The 141 miles which separate Merv from the Bokharan frontier were the costliest and the most depressing section of the Transcaspian Railway. It includes that terror of Russian engineers known as the Sandy Tract,684 and no trace of cultivation is met with until the weary eye finds solace in the restful green which marks the course of the mighty Oxus. The border stronghold, Charjuy, crowns a hill to the south of the railway line, and bears in its rugged outlines a faint resemblance to Edinburgh Castle. The little town which nestles at its foot is garrisoned by a Russian force consisting of a battalion of Turkestan Rifles and a squadron of Cossacks. At Kerki, 110 miles up stream, three more rifle battalions and a regiment of Cossacks serve as a reminder of the power of Russia. The source of the Amu Darya is Lake Victoria, a beautiful sheet of water embosomed in the Pamirs 15,600 feet above sea-level, which was visited by Marco Polo, and rediscovered in 1838 by Captain Wood of the Indian Marine.685 The bed of the great river is 350 yards wide at the point where it leaves the hills at Khwaja Salih, 90 miles north-west of Balkh; and 200 miles down stream it swells to 650 yards. The mean velocity is 3½ miles an hour, the average depth 9 feet, increasing to a maximum of 29 in August after the annual rains. The course of the Oxus in our day is north-westerly, and it discharges into the Sea of Aral above Khiva. The stream once before bifurcated at Kohna Urganj, 70 miles south of the great inland lake; and one branch flowed south-westwards, entering the Caspian by the Balkhan Bay. At some period in the fifteenth or sixteenth century the Khivans attempted to restrain the course by a dam, and so caused a diversion of the western channel, which can still be traced through the Turkoman Desert.686 To restore it has been the dream of the Russians since the days of Peter the Great. Elaborate surveys have demonstrated that the operation is perfectly practicable; and those who advocated it urged with truth that the canalisation of the river would turn many thousands of square miles of desert into a garden. The railway has, however, won the day; and the only use made of the Amu Darya by the Russian authorities is to support a steam flotilla. This service was inaugurated in 1887,687 and is now carried on by steel-built steamers drawing 2 feet of water, and carrying 200 tons of cargo. Its chief value lies in the means it gives for the transport of troops and munitions of war, for the river is navigable up to the Afghan frontier, 700 miles from its mouth. The Amu Darya, however, cannot be made to serve the needs of commerce, for the channel is constantly shifting, sand-banks are thrown up and disappear in a few hours, and the navigating officers are in the hands of native pilots, who divine obstructions by observing the colour of the water. We have already described the great viaduct which spans the Amu Darya near Charjuy. It is admittedly but a make-shift, and will soon be replaced by a girder bridge. The traveller glances uneasily at the current swirling round the slender piers, and feels inwardly relieved when his train has crept safely to the opposite bank. On either side of the line there now stretches a dead level of parched-up loam, broken here and there by hillocks covered with the outlines of some ancient citadel. There are many of these Central Asian Pompeiis, deserted owing to the failure of the water-supply, or overwhelmed by the ever-encroaching sand. Mosques, market-places, and palaces stand as they did centuries back, but the narrow streets show no signs of human life. But the desert yields again to cultivation, and the train speeds through fields of cotton and millet, overshadowed by splendid trees. The fair domains irrigated from the river Zarafshan have been reached, and its centre, Bokhara the Noble, comes into view. A canon of Russian policy ordains that the European quarters shall be placed at a considerable distance from the great cities. Thus the effect of sudden waves of fanaticism, which are always to be feared in Mohammedan countries, is lessened, and time is given to organise defence. The railway station is eight miles by road from the capital, and is the centre of a Russian town called New Bokhara. Its broad thoroughfares are destitute of trees and flowers, for nothing will grow in this ill-chosen site. Among many mean buildings of the bungalow type are some with architectural pretensions—a handsome residency, built by M.P. Lessar during his term of office as representative at the Bokharan Court, a palace in a hybrid Byzantine style lately erected for the Amir, the new buildings of the Imperial Bank, and the offices of the 3rd Railway Battalion. The Russian quarter already numbers 6000 inhabitants, and is daily growing in importance at the expense of its older rival. The highway leading to the latter passes through a country which is evidently much subdivided, and cultivated with extreme care. The fertile belt is watered by distributories from the Zarafshan,688 which passes Samarkand and pours a flood of wealth into Bokhara’s lap. These canals are popularly attributed to Alexander the Great and Timur, heroic figures which serve as a spur to the imagination of poets and professional story-tellers throughout Central Asia. They are, in point of fact, the inevitable result of the natural conditions encountered. The soil in Bokhara is either a rich yellow loam or sandy