Samarkand is 150 miles by rail from Bokhara. The line follows the course of the Zarafshan, and passes through a carefully tilled country, a large proportion of which is under cotton.725 Rather less than two-thirds is grown from acclimatised American seed (gorsypium hirsutum) introduced by the Russians, whose persistent aim it has been to render their mills independent of the United States. The seed is sown in April, on soil which has been well ploughed and harrowed, the proportion allowed being 21 pounds per acre. The fields are irrigated thrice and kept scrupulously free from weeds. Towards the end of September the ripe pods are picked and exposed in heaps for sale. In average years an acre yields 1400 pounds, and gives a net return of £5, 10s., considerably more than other crops. But the cultivator has to face extraordinary fluctuations in market prices. In 1895, though the harvest was exceptional in bulk and quality, the price advanced to 4d. per pound, and the acre yielded £8. This flood of wealth thus poured into the cultivator’s lap was the better appreciated because the lowering of railway rates has rendered the production of bread stuffs unremunerative. In point of fact, the Central Asian farmer is suffering, like his comrade of the West, from the effect of free-trade dogmas. The Russian Empire is a world within itself, blessed with every variety of soil and climate, and gives ample scope for Cobden’s theories. But cotton is essentially an object for petite culture. Plantations have been tried without success, and few who raise this lucrative crop devote to it more than one-eighth of their farm; in other words, a plot of three-fourths of an acre. The intense pressure of population on the soil causes a keen demand for cotton lands, and speculators take advantage of the limited supply to engross large areas, and sublet them in plots to tenants who agree to bring them the whole produce. The profits are supposed to be divided equally, but the landlord of course retains the lion’s share. The raw cotton is sold in open market, and is either exported in the pod or purchased by capitalists owning cotton-cleaning mills.726 Speaking generally, the prospects of the cultivator in the rich valley of the Zarafshan are not very promising. The soil is a yellow loam of great natural richness, but the incessant demands of a teeming population, continued for hundreds, nay thousands, of years, have brought it within measurable distance of exhaustion. Manuring is an imperative necessity, but cattle are few owing to the absence of grazing grounds and fodder; and the process can be repeated only once in three, or even six years. Thus corn shows an ominous decrease in weight; a pound now contains only 16,800 grains, compared with nearly 20,000 a couple of decades back. The Russians have to face a problem as difficult in its degree as that which will one day cause a cataclysm in British India, the ever-growing tendency of population to outstrip the means of subsistence.

Soon after passing the spick-and-span Russian town of Katta Kurgan, the growing freshness of the air proclaims a higher level; and, in point of fact, Samarkand is more than 2000 feet above the sea. At last the eye, which so eagerly scanned the eastern horizon, lights upon a sea of verdure, from which a fluted dome rises just as St. Paul’s seems to float like a vast balloon over London fogs. There are a few cities which touch a chord in him who sees them for the first time. The glamour of their fallen majesty is heightened rather than destroyed by the railway; for it brings before us, as if by magic, a panorama often seen in spirit, and its prosaic surroundings serve as a foil to the halo of romance which still lingers over the seat of a vanquished empire. Who will ever forget the flood of associations that overpowered him when he first heard “Roma” shouted by a railway porter, or when he exchanged the roar of the train for the peace which broods over the vista of palaces on the Grand Canal? The famous city is, as in other cases, at a distance of several miles from the railway station, the environs of which are crowded with the mean shops and drinking-dens usually found in such places. The road thither, as all the chief thoroughfares, is of great width, and overshadowed by splendid trees. It is this feature of Samarkand landscapes, not less than the innumerable gardens and vineyards in which one treads knee-deep in luscious grapes, that stirred the imagination of Eastern poets. In melodious strains the eternal city is styled the “Mirror of the World,” “the Garden of Souls,” “the Fourth Paradise.” But Samarkand was great and glorious ages before the good Harun er-Rashid reigned in Baghdad, or Sa´adi planted flowers of poesy in his Garden of Roses. At Maracanda, in Transoxiana, Alexander of Macedon paused in his mad career, and there he slew his faithful Clitus. Centuries glided by, and it became Sa-mo-kien, the most western province of the Celestial Empire. Then the tide of Mohammedan conquest rolled over Samarkand; followed by the rule of the Seljuk Turks, destined five centuries later to extend their sway from Mongolia to Constantinople. The old city now became what Moorish Spain was—a chosen abode of all the arts that adorn and sweeten life. The whole fabric of civilisation was drowned in blood by the ruthless Chingiz Khan, and the ruin of Samarkand seemed irretrievable. It was lifted from the dust by a greater genius than Chingiz. Timur made Samarkand the “eye and star” of an empire which extended over a third of the known world; and to his loving care belong the works of art which, in hopeless ruin, still excite the admiration of mankind. Their glories were soon obliterated by the uncouth Uzbegs; and 150 years ago the city site was a waste scored with mounds and caverns from which the ruined churches and colleges of a happier age soared heavenwards in desecrated majesty. It became a province of Bokhara and the residence of the Amirs during the summer heats, and commerce slowly revived. The story of the last wave of invasion which swept over Samarkand has already been told in these pages.

