable in
several places. There was little difficulty in cross-
ing these sand-hills; and the wells, though few in
number, offer their supply of water at no great
distance from the surface, seldom exceeding the
depth of forty feet. Such is the desert of the
Toorkmuns ; inhabited, too, by a tribe of people
who boast that they neither rest under the shade of
a tree or a king. They do not exaggerate, since a
garden is unknown among them ; and their desert
is not enlivened by a single tree : neither do they
live under a fixed or permanent ruler. They only
acknowledge the patriarchal government of their
" Aksukals" or elders; though now and then, and
in limited parts, subjected to the power of the
neighbouring nations. The life of a Toorkmun is
passed in the most reckless plunder of property and
human beings; and his children are brought up
from their earliest years in the same occupation.
The proverb among them, which boasts that a
p 2