waste, and the latter is ever encroaching. The rainfall is scanty; and, but for the help of irrigation, mankind would long since have given up the incessant struggle for existence. Nowhere in the world are the contrasts between desolation and plenty more startling. A caravan approaching the capital finds itself, after weary months spent in the sands, suddenly surrounded by waving crops, and trees laden with luscious fruit, while its ears are greeted by the ripple of water. The mechanism by which this wondrous change is effected would excite the derision of a European engineer. The surveyor lies prone upon his back in the direction from which he wishes to bring water, looks over his forehead, and notes the point when ground is last seen. This rude substitute for the theodolite involves a great deal of misplaced labour, but its results are as marvellous as those of the Egyptian irrigation department. The precious fluid is brought from the mountains in canals, carried round spurs, and crossing ravines in pipes, which, like those of our old London water companies, are often mere hollow trees. When the plain is reached the gradient is very slight; and so tenacious is the soil that streams 30 feet in breadth are restrained by banks 3½ feet high and 3 feet broad at the base. The whole adult village population are the labourers, their only implements being a clumsy hoe, the lap of their long flowing robe, and a hurdle of plaited branches. The administration of the canals is on a popular basis. The superintendents, called “aksakals,” are elected by the cultivators; and every village has its own “mirab,” who watches over the repairs and distributories, and is remunerated by a fixed proportion of the harvests. In years of plenty the task is an easy one; but it is far otherwise at the critical weeks which precede the spring melting of the snows. Every drop of water is then worth its weight in gold, and it must be so divided that each plot may get its just proportion. Complications, too, occur owing to the privileges which certain villages enjoy by royal grant or immemorial prescription, and by the absence of any satisfactory method of measuring discharges.689 The Russians have shown wisdom in leaving the canals in native hands in the territory administered by them. In Bokhara, of course, there has never been any question of introducing reform. The Bokharan cultivator manures his fields heavily after harvest, and until they receive the life-giving water. In the city streets, old men and boys may be seen gathering every particle of refuse; and, in spite of the constant supply, the hungry soil is still unequal to the incessant demands upon it. Then the task of preparation begins. The fields are turned up lengthways and again transversely by a plough clumsily built of wood, its share only being tipped with iron. A pair of oxen can plough rather more than one acre during the cool hours between midnight and 9 a.m.690 The soil is then manured and drenched with water. Spots which show effervescence, that curse of irrigated soil,691 are dug up by hand and dressed with lime picked out of the ruins which abound in these ancient seats of population. The harrow, a plank two feet wide studded with iron nails, is next passed over the sodden soil in two directions. The enumeration of the crops thus raised would be as tedious as Homer’s catalogue of men of war. The stand-by of the poor is juwari (holcus sorghum vel saccharatum), a species of millet which yields two hundredfold of coarse grain. Cotton is amongst the most lucrative; and a vast impetus has been given to its growth by the railway, which carries the raw material to Russian mills. Wheat, barley, and pulse are also staples, and the vine is made to produce a heady fluid, like immature sherry, by Armenians and Jews, who have the monopoly of a manufacture forbidden to true believers. The entire cultivated area of Bokhara is not much in excess of 8000 square miles, and the population which it maintains is at least 2½ millions. Thus the price of land is high, and it is much subdivided.692 When viewed from a height the country resembles a huge shawl of a specially intricate pattern. The eight miles of dusty road which separate the capital from the Russian quarter run through fields which are exact replicas of those of Upper India, and the parallel extends to the villages of flat-roofed houses with wooden verandahs, and the shops displaying piles of sticky sweetmeats. The traveller’s progress is impeded by rows of ponies tethered in the narrow streets. In Bokhara everyone rides. The poorest can afford the hire of a moiety of a donkey, and beggars on horseback excite no remark. The approach to the city is lined with the gardens in which Bokharan citizens delight. They are walled in or sheltered from the wintry blast by rows of silver poplars. A quadrangular pond marks the centre of four paths at right angles connected by smaller ones, and overshadowed by fruit trees which are a mass of tender hues when spring showers bring out the blossom. Flowers are few: the rose, the blue iris, sunflower, and poppy well-nigh exhaust the list. The cultivation of fruit is well understood. The melons have a more delicate aroma than those of any Eastern country. Dried apricots are known in India as the “Alu-i-Bokhara”; and every variety of fruit familiar to the European palate is to be had in a perfection and at prices which would excite wonder in Covent Garden.