Chief among the monuments of this war-worn city is the tomb of Timur, spoken of throughout Central Asia as Gur Amir—the Amir’s sepulchre, just as our fathers styled Wellington “the Duke.” It is approached through a double avenue of poplars, which terminates at a gateway ornamented with faience and flanked by ruined minarets. Behind these stands an octagonal structure with a deeply fluted dome. The entrance on the left of the tomb leads to a vaulted corridor, and then to a chamber 35 feet square, with a cupola 115 feet from the floor. On each side there is an arched recess with Alhambresque mouldings, and the walls are covered with six-sided plates of transparent gypsum. The interior is severely simple, as becomes the last resting-place of so great a man. “Only a stone,” whispered the dying emperor; “and my name upon it!” And so he rests beneath a block of dark-green jade—the largest in the world.727 On the right of the conqueror’s memorial stone is one of grey marble commemorating his grandson Ulugh Beg, a distinguished astronomer, who compiled tables showing the position of the fixed stars, admitted to be the best which have come down to us from Mohammedan times. In the recess facing Mekka there hangs a large standard with a pendant of horse-hair, emblem of a militant faith; and between it and Timur’s tomb is a grey marble slab dedicated to his friend and tutor, Mir Sayyid Baraka, for whom he built this mausoleum in 1386.728 The recess in the east contains a slab of granite erected to a descendant of the Prophet, named Hajji Imam `Umr. The central group of cenotaphs, numbering eight in all, is surrounded by a balustrade in fretwork of transparent gypsum. The actual tombs are in a crypt of exquisite proportions, which is reached by a flight of steps. Here lies all that is mortal of one whose empire extended from the Vistula to the China Seas, who in the brief intervals between his conquering expeditions found time to embellish his capital with structures which, even in their decay, rank among the wonders of the world.

