The nucleus of this book - less than one-third of its present dimensions - appeared in the shape of a series of articles, entitled 'Russia in Central Asia,' which I contributed to the 'Manchester Courier' and other leading English provincial newspapers, in the months of November and December 1888, and January 1889. These articles were descriptive of a journey which I had taken in the months of September and October 1888, along the newly-constructed Transcaspian Railway, through certain of the Central Asian dominions of the Czar of Russia. Exigencies of space, however, and the limitations of journalistic propriety, prevented me from including in my letters a good deal of information which I had obtained; and were, of course, fatal to the incorporation with the narrative of illustrations or maps.