This setting of brilliant vegetation adds dignity to the crumbling ramparts of Bokhara. The town-wall, 28 feet high and 7½ miles in circuit, encloses an area of 1760 acres, which seems disproportionate to the dwindling population, now amounting to no more than 65,000 souls.693 Entering one of the eleven gates,694 unchallenged by the slouching sentry, the traveller finds himself in a dÆdalus of narrow lanes, swarming with human beings more suggestive of the unadulterated East than any other city in Asia can show. Sart is the Russian term for the sedentary population throughout Central Asia; but the variety of types which it includes is immense. The Tajiks are a tall well-favoured race, with clear olive complexions and black eyes and hair.695 Their origin is the subject of much controversy; but, according to a tradition among them, they migrated to Bokhara from the west, and reclaimed a reedy swamp which became the city’s site.696 They were subdued by the fierce Arabs in the eighth century, and adopted the Mohammedan religion. As each tide of conquest swept the country the Tajiks bent their necks, and acquired all the vices of a race inured to foreign dominion. They are polished, laborious, and intelligent, with a genius for commerce, but their greed and faithlessness are as notorious as their cowardice.697 Thus the Tajik is regarded with supreme contempt by the Uzbegs, who for three centuries have been the dominant race.698 They are a stem of the great Turkish family which, starting from the steppes north of the Gobi Desert, brought half the world under their sway. They are middle-sized but sturdy, with high cheek-bones, ruddy complexions, and dark auburn hair. In character they resemble the Osmanlis—not the scum of the Levant now encountered at Constantinople, but the rude warriors who supplanted the Cross by the Crescent there in the fifteenth century. They are brave and independent, with the grossness of manners and something of the inborn dignity of the unadulterated Turk. Like the Kirghiz, who are also met with in Bokhara,699 and the Turkomans, Uzbegs are either sedentary or nomads. The first class resemble the Tajiks in their greed for gain, but they are not so civilised; the second tend their flocks and herds, dwelling in tents of dark grey felt hung with bright carpets. The reigning dynasty is of this race, and belongs to a division of the Mangit, the chief of the 97 clans700 into which Uzbegs are divided. At the opposite pole stand the Jewish community, which is traditionally believed to have migrated hither from Baghdad. Half a century ago they numbered 10,000,701 but they have dwindled to perhaps half as many under the grinding persecution to which they have been subjected. Bokhara is not a whit in advance of mediÆval Europe in its treatment of this forlorn colony. The time, indeed, has gone by when Jews might be savagely assaulted by a true believer, and even killed with impunity. But they are still relegated to a filthy and crowded Ghetto. They are forbidden to ride in the streets, and must wear a distinctive costume, a small black cap edged with two fingers’ breadth of sheep-skin, a dark dressing-gown of camels’ hair, and a rope girdle, a survival of a time when it might at any moment be required for its wearer’s execution. This tyranny, tenfold worse than that endured by the Tajiks, has ranged the Jew on the side of the white man.

In the earlier days of their empire in Central Asia the Russians received a good deal of valuable information as to popular feeling from these despised auxiliaries. The blind hatred which superiority excites in minds of the lower type is universal in Bokhara, and the Jews of the Khanate still groan under disabilities which are more degrading to their oppressors than to themselves. The Persian element is a strong one, and the slim figures, dark eyes, and regular features of the children of poor worn-out Iran are conspicuous in the motley crowd that fills the streets. They are descended from slaves sold by Turkoman raiders, or from 40,000 Persian families transplanted from Merv by Amir Murad in 1784. Being Shi`as, they cordially detest the Uzbegs and Tajiks, who belong to the rival Sunni sect.702 Under former Amirs, notably the treacherous Nasrullah, who murdered our countrymen Stoddart and Conolly, the Persians gained commanding influence.703 They are now peaceable traders, whose patriotism stops at day-dreams of reviving the glories of the greatest and most ruthless of their royal line, Nadir Shah. Broad-shouldered Afghans, lithe bright-eyed Arabs, who have the secret of dressing the real Astrakhan lamb-skin, and Indian subjects of Her Majesty, are common in Bokhara. The latter are styled by the natives Multanis, though most of them hail from Haydarabad in Sindh. They are betrayed by their dark complexion and the flame-shaped caste-marks on their swarthy brows. The Hindu shares with the Jew the immense profits derived from money-lending, which is forbidden to true believers, and they are eager and rapacious traders. The large commerce in tea is in the hands of some wealthy Peshawar Mohammedans. The Indian colony devote a few years to money-grabbing, living the while in serais of their own, consisting of a courtyard surrounded with unfurnished cells, in which the traveller spreads his bedding, while his goods and camels occupy the centre of the square. They profess to be well satisfied with the existing order of things at Bokhara, but have some reason to complain of the absence of any British consular agency.704