The centre of Samarkand life is the great open market-square called the Rigistan. Its southern side is open to the street, and the other three are occupied by as many great colleges, or madrasas. That which stands on the east side was built in the time of Imam Kuli Khan (1648), and is known as the Shir Dar (or the Lion-bearing), from uncouth representations of the Lion and Sun of Persia on the four corners above its gigantic recessed portal. At either extremity of the faÇade rise melon-shaped domes and tall minarets leaning outwards. That nearest the street exhibits a frieze of dog’s-tooth mouldings, resembling those which occur in our oldest Norman churches. A cloister-like passage gives access to an immense courtyard surrounded by cubicles and classrooms in two storeys, each pair under an enamelled arch. A flight of brickwork stairs leads to the summit of the lofty gateway, whence one has a view which is second to none in Asia. The eye ranges over a leafy sea, from which vast raised arches and domes emerge, and rests on snow-clad mountains which close the horizon on the north and east. The madrasa of Tila Kari, on the north side, is so styled from a plating of gold-foil under translucent enamel which covers the holy place of a mosque on the left of its courtyard.729 That founded by Timur’s astronomer grandson, Ulugh Beg, is opposite Shir Dar, and is the smallest but most beautiful of the group. Unhappily, it has suffered even more than the others from earthquakes. Of the five minarets which once adorned its angles, that on the south-east has fallen, and the rest are much out of the perpendicular. This universal tendency of Samarkand minarets is a standing enigma to visitors. That these minarets are out of the perpendicular may be easily proved by ascending one of them and lowering a plumb-line; but it will probably continue to excite controversy till these forlorn towers have crumbled into ruins. Such has already been the fate of the grandest of Samarkand’s monuments, the Bibi Khanum, which stands on rising ground north-east of the Rigistan. Like the Taj Mahal of Agra, it records a widowed husband’s passionate sorrow; for she who sleeps below was Timur’s most loved wife, the daughter of the emperor of China. The actual tomb is a mass of shapeless ruins, for centuries of gross neglect have done their work, and a climax was given to the work of Time’s destroying hand by an earthquake which shook Samarkand on the 5th November 1897. The approach lies through a gateway which scarcely retains a trace of the original design. This opens on a garden with a mosque on either side, while the front is occupied by a building which still inspires awe by its grandeur and perfect proportions. The front exhibits a recessed portal, sixty feet wide and higher than that of Peterborough Cathedral, and an octagonal minaret at either extremity. Between them rises a stupendous dome, with a double frieze of blue, green, and yellow enamel, on which texts from the Koran gleam brightly in gold lettering. The interior is a square of fifty feet, adorned with arabesques. In the centre once stood a colossal rahla, or lectern of white marble, which once held a Koran, spreading over fifty-four square feet when open. A tradition has it that Bibi Khanum, who founded this noble mosque, was wont to read it from a window set high in the wall.730 The rahla is supported by nine pillars just high enough to admit of a man crawling under it—a painful process often undergone as a cure for lumbago and sciatica. It has now been removed to the courtyard, to avert the destruction which would result from a collapse of the entire structure. For the blue sky is seen through a rent extending over a third of the surface of the mighty dome; and a side view reveals an outer and an inner skin, like those of St. Paul’s, with the staircase leading to the summit. The portal is in worse plight; but so solid was the old builders’ handiwork that the arch is still intact though the brickwork is a mere shell. The Russians must be held responsible for the forlorn state of the Bibi Khanum. When they entered on their glorious inheritance the power of disintegration might have been arrested. But they were content to see the stately mosque degraded to the base uses of a cotton-market and a stable,731 and the vast revenues bequeathed by the piety of another age diverted from their proper uses by a horde of greedy and callous priests. They may, however, plead in mitigation of the world’s censure, that lack of funds has impeded their efforts to preserve these relics of a mighty past.732 If Generals Kauffman or Abramoff had been asked to vouchsafe a grant for archÆological purposes they would doubtless have replied, as William Pitt did to Benjamin Haydon’s suggestion that a national gallery of paintings should be established: “We want all the money we can scrape together to buy powder and shot with.”

In a suburb half a mile north-east of the Bibi Khanum stands a sepulchre of a different type. It is that of Kasim ibn `Abbas, a saint who endured martyrdom in an attempt to convert the fire-worshippers of Samarkand. Tradition adds that he picked up his severed head, like St. Denis, and retired with it to a well, whence he is destined to emerge in the hour of Islam’s triumph. The Shah Zindah, “Living Saint,” has a tomb erected by Timur,733 which is entered by a brick gateway rich in blue and white faience, opening on a street of tombs with some resemblance to the Appian Way. On either side of a flight of steps, which once were of marble, ascending the side of a ravine, are a series of mausolea erected in honour of members of Timur’s family, his generals, and trusted servants. The gates and faÇades are encrusted with glorious faience. A photograph might convey a faint impression of the exquisite form of pillars shaped like palm-trees, the artistic design of the scrollwork and tracery. A consummate master of colouring alone could reproduce the harmony in dark blue, turquoise, yellow, and green of this unrivalled panelling. The common belief is that the porcelain which is seen in such perfection at the Shah Zindah was evolved in ancient Persia. It was undoubtedly brought by the Mongols from China.734 The decoration of the Constantinople mosques, especially those dating from the golden age of Sulayman the Magnificent, is similar to the specimens so much admired at Samarkand. The vista closes with the holy man’s tomb, which is approached by a suite of halls adorned with arabesques and beautifully carved wooden pillars. It is a mosque hung with offerings from the faithful. Visitors are allowed by the attendant priests to peer through a carved screen into a sombre vault, in which the faint outline of a funeral stone is seen, covered with costly shawls. Shah Zindah has suffered less than its unfortunate neighbours owing to its smaller dimensions; but systematic repairs carried out by experts are urgently needed. All that has been done by the present masters of Samarkand is to prevent the wholesale pilfering of coloured tiles.

