A CURIOUS FATALITY. (LTTELION TlMES.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 2009, 23 May 1885, Page 2

A CURIOUS FATALITY. (LTTELION TIMES.)

An c»sayi-t, fond ot -peculation, might wute ait inteies>Hiig p-ipei on the curious fatality which ••eentt t<i have followed tia\ pliers and genet als who tii\e made Turkestan the hold of their finings. In Central A-.1.1 it «Ji that the land <»f the Artmaspiaius lay . and we all lemember the lines— 11 As when ii gryphon through the WlldernesS With winged course, o'er hill or nioory dale, Pursues the Arimaftpiai), who, by stealth, Had from his wakeful custody puiloiu'd The guarded gold." Somewhat in this way has the land of the fauinns and once invincible Tartars fiom which ho ninny conqneung hoides h.ive issued to sweep the ea-lh, lewnged itself upon the during explorers and soldiers who h.ise in our own day robbed it of its mystery and ireedoui. Death, ruin, and disgrace have been the gryphons which have^ haunted tho subsequent Ji\ es of thesel ovor-bold adventures. Ainong-t travellers we may begin w ith Sir Alexander Burns, tho first Englishman to reach Morv, who was murdoicd at Cabul, and with whom ni ty lw coupled Edmund O'Donovan, who hftyyeiis afterwards repeated Hums' exploit, and who had no sooner become famous by hi* lv ill i.iitt dash to Morv than he lnst his lift with Hicka l\is|M in tho ttoiiiian. O'ix>llj and Stoddart, who in IJS4J reached Bokhara, were littirdered tliete, and by their death Heaied away all tra\ oilers finin Turkestan foi some twenty yeais until Anninim V.imb»rv bioketho cljaini by his wondfrful walk to Khiv.v across the desert from Kizil Arvat. Vamljci y, it should be added, is Htill alivo mid well ; but other celebrated visitors to Khita have been less lucky. M'Gahan, author of " Campaigning on the (> xuB," whose daring, solitary ride to Khiva, in the wake of General Kauffmann '■ army, wan, beyond all comparison, » gi eater feat than Burnaby's famous ride, died of typhus fe\er while nursing a tick . friend in the Kusso-Turkish war. W»| all know what became of that modern knight errant, Colonel Burnaby. Colonel Valentine Baker, who travelled along the .southern ftontier of Turkestan in 1874, only returned thence to London to fall into disgrace and e\ilo. Captain William (»ill t who was Baker's tin\elling companion, who again visited the fiontiei la-t mentioned in 1880, wax brutally murdered two years later, along with i'rofessor Palmer and Lieutenant Chairington, by some Bedouin robbers of the Sinai Deseit. Captain Butler, who was despatched to Turkestan a few year* ago by tho English < iovermnenJM as a uecrot oiniiiarv, g.>t into such trouble>J* both during the journey and after it, as to oblige the authorities to place him on th« retired army list. Air David Kerr, » journalist and Htory-writer of homo note, who attempted to reach Khha at the same time as M (lahan, but failed, mi conducted himsolf as to be publicly disavowed and thrown o\ or by his employers, the pioprietors of the Daily Telftgrajvii. Amongst Kussians wofind verysimilarexamplesof misfortune. Their greatest name, Skobeletf, the eft l l tor of (»eok T<&\w, died thertiafter in the prime of life, and at the height of hw reputation. Lu/.areff, who became famous by the c»pt»ro of Kars in the Turkish war, wa« transferred to Tnikostnn only to fall sick and die almost immediately. Petruf vich, noted both ns a talented explorer and a rising officer, was killed during the siega of (Jeok Tc ; pe\ Pashinor, the moft famous of tho Russian secret agents in Asia, who penetrated to Cabul, and is one of the few amongst his countrymen known to hare * visited India, was, when last heard of, ft ruined and disgraced cripple, almost a beggar, in St. Petersburg. Lastly! General Kauffmanu, tho arch enemy of the Turcomans, tho conqueror of Khiva, who ruled Turkestan for fifteen yearn, lhed just long enough to bo superseded and to die in disfavour a year or two ago. It would, indeed, seem to bo almost as dangerous to bo a travoller or conquenu in Tin ke-»tan as to bo a commanding officer or a special correspondent in the Soudan. Jm

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