The variety of features shown by a Bokharan crowd hardly extends to the costumes. The wealthier wear gorgeous khal`ats, or long dressing-gowns of cashmere or cloth of gold. In the middle class the universal garment is of coloured silk, with a curious pattern of concentric lines; while the populace is content with blue or striped cotton. All have huge turbans of white muslin, the size of which is an evidence of their wearers’ rank. Sometimes as many as twenty yards are used. It is a curious fact that, in spite of crushing protective duties, the produce of Manchester looms is preferred by all who can afford the luxury.705 The feminine element, which gives the greatest charm to the crowds of Western cities, is entirely absent in Bokhara. Such women as venture into the streets are muffled in a hideous smock706 and a thick horse-hair veil. It must be admitted that the beauties thus concealed lie chiefly in splendid dark eyes, the lustre of which owes much to the aid of henna, and arched eyebrows which are deemed indicators of passion, and therefore heightened by artificial means. The emancipation of women has not begun in Bokhara. Marriage is a sale conducted with as little delicacy as the cattle-dealer imports into his transactions. The child-wife never gains her husband’s love or confidence, and is deserted while her charms are at their zenith. Custom, in fact, moulds the Bokharan’s inmost being, and the degraded position assigned to women by its teaching places him beyond the pale of civilisation. Home-life in the Central Asian Khanates exists no more than it did in ancient Rome. The citizens’ houses are ranges of dark and cheerless cells surrounding a central courtyard, and presenting blind walls to the street. The intense cold of the winter months is mocked rather than mitigated by charcoal braziers.707 Music is unknown in the cheerless interior, and tobacco was till lately tabooed by the arrogant priests. When an envoy of the Sultan of Turkey made his state entry into the city his use of a long amber-tipped pipe caused universal consternation. Nor do the pleasures of a refined table solace the tedium of life. After attending morning prayers at his mosque the citizen swallows a mess of tea boiled into the consistency of thick soup, with salt and milk, and at his second meal, taken at 5 p.m., the standing dish is the pillau of mutton, rice, and vegetables. The craving for amusement so deeply implanted in human nature finds an outlet in the performances of bachas708—lads of between eight and fifteen with long flowing locks, who dance, posture, and sing with a brio which excites frenzy in Bokharan spectators. They supply the place of our opera-singers, ballet-girls, and actresses. The names of bachas pre-eminent for beauty and languishing graces are as often pronounced as those of the extinct race of Divas were by Englishmen of the last generation. They sometimes rise to high positions in the state, and oftener amass great wealth after a few years’ practice of their degrading trade. The Amir maintains a troupe of bachas; and without their aid an entertainment of any description would be as a performance of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. The European who attends one of these ceremonies feels instinctively how wide is the gulf between East and West, when he remarks the enthusiasm excited by the phases of passion depicted by these children.

To Englishmen an exhibition of the national game of baigha is more interesting. It is a scramble by mounted players for the carcass of a goat. When all are ready for the fray, the umpire beheads the creature and throws its bleeding body into the arena. Then follows a scrimmage which reminds one of Rugby football. The goat’s remains become the centre of a dense mass of men and horses locked in a desperate struggle, in which, wonderful to relate, players are rarely unseated, and still more seldom do the animals injure each other. The object of each is to monopolise the Bokharan substitute for a ball, and carry it far from the scene of action, outstripping all competitors.

The great bazaar of Bokhara makes some amends for the dulness long drawn out of domestic life. It is, indeed, a relief to pass from the garish sunshine into the cool gloom of these lofty arcades, which extend for at least seven miles in all their ramifications. The roof is generally of beaten clay, laid upon undressed timber; and on either side is an endless vista of booths, displaying every article of luxury and use in demand among Asiatic people. Carpets and rugs of harmonious tone, piles of gaudy shawls and dress pieces, snuff-boxes of polished gourd to hold the pungent green powder affected by the Bokharans, and cutlery and trinklets of every description. Europe here struggles with Asia for mastery, and seems about to gain the battle; for though all the European goods bear Russian labels, the great bulk is the produce of German workshops. The stimulus given to the trade of the Fatherland by the payment of the French indemnity in 1871 has led to a constant movement of Teutons across the Russian frontier. They retain their German citizenship, while they turn out cheap and nasty wares under the Ægis of a protective fiscal system. One section of the vast bazaar, roofed by a dome of ancient brickwork, is sacred to literature, and the counters of its shops are piled high with standard works in lithograph editions, and here and there a manuscript. Great bargains may sometimes be obtained by connoisseurs, though there are still enough native bibliophils in Bokhara to render good finds by Europeans exceptional. Money-changers’ stalls are frequent, with tempting heaps of silver and copper discs for exchange against Russian money. The state has been allowed to retain its own coinage, a prerogative more valued than any other by Eastern sovereigns. The unit is the tanga, a silver piece which