The ancient citadel of Samarkand is still called by the people Urda. This “encampment” occupies a commanding position, and is secured on three sides by scarped ravines. Its walls are upwards of two miles in circumference,735 and have been adapted to suit the exigencies of modern warfare. In Russian eyes it is as sacred as the theatre of a defence as glorious as that of our Lucknow Residency in 1857.736 In those of the antiquarian it is precious as the repository of the Kok Tash, a coronation stone of the Bokharan sovereigns, and of an old Arabic inscription. The former is in the courtyard of a mean building which once served as the Amir’s residence. It is an oblong block of grey marble, with arabesques at the sides, measuring 10' 4 by 4' 9 by 2' in height. According to tradition, it fell on this spot from heaven, and for ages past it was venerated as the Ægis of Bokharan royalty. No Amir was considered worthy of his subjects’ homage till he had sat on this rude throne. Behind it is an oval metal plaque bearing a funeral inscription dating as far back as A.H. 550, or 1155 of our era.

The Russians’ quarter of Samarkand lies to the south of the native city. Their occupation has lasted for thirty years, and their dwellings have lost the garish newness which strikes a jarring note at Askabad and Merv. Broad avenues, at right angles to each other, a leafy park, and a splendid Boulevard, which Samarkand owes to its good genius, General Abramoff, who was governor in 1874,737 such are the pleasant, if somewhat prosaic, features of Russian Samarkand. Government House has the vast reception-rooms met with in such places throughout the empire, and it has a large garden, which has trees, water, statues—everything except flowers. The officials’ bungalows mostly face the Abramovsky Boulevard, and are planned on the familiar Anglo-Indian lines. Then there is the obligatory military casino, which eclipses the finest of our mess-houses and has a splendid ballroom. Hard by is the garrison church, a clumsy erection, which seems the more insignificant by reason of its juxtaposition with the glorious remains of Mohammedan days. The museum is still more unworthy of a provincial capital. It contains the dreary array of stuffed beasts and wide-mouthed bottles familiar nearer home. No region in the world is richer in memorials of past ages than the valley of the Zarafshan. Heaps of small clay figures, supposed to represent the horse, show that Hinduism prevailed there at some remote period, for they are identical in shape with those deposited as ex votos at many Indian shrines. Crosses figuring on rude bas-reliefs serve as a reminder of another vanished faith. The Nestorians, hounded as heretics from Europe in the fifth century, spread over the Asiatic Continent, and established bishoprics in Samarkand, Merv, and Herat.738 With a degree of moderation which belied their uncompromising tenets, the Caliphs protected the professors of this rival faith. Its golden age was the twelfth century; but Timur was not a man to tolerate any dissidence in his empire. His ruthless persecution stamped out Christianity in Central Asia. The museum also exhibits vessels of beautiful iridescent glass and pottery, the spoils of Afrasiyab, a city of immemorial antiquity, which covered the hills and ravines between Samarkand and the Zarafshan. The semi-mythical king whose name it bears739 lived, according to tradition, in the eleventh century before Christ. That a high degree of civilisation was attained by the people of his long buried realm is proved by the exquisite designs of the lamps, urns, and pottery exhumed there. A rich harvest awaits systematic exploration.740 The collection of mineral specimens is equally unworthy of Samarkand, for the mountains to the east of the city contain the potentialities of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. There is a mountain of fine coal not twenty-five miles from the walls; and metals of all kinds abound.741 The other modern institutions at Samarkand are more creditable to Russian enterprise. The jail, a large castellated structure resembling our own prison at Holloway, is scrupulously clean, and has most modern appliances for enforcing labour. The convicts are employed in weaving cotton, and all are healthy and well nourished. But the jail population in Central Asia is a fluctuating one; for criminals sentenced to long terms of imprisonment are deported by rail and steamer to Saghaleen, in the North-West Pacific.742 Two orphanages for Russian children flourish; and the little inmates are happy, clean, and not depressed by that badge of servitude, a uniform.

