And certainly readers will not lose anything by the change.

The distance from the station to new Merv is not great. But what an
abominable dust! The commercial town is built on the left of the
river--a town in the American style, which would please Ephrinell, wide
streets straight as a line crossing at right angles; straight
boulevards with rows of trees; much bustle and movement among the
merchants in Oriental costume, in Jewish costume, merchants of every
kind; a number of camels and dromedaries, the latter much in request
for their powers of withstanding fatigue and which differ in their
hinder parts from their African congeners. Not many women along the
sunny roads which seem white hot. Some of the feminine types are,
however, sufficiently remarkable, dressed out in a quasi-military
costume, wearing soft boots and a cartouche belt in the Circassian
style. You must take care of the stray dogs, hungry brutes with long
hair and disquieting fangs, of a breed reminding one of the dogs of the
Caucasus, and these animals--according to Boulangier the engineer--have
eaten a Russian general.

"Not entirely," replies the major, confirming the statement. "They left
his boots."

In the commercial quarter, in the depths of the gloomy ground floors,
inhabited by the Persians and the Jews, within the miserable shops are
sold carpets of incredible fineness, and colors artistically combined,
woven mostly by old women without any Jacquard cards.

On both banks of the Mourgab the Russians have their military
establishment. There parade the Turkoman soldiers in the service of the