p there, which I regret."

"Pooh!" said the Yankee. "What I regret is, that there is no business
to be done in these Turkoman countries! The men all have teeth--"

"And the women all have hair," added Horatia Bluett.

"Well, miss, buy their hair, and you will not lose your time."

"That is exactly what Holmes-Holme of London will do as soon as we have
exhausted the capillary stock of the Celestial Empire."

And thereupon the pair left us.

I then suggested to Major Noltitz--it was six o'clock--to dine at Merv,
before the departure of the train. He consented, but he was wrong to
consent. An ill-fortune took us to the Hotel Slav, which is very
inferior to our dining car--at least as regards its bill of fare. It
contained, in particular, a national soup called "borchtch," prepared
with sour milk, which I would carefully refrain from recommending to
the gourmets of the _Twentieth Century_.

With regard to my newspaper, and that telegram relative to the mandarin
our train is "conveying" in the funereal acceptation of the word? Has
Popof obtained from the mutes who are on guard the name of this high
personage?

Yes, at last! And hardly are we within the station than he runs up to
me, saying:

"I know the name."

"And it is?"

"Yen Lou, the great mandarin Yen Lou of Pekin."

"Thank you, Popof."

I rush to the telegraph office, and from there I send a telegram to the
_Twentieth Century_.

"Merv, 16th May, 7 p.m.

"Train, Grand Transasiatic, just leaving Merv. Took from Douchak the
body of the great mandarin Yen Lou coming from Persia to Pekin."

It cost a good deal, did this telegram, but you will admit it was well
worth its price.

The name of Yen Lou was immediately communicated to our fellow
travelers, and it seemed to me that my lord Faruskiar smiled when he
heard it.

We left the station at eight o'clock precisely. Forty minutes
afterwards we passed near old Merv, and the night being dark I could
see nothing of it. There was, however, a fortress with square towers
and a wall of some burned bricks, and ruined tombs, and a palace and
remains of mosques, and a collection of archaeological things, which
would have run to quite two hundred lines of small text.

"Console yourself," said Major Noltitz. "Your satisfaction could not be
complete, for old Merv has been rebuilt four times. If you had seen the
fourth town, Bairam Ali of the Persian period, you would not have seen
the third, which was Mongol, s