Samarkand is still a great emporium of trade, though it no longer serves as a depÔt for the produce of British India and Afghanistan. The roads are thronged with shaggy camels, and carts perched on two gigantic wheels, which preserve their contents from the thorough wetting which an ordinary vehicle would give them while traversing the innumerable streams. The bazaars are not under cover as are those of Bokhara, but the contents are quite as varied. Hides are a speciality of those parts—Astrakhans, prepared from the covering of the unborn lamb by Arabs, beautiful silky goats’ skin, and nearly every kind of furs are to be purchased at very moderate prices. An English merchant, who has been engaged for three years in this trade, avers that the profits exceed 40 per cent. The manufactures of silk and cotton are still important, in spite of the competition of Russian looms.

According to local tradition, the art of weaving dates back to the expulsion of our first parents from Paradise. The Archangel Michael, in pity for their forlorn state, brought Adam a supply of cotton, and taught Eve how to fashion the fibre into cloth. Russian yarn has now entirely banished this native product. Before use it is boiled with soda, dyed, generally with aniline, and sized with wheaten starch. The looms are worked by hand, and the largest can turn out muslin nearly 4 yards wide. The wholesale price is 13s. 6d. for ten pieces with an aggregate length of 90 yards. Silk velvets and mixed fabrics are also produced in small factories with very inadequate light and ventilation. Each loom produces 16,000 yards annually, worth about £60, and giving a net profit of £32. Capital fares better than labour; for the journeyman weaver works ten hours a day for a weekly pittance of 4s. 6d. Viticulture is a far more lucrative industry; for Samarkand vineyards are three times as productive as those of any other part of the empire. The out-turn per acre is 134 cwt., as compared with 40 cwt. yielded in the Caucasus and the Crimea. The cost of cultivation is proportionately less, and hardly exceeds £22, as compared with £60 in the western provinces. Thus the area under vines has trebled since the Russians gave Samarkand a just and settled government. In 1895 it had reached 15,000 acres, and is now probably 20 per cent. greater. Attempts have been made of late years to introduce foreign stock; but the native varieties, of which 24 are grown, are more prolific and give produce of greater body.743 The soil selected for vineyards is composed of equal parts of sand and loam. Three hundred and seventy vines are planted to the acre. They begin to yield in their fourth year, and are at their best between the 8th and 25th. The tops are laid in trenches, and covered with earth at the beginning of winter; and when spring comes round they are uncovered and allowed to trail on the ground without the support of poles or trellis-work. The vine requires higher cultivation than any other plant which ministers to our needs or luxury. In Samarkand manure is applied in the proportion of 4 cwt. an acre, and the vineyards are thrice drenched with water. At the end of October the grapes are fit to gather. The return is enormous, and in one district it reaches 26 tons an acre. The bulk of the fruit is dried and exported as kishmish, or raisins. Though the cost of transport by rail makes this delicacy dearer than the Persian product, it commands a higher price; no less than 7300 tons were sent to Russia by rail in 1896.

The manufacture of brandy is a new industry at Samarkand. About 155,000 gallons are made annually for local consumption. The out-turn of wine is on nearly the same scale. In the opinion of French experts, the produce of a Central Asian grape is at least as good as that of the Medoc and Burgundy districts. The wine is of high alcoholic strength, and mellows rapidly. In this costly process, however, large capital is required, and the manufacture languishes in its absence. Casks, bottles, and corks are imported at great expense from Russia; and a reduction of railway rates is urgently called for. We have not yet exhausted the uses of Central Asian grapes. Those which are fit for nothing else are boiled into a syrup which serves to sweeten green tea, ices, and confectionery.744

Samarkand resembles Bokhara in the character of its population, which does not exceed 50,000. The Rigistan is a happy hunting-ground for the ethnologist. Here one may listen unmolested to the professional story-teller, who holds his audience enthralled by oft-repeated tales of ancient chivalry.