fluctuates as violently as did the Indian rupee before Sir David Barbour closed the mints. It is at present worth 15 kopeks, but sudden oscillations of a kopek and even more are common.709 The gold coin in circulation is styled tila, and is of unusual purity. It is worth 21 tangas. For the needs of the proletariat there are tiny brass dumps, 44 of which go to the tanga. Another quarter of the bazaar displays the silks and velvets for which Bokhara was once so famous. The trade is a dwindling one, owing to the prevalence of disease among the worms; and the chief beauty of the fabrics lies in their faintly stamped, flowered patterns.710 The vast crowd of loungers in these arcades shows none of the loathing for the Giaur which the appearance of one in this hotbed of fanaticism once excited. They civilly make way for the European’s droshky, and his eyes rarely encounter an unfriendly glance in those of the shopkeepers squatting impassively in a setting of rich carpets and dazzling weapons, or the throng of customers who watch every phase of the bargaining. But the old spirit has been scotched, not killed, by Russification. The European who allows his shadow to flit on a mulla lolling on his pile of cushions will be roundly cursed for his impudence. The crowd intent on buying and selling find the wherewithal to assuage their hunger in the eating-houses, which exhibit huge caldrons of bubbling pillau, flat cakes of unleavened bread, and heaps of coarse sweetmeats made from Russian beet-sugar. The samovar, which hisses in every eating-house, reveals the Bokharan’s predilection for tea. The green variety is alone consumed, and it retails at 2s. 10d. per pound, in spite of a Russian import duty of 1s. 10d. In pre-railway days it was imported through Afghanistan, but the line connecting Bokhara with the Caspian has superseded the old camel caravans, with their leisurely movements and liability to pillage and exactions. Tea now comes into Bokhara by way of Bombay and Batum. China still supplies the great bulk of the demand; but Indian and Ceylon teas are slowly making their way even in remote Bokhara. Their progress would be far more rapid but for the crushing import duty levied by the Russian Government. The Transcaspian Railway has, in point of fact, robbed Peter to pay Paul. Russians and Russo-Germans find a ready sale in Central Asia for their wares, but Bokhara is no longer a great centre for the distribution of English and Indian goods, as it was a quarter of a century back. They will live in the memory of the denizen of the prosaic West, those Bokhara bazaars, with their long lines of shops rich in dazzling colours, the blue sky peeping through rents in the time-worn vaulting, and the sunshine flecking the kaleidoscopic crowd in the galleries below. Though the chief interest of Bokhara centres in its bazaars, it has many public buildings which repay examination. In the north-west quarter is the Rigistan, a market-place surrounded by shops which are cleared of their contents at nightfall. On its west side is a tank overshadowed by trees, which are as rare in Bokhara as in the city of London, and surrounded by tea and barbers’ shops, the resort of a host of idlers during the daylight hours. One side of the Rigistan is occupied by the Ark, or citadel, which stands on a vast artificial mound, and is walled by crenellated ramparts forming a square of 450 yards. It dates from the era of the Samanides. The great gate, built by Rahim Khan in 1742, is flanked by towers 100 feet high showing traces of faience; and opens on a vaulted corridor leading to the Amir’s palace, treasury, and state prison. In old days this was a loathsome dungeon full of ticks and other vermin; but the story so oft repeated, that the insects received rations of raw meat in the absence of human victims, is probably untrue.711 Here dwells the Kushbegi, or prime minister, of whom more anon; but the buildings of the citadel are by no means imposing in size or architectural merit. In a shed on the right of the gateway is the Artillery Park, containing about fifty pieces, all of antiquated make. A smaller market-place, which serves for dealings in raw cotton, is surrounded by the most imposing of Bokhara’s public edifices.

On one side is the great mosque, called the Masjid-i-Jami`, as are those of Delhi and Agra, because it was built to hold the immense crowd attending a Jum`a, or Friday service. The front is a vast recessed portal covered with arabesques in faience; its gates give access to a courtyard spacious enough to contain 10,000 worshippers,712 surrounded by a vaulted cloister. Near it is the Minar Kalan, or Great Minar, a round tower 36 feet at the base, and tapering upwards to a height of 210. The whole surface is covered with beautiful designs in carved brick, which show that it dates from Bokhara’s golden age. From the summit criminals were precipitated into the market-place beneath; but access to it is now forbidden, lest curious visitors should pry into the scores of courtyards which it commands. Opposite to the city mosque is the Madrasa Mir-i-`Arab, a stately college with a tall recessed gateway, which ranks first among the 103 of which Bokhara boasts. The entrance is through a door on the left, which opens on a vaulted corridor leading to a quadrangle surrounded by a double tier of cells, called hujrats, in which the pupils reside. Each has its bed-place on a dais spread with carpets and pillows, and niches in the wall for his books and clothes. Here the more promising lads from the elementary schools spend fifteen or twenty years in mastering the legal and religious system of Islam. This education is so alien to all that is associated with the process in Western countries, and its results are so far-reaching, that a description of its mysteries will interest those who aim at reading aright the signs of the times in Central Asia. Primary schools are to be found in every Bokharan village, and they abound in the capital. They may be known from afar by the hum of childish voices, which resounds from morn till dewy eve in the narrow sunless streets. The course of teaching embraces the Koran, the Farz-i-`Ayn, and other books of a religious tendency, written in Tajiki, a dialect of Persian, and Turki, the language of the Uzbegs. Those who wish to pursue their studies further pass into the Madrasas, which are maintained from the rents of great landed estates assigned to them by rulers of past ages. The curriculum here embraces theology, Arabic, law, and “worldly wisdom.”713

