ap is a fur one--all of dark color.

I am at ease regarding his intentions. He returns towards the van,
mounts the platform, and shuts the door gently behind him. As soon as
the train is on the move I will knock at the panel, and this time--

More of the unexpected. Instead of waiting at Tchardjoui one-quarter of
an hour we have to wait three. A slight injury to one of the brakes of
the engine has had to be repaired, and, notwithstanding the German
baron's remonstrances, we do not leave the station before half-past
three, as the day is beginning to dawn.

It follows from this that if I cannot visit the van I shall at least
see the Amou-Daria.

The Amou-Daria is the Oxus of the Ancients, the rival of the Indus and
the Ganges. It used to be a tributary of the Caspian, as shown on the
maps, but now it flows into the Sea of Aral. Fed by the snows and rains
of the Pamir plateau, its sluggish waters flow between low clay cliffs
and banks of sand. It is the River-Sea in the Turkoman tongue, and it
is about two thousand five hundred kilometres long.

The train crosses it by a bridge a league long, the line being a
hundred feet and more above its surface at low water, and the roadway
trembles on the thousand piles which support it, grouped in fives
between each of the spans, which are thirty feet wide.

In ten months, at a cost of thirty-five thousand roubles, General
Annenkof built this bridge, the most important one on the Grand
Transasiatic.

The river is of a dull-yellow color. A few islands emerge from the
current here and there, as far as one can see.

Popof pointed out the stations for the guards on the parapet of the
bridge.

"What are they for?" I asked.

"For the accommodation of a special staff, whose duty it is to give the
alarm in case of fire, and who are provided with fire-extinguishers."

This is a wise precaution. Not only have sparks from the engines set it
on fire in several places, but there are other disasters possible. A
large number of boats, for the most part laden with petroleum, pass up
and down the Amou-Daria, and it frequently happens that these become
fire-ships. A constant watch is thus only too well justified, for if
the bridge were destroyed, its reconstruction would take a year, during
which the transport of passengers from one bank to the other would not
be without its difficulties.

At last the train is going slowly across the bridge. It is broad
daylight. The desert begins again