There are two classes of public reciters: the maddah, who stands while he relates edifying or amusing anecdotes; and the risalachi, who, seated on the ground, recites tales and legends in verse to a monotonous accompaniment on the two-stringed lute. Among these public entertainers there exists a system of organised applause. Two or three men or boys (very often themselves entertainers taking an interval) sit down at a distance of some ten yards facing the story-teller, and, throughout the entertainment, ejaculate at fixed intervals (as it were punctuating the commas and full stops in the story) such words as hakkan, “of a truth,” and khush, “bravo,” etc.

At the close of every recitation they are warned that “Amin” must be said, and in pronouncing it they place their hands with fingers clasped beneath the chin. Then follows a collection, and as the tiny brass coin rain into the performer’s cap he acknowledges the generosity of each giver by a nicely graduated meed of thanks. The legends of Samarkand which these performers have at their finger-ends are very curious. The popular hero is a Bokharan Amir named `Abdullah, who is credited with most of the ancient buildings of the provinces. Once, so the story goes, he marched against this city with a great army, to crush a rebellious governor, but was foiled by its triple ramparts. He sat down before it and waited in vain for the surrender. At last his troops began to suffer the pangs of hunger; and the Amir himself found provisions running short. One evening, while wandering incognito in the suburbs, he came upon an old woman preparing her evening porridge, which smelt so good that the Amir cast his dignity to the winds and begged permission to share the repast. It was granted, but his impatience did not permit him to wait till the smoking mess was properly served. He thrust a spoon into the pot and conveyed the contents to his mouth, burning that sensitive organ severely. His hostess roared with laughter at his grimaces, and said: “Now thou resemblest `Abdullah! Hadst thou taken the porridge from the edge of the dish, thou wouldst not have suffered thus. So, if our Amir had begun by closely investing Samarkand, and allowed the citizens’ passions to be cooled by hunger, he would not have burnt his fingers as he has done.” The sovereign took the jest to heart, and starved out the rebels. In gratitude to his monitress, he bestowed on her a strip of land on either bank of the Ak Darya in fee simple.

A lofty hill called Chupan Ata, which commands Samarkand on the east, is the subject of another legend. According to tradition, a cruel king invaded Samarkand and pitched his tents on a plain where Chupan Ata now rears its head. Here he waited for three days in order to give the people time to concentrate with their treasures within the city walls. The Samarkandis were then heathen, but the imminence of peril made them turn to the true God. From the ruler downwards all ascended the flat house-roofs and wrestled in earnest prayer for deliverance. Their sight fell on the camp of the enemy, glittering with lights and resounding with martial music. The besieged trembled, for they knew that the morrow was the day fixed for the assault. When the sun rose all was still, and instead of a plain covered, as far as the eye could range, with tents, a mountain raised its head heavenwards. They timidly ventured beyond the walls, but the only trace of life was a husbandman in strange attire sleeping with a spade for his pillow. On being waked he rubbed his eyes, stared around him with astonishment, and asked where he was. Learning that he was in the heart of Asia, he told his interlocutors that he was a Syrian. On the previous evening he had betaken himself to the mountain-side with his spade, for on the morrow his turn for irrigation would come round. Spent with fatigue he had fallen asleep and been wafted 1500 miles, with his farm and the mountain on which it stood! Then the Samarkandis saw that God had hearkened to their prayer, and that their foes lay buried in the bowels of the mountain. Confirmation is found in the fact745 that the conformation of Chupan Ata is the same as that of Syrian hills, and that lethal weapons are often turned up there by the plough. A variation of the legend has it that the Syrian waif belonged to that calling, and was discovered sleeping peacefully among his flock. The hill once bore a three-storeyed observatory, built by the astronomer Ulugh Beg, which has been replaced by a shrine with faience decorations of the patron saint of shepherds. It stands at the edge of the valley of the Zarafshan, which is here crossed by a timber viaduct on the line connecting Samarkand with Andijan and Tashkent. At this point stands a much more curious piece of engineering, which dates back to the time of Timur. At right angles to the new railway line a gigantic brick arch juts into the shallow spreading stream. It is 100 feet in height, and at least as broad; and traces of two similar arches are to be seen in the river-bed beyond. The intention of the designer is not by any means clear. It could hardly have been to throw a roadway over the Zarafshan, which is not navigable, and would not require a bridge more than twenty feet in height. In the opinion of savants, this huge work was built to serve as a regulation of the current, forcing a certain proportion of the water into a channel reserved for the exclusive use of Bokhara, which is entirely at the mercy of Samarkand in the matter of irrigation.