Students who are conscious of a vocation for the priesthood are subjected to a probation severer than that which is prescribed to candidates for admission to La Trappe or Chartreuse. They must obey all the precepts of Mohammed’s code, and learn by long and painful practice to pronounce the shibboleth, La Allah ill Allah, thousands of times without drawing breath. Thus they attain to the coveted degree of Ishan, are qualified to instruct others, and receive the blindest devotion from the lower orders. No training can be conceived which is more calculated to inspire self-conceit and fanaticism. Now the priesthood of Bokhara and the other cities of Central Asia have all been subjected to these sinister influences at a period of their lives when the plastic mind receives impressions which can never be effaced; and the schools and colleges are officered exclusively from the sacerdotal caste. Before the advent of the Russians to power, the mullas directed the whole mechanism of government. The most cruel and treacherous of the old Amirs respected their lives and liberties and shaped his conduct on their counsels. The mullas’ political influence has been destroyed by the Russians’ advent to power, for the theory on which Mohammedan states are ruled is utterly at variance with Western conceptions; and the insidious energies of the priesthood are restricted to education and religious observances. There can be little doubt that the wave of sedition which is sweeping over Central Asia714 is due to the teachings of men who desire the restoration of Islam as a predominant factor in government. The Russian masters of Central Asia, like we ourselves in India, are stepping per ignes suppositos cineri doloso, and a mistaken educational policy is, in both cases, at the bottom of the mischief that is brewing. The other Madrasas of Bokhara are more remarkable for size than architectural merit. One of them was erected at the end of last century, at the cost of the Empress Catherine of Russia, who came under Voltaire’s influence and displayed a catholicism which outran that of the philosopher of Ferney.715 Adjoining the Great Minar is the only public building in Bokhara which has not seen the march of centuries—the Baths of the Chief Justice, thrown open to the public in 1897 by the generosity of the official who held that rank. The innermost chamber is a huge oven surrounded by marble divans, on which the bather reclines while an attendant cracks every joint in his body, scours him with a piece of hair-cloth, and sluices him with cold water. Thence he passes to a room heated to a temperature of about 80 degrees, where he dresses and proceeds to a spacious hall opening on the street. Here, reclining on a dais spread with carpets and pillows, he sips his tea in the blissful lassitude which follows the Turkish bath. The Zindan, or state jail, is a dilapidated structure of brick, perched on a mound to the east of the citadel. The entrance is through a dirty guardroom which gives on a courtyard. A door to the left leads to the abode of petty offenders—a smoke-stained shed, tapestried with bundles containing the property of the inmates. The latter squat on the floor apparently in good health and spirits, albeit that their rations would not be approved of at Wormwood Scrubbs. They receive from Government 1½ pounds of bread every other day, but visitors are allowed to distribute as much food as they please. On the right of the courtyard is a vaulted room lit by a barred opening in the ceiling, which serves as a ward for heinous offenders. Here will generally be found twenty or thirty wretches fastened together by a heavy chain attached to an iron ring on the neck of each. They are all murderers or banditti under trial or awaiting the Amir’s confirmation of the death sentence; and their sullen despair is but too evident. Punishments were terribly severe in pre-Russian days. Prisoners were riveted to the wall by iron collars for years together, and shrunk under the torture to living skeletons. Twice a week they were dragged to the Rigistan, where the Amir in person pronounced sentence; and the spectacle of the poor half-naked wretches shivering in the snow was piteous indeed.716 Happy were those condemned to decapitation, which was always performed with the knife, to the gratification of the market crowd. Empalement and flinging from the summit of the Great Minar were usual forms of destruction, and women taken in adultery were stoned. The prison, bad as it is when judged by European standards, is an abode of bliss when compared with those of the native rÉgime. Beneath the Zindan is a deep vault, now filled up, which hardly a decade back served as an oubliette for human beings condemned to a lingering death, attended by horrors which no pen can describe. Truly, these dark places of the earth owe much to the softening influence of a higher civilisation.

