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National Geographic : 1973 Nov
Contents
Then trucks sink into the ground and leave deep furrows. The extreme variations in Turkistan tem peratures have given rise to a nickname for the land, "Country of the fan and of the fur." During the blazing summers, not a drop of rain will fall. We keep the line of poles in sight at all times, for the truck tracks are legion, and con fusing to follow; they lead off in all directions. "Tong! Tong!" chants Romain. His sharp young eyes have spotted a caravan ahead, and he alerts us with the onomatopoetic Turkoman word for camel bell. The caravaneer ties the bell to the neck of the last camel in his caravan, a string of from five to a dozen beasts roped together. Should he be riding in the lead and doze off, the sudden silence of the bell would awaken him if a thief tried to steal the tailender. We watch the caravan pass. It cuts directly across the line of poles and seemingly follows no landmarks, but we know the caravaneer will not lose his way. Like a sailor at sea, he navigates by the sun and the stars, as his fore fathers did before him. We see flocks of sheep and goats on the steppe, although the area has been drought stricken for three years, and the livestock of this part of the country has been reduced by 80 percent. Romain would like to run after the flocks, but we do not let him go until we see that the shepherds have restrained the great mastiffs that guard the animals. They are very dangerous. Often a shepherd picks up a curly lamb for the little boy to pet. This is the celebrated Karakul of the Turkomans, which produces the fur called Astrakhan, for the Volga port from which it was exported in large quantities. The manner in which the pelt is obtained is cruel. For one grade of fur the lamb is slaughtered a few days after birth. For a still better quality pelt, the ewe is killed and the unborn lamb skinned. The one that Romain is petting has been saved for breeding stock. Grown, it will be an extremely rugged animal, well suited to the rigorous climate in which it lives. It carries a reserve of fat in its tail (preceding page). During the summer when the baked ground produces no nourishing grass, the. sheep can live on the stored fat. Arid Land Yields Fruitful Harvest We drive on. Flocks of crows blacken the sky. The villages we pass are drear. We stick first in mud, then in sand, then in mud again; the steppe can be anything from black soil to sand dunes. The people of the countryside come to our aid and help us pull the vehicle to solid ground. For all its aridity in summer and muddi ness in winter, the plain to the south of the Amu Darya, called Bactria in olden times, has always been famed for its fertility. The secret is irrigation: With water the land produces cotton, a number of grains, vegetables, and fruit in abundance. Some of the ditches crossing the landscape are cen turies old. If the Turkistan mulberries, almonds, apricots, and pomegranates are good, then the grapes and melons are little short of magnificent. The grape is said here to be the
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