3-053-614 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Russian Expedition to Khiva: first sight of water after crossing the desert, 1873. 'We are indebted to Mr. MacGahan, special correspondent of the New York Herald...for [this illustration of] the scene on May 24 when General Kauffman and his army came in sight of water, to their great relief, after a long and toilsome march through the desert, where they had suffered and might have perished of thirst...When General Kauffman espied the water glistening from afar, he took off his cap and blessed himself...while the whole army set up a cheer...But, although the soldiers were dying of thirst, their discipline was such that not one of them broke ranks on coming near the river until the Turkoman assailants were finally charged and put to flight by the Russian cavalry...The Oxus here is about three quarters of a mile broad; the Khivan guns carried easily across the river. Their aim was so correct that the balls fell right among the Russians, and, had they been shells, might have done much damage...Mr. MacGahan speaks in the highest terms of the cheerful courage, the discipline and patient fortitude of the Russian soldiers, who bore extreme fatigue with no better foil, often for days together, than the hardest black bread and a little tea'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.