Slavery is another practice which has lost its terrors since the advent of the Russians. Bokhara was once the greatest market in Asia for the produce of Turkoman and Kirghiz raids. Eighty years ago 40,000 Persians and more than 500 subjects of the Tsar were detained there in bondage. There was a regular tariff for these human cattle. A labourer fetched £29, a skilled artisan £64, and a pretty girl nearly £100. The treatment meted out to them by Bokharan taskmasters was more atrocious than anything recorded by Mrs. Beecher Stowe. Meyendorff met a Russian who had endured unheard-of tortures, inflicted in order to make him reveal the route by which a comrade in affliction had escaped.717 Half a century later the effect of European precept and example was already evident. Mr. Schuyler found the traffic in human flesh conducted with some approach to secrecy, but, after much bargaining and intrigue, he was able to purchase the freedom of a Persian lad for a sum equivalent to £25. It would be saying too much to aver that the “peculiar institution” is extinct in Bokhara. The needs of the harem and the profound mystery with which wealthy families enshroud their domestic life render it impossible that slavery should be stamped out in any Mohammedan country. India itself is not free from the canker-spot, though every possible means have been taken to eradicate it. But the great source of supply was cut off when the Turkomans were forbidden to raid into Persia, and the lot of those who have been held in slavery is rendered endurable by the vigilance of the Russian Resident. His influence has been limited to the correction of flagrant abuses, and Bokhara is the only Mohammedan state in Russian Asia which has been permitted to retain intact its own system of administration.

The sovereign, whose official style and title is Khan of Bokhara and Commander of the Faithful,718 is nominally absolute master of his realm and of the lives and fortunes of his subjects. In practice his power is subject to considerable limitations. As a Mohammedan prince he is bound to obey the injunctions of the Koran and the canonical law of Islam.719 The clergy were all-powerful under the last independent Amir, and their influence is still widely felt, the more so in that it is occult. The ruler is surrounded by greedy and venal followers, and his Court is a centre of intrigues. His prime minister, answering to the vezir of the Turkish monarchy, is here styled Kushbegi, and stands next in rank to the sovereign. He is official guardian of the state jewels, which, to judge by the display made by the Amir on state occasions, must rival the figments of the Arabian Nights.720 He is responsible for the collection of taxes and customs duties, and is master of the palace, where he always resides, and keeps the keys of the city gates. Beneath him is a vast hierarchy of executive and Court officials, whose rank is bestowed by patents under the Amir’s seal, or symbols such as horse-tails, hatchets, flags, and maces.721 The struggle for these baubles amongst the crowd of courtiers versed in all the arts of fawning and flattery would arouse our pity and contempt, were we not conscious that such sordid aims are still the levers of human action nearer home.

For administrative purposes the Khanate is divided into thirty-six provinces, each under its governor, called Beg, who is intrusted with the collection of revenue and the execution of judicial decrees. He reports as to the state of his charge weekly, and submits death sentences for the Amir’s confirmation. Below the Beg are the Amlakdars; who exercise similar functions in the amlaks, or districts. The state is, in theory, the owner of the soil, and the bulk of its revenue is derived from the land tax, an impost which has many features common with feudalism. Estates belong to four categories. Milk lands are free of rent, because they were originally bestowed by the sovereign in fee simple on successful generals. Milk-i-Kharaj are tenures which, at the period of conquest, were owned by non-Mohammedans, and remained in their possession subject to the payment of a land tax. This, in the case of irrigated soil, amounts to one-fifth, and in that of dry fields to one-tenth of the gross produce. The third description is Dash Yak, so styled because one-tenth of the produce is set apart for the support of a mosque; and the fourth Vakf, which is an endowment wholly devoted to religious uses. The Amir’s proportion of the fruits of the soil is assessed by the Amlakdars and their underlings, after actual inspection of each field just before the harvest is gathered in. If the cultivator objects to the Government estimate he may demand a re-measurement. The other sources of revenue are one-fortieth of the value of goods exposed for sale; and the jazya, or infidel tax, from which Russian subjects are exempt, ranging, according to the assessee’s wealth, between one and four tangas. The administration of justice is in the hands of Kazis—native judges appointed by the Amir after an examination in the laws of Islam, who are assisted by Muftis, or registrars in charge of the Court’s seal. The Kazi posted at Bokhara has two of these subordinates, and is styled Kalan, or chief, though he has no power to revise his colleagues’ decisions. Legal procedure is cumbrous and ineffectual, and litigants in Bokhara learn by sad experience what “hell it is in suing long to bide.” Public morals and the due observance of religious rites are supposed to be safeguarded by an official styled Ra´is. This censor’s insignia of office are a scimetar-shaped strip of leather, with which he is legally empowered to administer “forty stripes save one” to evil-doers, without, however, raising his arm above the shoulder. He drives the faithful to public prayers like a flock of sheep, meddles in family affairs, levies blackmail, and has elevated delation to the rank of a science. With the Kazi he serves as a spy on the executive officers, and is an object of universal dread. These social pests have been abolished by the Russians in the districts under their administration, and they have won more gratitude by this obvious measure than by any of their