The climate of Merv is detestable. In summer the temperature rises to 100 degrees, and the houses must be sealed hermetically between 8 a.m. and sunset. No punkahs mitigate the sweltering heat, and ice is tabooed on the ground that it increases the liability to fever. This latter is the bane of Merv, as it is of all irrigated tracts without subsoil drainage. In 1896 nearly 5000 of the population perished; and so high was the death-rate in the Russian garrison that it was in contemplation to remove the troops temporarily to healthier quarters. In no place are health-giving diversions more necessary, but such are unknown even to the younger officers. A respectable bag of the brilliant Central Asian pheasant may be made in the brushwood cover three miles from Merv. In India the environs of a military station are swept as bare of game as the Plaine de St. Denis by Parisian gunners. Polo is unknown, though the ground in all directions is suited to the noble pastime, and ponies can be picked up for £10 or £12. The scanty leisure left the young fellows by the absorbing round of duty is given up to billiards and dancing. Balls take place on Sundays at the Casino, an institution which takes the place of our messroom and club. It belongs to Government, and is maintained by subscriptions levied from all civil and military officers. At the entrance is a buffet covered with bottles and the usual components of the zakouska. Adjoining it is a restaurant, which offers an extensive menu at prices much below those of the railway refreshment-rooms and the miserable hotels. This opens on to a fine ballroom adorned with portraits of Tsars and Tsarinas past and present. Guests are received on their arrival by two members of the Casino committee, and make their way through a hall crowded with officers in undress uniform to the ballroom, at the upper end of which the great ladies of the place sit in state round a table covered with dishes of apples and bonbons. After making his obeisance, the visitor is free to enjoy himself--if haply he can secure a partner, for the dearth of the fair sex at Central Asian balls is more marked than in India. Mazurkas and cotillons are practised with a zeal which would perhaps be considered “bad form” at Simla; while the majority unable to participate in their ardent pleasures block the doorways and find solace in frequent adjournments to the buffet, which is always thronged with hosts only too willing to pledge their friends in rassades of vodka and fiery liqueurs. The close resemblance between Central Asian and Indian cantonments extends to the bazaars. The lines of small open shops, the dusty trees, the open drains, even the indescribable but never-to-be-forgotten odour, all are common to British and Russian possessions in the East. The trade of Merv is not confined to the permanent bazaar. A weekly market is held on a plain to the east of the town. The roads converging thither are thronged on Mondays with Turkomans riding double on their ill-fed ponies and two-wheeled Persian carts piled high with goods. The latter are exposed for sale in long lines of covered booths, where Hebrew, Persian, and Armenian vendors squat, surrounded by dried fruits, rice from Meshed, coarse beet-sugar from Russia, and rocky almond paste. The fruit would win a first prize at any English show. Nowhere are melons cheaper or more fragrant, apricots and grapes nowhere more choice. The cheap cutlery, trinkets, leather goods, and samovars are much the same as one sees in Russian markets west of the Caspian, but the prices are at least 100 per cent. dearer. The embroidery, shawls, and carpets for which Merv was famed have lost in value and quality since the Russian conquest. Vast is the concourse of Turkomans from all parts of the oasis at these weekly gatherings; but there is far less of the babel of sounds and the eager bargaining than is seen at Indian bazaars. It is in vast crowds that national spirit is unconsciously displayed. If that of Merv be reflected in the thousands of big-boned, slouching Turkomans in sheep-skin hats and flowing garments who flock hither to lay in their weekly supplies, then it is evident that their spirit has been crushed by conquest.