The administration of Samarkand offers much interesting material for study. We see in Transcaspia a system of local government imposed on the unsophisticated Turkomans. At Bokhara we observe the rules on which the paramount Power conducts its relations to the ruler and people of a protected state. It remains to sketch the means taken by our rivals in Asia to improve a mechanism evolved in a comparatively civilised community.

Samarkand is a province of Turkestan, and under the control of the governor-general at Tashkent. It embraces the four districts of Samarkand proper, Katta Kurgan, Jizak, and Khojend. The first-named has an area of 12,300 square miles, with a population of rather more than 300,000. It is administered by a chief who is a military officer of field rank, aided by a personal assistant.746 Under him are officers styled pristas, in charge of subdivisions, which are again split up into volosts, or groups of 2000 to 2500 houses, governed by officers termed volostnois. Every village in the volost has its mayor (starshina). The duties of this class of officials are purely executive, and confined to the repression of crime, the execution of judicial decrees, and the collection of revenue. They form, too, the police force. On the occurrence of an offence it is reported to the starshina, who sends information to the volostnoi. An investigation follows, and, should the charge be considered prim facie true, it is reported to one of the two judges of instruction stationed at Samarkand. These officers are subordinate to the Ministry of Justice at St. Petersburg, and have charge of all steps in criminal inquiries up to the actual trial. When their work is complete the case comes before the judge of the peace, who is also an officer of the Ministry of Justice, and is disposed of under the Russian criminal code. Civil causes in which either party is a foreigner are tried by this functionary, whose tribunal is also that for suits referred to him by both litigants, though both may be natives of Turkestan. The ordinary tribunals for this latter are those of the Kazis—native judges stationed at the volost headquarters, who are guided in their decisions by the Mohammedan law. The executive officials are also responsible for the collection of revenue. Its chief source is the land tax, for Samarkand was, before its conquest, a province of Bokhara, and the state in all Mohammedan countries is theoretically the owner of the soil. In this department things are not yet on a sound footing. When the Russians assumed the administration of the country they were compelled to trust to the information as to the demand from each villager furnished by the officers of the late Government. The statistics thus obtained were, of course, vitiated by the corruption of public servants universal throughout the East;747 but they still form the basis of the annual demand which is assessed collectively on each village by the district chief, and paid into the treasury by the starshinas. The rate ranges, with the nature of the soil and the facilities for irrigation, between 2s. and 3s. 4d. per acre. The Russians are therefore in much the same predicament as were the English masters of Bengal in 1793, when the annual demand was crystallised for ever by that gigantic fiscal blunder, the Permanent Settlement. They possess the advantage of having a free hand; and for several years past a commission has been incubating a scheme adjusting the burdens on land with some regard to its actual produce.748 The imposts on merchandise and the poll-tax levied on non-Musulmans under the old rÉgime have been abolished, and traders are classified in guilds according to the scale of their operations, and pay a licence tax on a graduated scale. Irrigation has been left in native hands, and every village has its ak-sakal (white-beard), or superintendent, who has the power to demand the service of the entire male population for work on the canals.749 Vernacular education has not made much progress since the conquest; and the system is subject to the same defects as those which render Bokhara a hotbed of fanaticism. Many years ago an attempt was made by Government to introduce the study of Russian; but priestly influence ran counter to the reform, and the classes were poorly attended. An administrative order was, however, issued in 1897 which made a knowledge of the conqueror’s tongue obligatory on candidates for the posts of volostnoi and kazi; and self-interest has already modified the popular attitude towards the innovation. Those who wish well to Russian rule must see to it that the pendulum is not allowed to swing in the opposite direction. No greater mistake could be made than to force a superficial study of Russian on classes rendered unfit to profit by it by social status or inherited defect.