reforms. It has been often said that an Eastern prince’s rule is tempered by the fear of assassination. In Bokhara the permanent army was once the skeleton at the Amir’s banquet. In order to maintain his authority and overawe turbulent neighbours he was compelled to pay a large standing force, of which he stood in as much dread as the CÆsars did of their Pretorian Guard. In the days of independence the regulars mustered 10,000 men, armed with matchlocks, and there were about 40,000 men on an irregular footing, of whom perhaps a third carried serviceable weapons.722 At the present time the army is little more than a plaything, for the “Great White Tsar” has garrisons at the principal strategic points, and Bokhara under his Ægis is secure from foreign aggression. The troops now number only 10,000 men, of whom 1000 are armed with Berdan rifles, presented to the Amir some years ago by the Russians, and the rest with percussion muskets. They are drilled and clad on European models, but here the parallel ceases. Inefficient as is the Bokharan army, the paramount power is anxious to effect a deduction in its strength, which will ultimately not exceed 3000 men. It is a significant fact that while the civil officers, from the Kushbegi down to the Amin who measures the crops, receive no remuneration beyond what they can squeeze from the people, the Amir’s forces are well and regularly paid. The company officers draw about £5 per mensem; the private soldiers, 6s. 6d. in our money. In the official intercourse between the Amir and his suzerain we detect the influence of Anglo-Indian example. For many years the Khanates were represented at Tashkent, the administrative capital of Turkestan, by envoys selected from their own subjects; but the growth of commerce with Russia, and the necessity of drawing closer the bonds uniting the protected state with its master, led to the appointment of a Russian officer of rank as Resident with the Amir. His political relations with the latter are nominally confined to tendering advice in administrative matters. When, some years back, frauds were prevalent in the packing of cotton for export to Russia,723 the Resident approached the Amir through an unofficial channel as to the means of checking practices ruinous to trade. The outcome of these negotiations was the appointment of three cotton inspectors, whose function it is to visit the markets and report to the Kazi all cases in which they suspect that rubbish is inserted in bales exposed for sale. Again, the Russians have deemed it to be their duty to foster the production of wine. The grapes of Bokhara are as fine as her peaches and apricots—which is saying a good deal—and a potent fluid resembling Amontillado, with a pleasant sub-acid after-taste, is retailed at fourpence a bottle. But intoxicants are denounced in the Koran as things accursed, and the prohibition has much worldly wisdom, because Asiatics drink, not in order to cheer the heart of man, but to drown the senses in brutish oblivion. A compromise between religious duty and worldly interest has been arrived at. Bokharans may not make wine themselves, but they are at liberty to sell the grapes to Armenians and Jews, who have a monopoly of the manufacture. A dealer vending wine or spirits to a Mohammedan is punished with a fine of 1000 roubles. The Resident has a court of his own for the decision of civil and criminal cases in which the injured party is a foreigner. His jurisdiction is unlimited, and his sentences without appeal. Documentary evidence is insisted on as a basis of money claims. The Russian law is administered, as modified by local custom, and no advocate is allowed to intervene between the tribunal and the parties. Where the defendant belongs to that category, the case comes before a judge of the peace, who is independent of the Resident and a subordinate of the Ministry of Justice at St. Petersburg. His sentences run through a gamut of appeals, precisely as those tried by the courts of the mother country. This alien jurisdiction is highly popular, and subterfuges are adopted in order to bring cases triable by the native judges within its purview. The post and telegraph services are in Russian hands; and a hospital is maintained, under European management, which costs the Amir £2000 annually. Those who are cognisant of the perennial friction between Chief and Resident at many Indian courts will be surprised to learn that the relations between suzerain and vassal in Bokhara have invariably been cordial. The Amir, Sayyid `Abd ul-Ahad, is now in his thirty-seventh year.724 He is tall and muscular, and would be handsome but for growing corpulence, that curse of Eastern princes. He is still devoted to hawking and other forms of sport, affable and dignified. Every year he visits one of the hot springs in the Caucasus, and often winters in the Crimea. The heir-apparent, Sayyid Mir `Alim, has been educated in St. Petersburg, and holds the rank of lieutenant in a Cossack regiment. In early youth the Amir had convincing proof of the resistless power of Russia. He saw his haughty father die broken-hearted of the humiliation entailed by his abortive effort to roll back the tide of European aggression. He knows, too, that the capital is at the Russians’ mercy, for they own the rich province of Samarkand, through which the Zarafshan flows to fertilise his thirsty fields, and that it would be an easy matter to divert its course; and so he is always ready to anticipate his master’s wishes. There was a spice of truth in the late governor-general’s remark, “the Amir of Bokhara is the most zealous of my lieutenants.” While a ruler so pliant continues to sit on the throne of Bokhara he need not fear annexation. The Russians are well aware that the people of the Khanate prize the measure of national life allowed them, and prefer the rough-and-ready methods of an Amir of their own race to the highly developed mechanism imported from the West. They dread the responsibility of granting citizenship to two and a half millions of Asiatics, spread over an area of 80,000 square miles, which costs them nothing to administer, while its products swell the growing volume of the empire’s commerce.