(a.) Internal Relations.

From what I have said in the previous pages upon the subject of the recent history of Khiva and Khokand, one may form a tolerably good idea of the terms upon which the different Khanats live with each other. I will, nevertheless, here collect a few facts to render it easier to appreciate the whole situation.

Let us begin with Bokhara. This Khanat, which, even previously to the introduction of Islamism, played a capital part, has, notwithstanding all the revolutions that have since occurred, always preserved its superiority, and it is regarded at the present day as the cradle of the civilisation of Central Asia. Khokand and Khiva, as well as the other small Khanats to the south, and even Afghanistan itself, have never ceased to recognise its spiritual supremacy. They praise and extol the Mollahs as well as the Islamite learning: of the 'noble Bokhara;' but their love of it extends only thus far, for all attempts made by the Emirs of {431} Bokhara to make use of their spiritual influence to increase their political power have failed of success, not only in the Khanats but even in the respective cities. Near-sighted politicians might infer, from the wars carried on by the Emir Nasrullah with Khiva and Khokand, that Bokhara, from apprehension of a Russian invasion, is disposed to organise an alliance by means gentle or foul. But this is not the case. Bokhara had never any such plans. The campaigns of the Emir are but predatory expeditions; and I am firmly convinced that should Russia proceed actively to carry out her designs on Central Asia, the three Khanats, so far from giving each other any mutual support in the moment of peril, would by their dissensions furnish the common enemy with the very best arms against themselves. Khiva and Khokand are then to be regarded as the constant enemies of Bokhara: still Bokhara does not look for any serious danger in those quarters, and the only rival that she really fears in Central Asia is one that is day by day becoming more formidable to her--Afghanistan.

That this fear reached its highest point during the victorious march of Dost Mohammed Khan towards the Oxus, need scarcely be mentioned. Emir Nasrullah was well aware that he should never be forgiven by the aged Afghan for his infamous jest played upon him, or rather his son, when the latter sought his hospitality in Bokhara; [Footnote 158] and as it was affirmed that Dost Mohammed had been reconciled with the English, and had become even an English mercenary, the apprehension of the Emir was still further increased by the {432} suspicion that he was but a tool in the hands of the English to avenge the bloody deaths of Conolly and Stoddart. Dark, indeed, must the pictures have been of the future destiny of his Khanat, that the Tartar tyrant carried with him into his grave. Not less was the apprehension entertained by his son and successor, the reigning Emir, on his accession. Mozaffar-ed-din was in Khokand when the intelligence reached him of the death of Dost Mohammed. The messenger received a present of 1000 Tenghe; the very same day a festival was improvised, and in the evening the Emir, to complete the number of his legal wives, took to his bed his fourth spouse, the youngest daughter of Khudayar Khan. The great dread has, indeed, passed away, but a feeling of 'respect' continues still to exist; for in Bokhara it is very well known that the Afghans, as fruit of the alliance with England, can now dispose of some thousands of well-drilled regular troops.

[Footnote 158: See Ferrier's 'History of the Afghans,' p. 336.]

Conscious of the superiority of the Afghans, and its own inability to cope with them, it is the policy of Bokhara to do them as much harm as possible by their intrigues. As the Afghans have allied themselves with England it is not difficult to decry them throughout Turkestan as apostates from Islam, and consequently during the last few years the commercial intercourse with Kabul has much diminished. As before mentioned, the Tekke and Salor stand constantly in the pay of Bokhara. At the siege of Herat it was a matter of great surprise to the aged Dost that, in spite of all the presents which he made to them, the Turkomans continued to molest him, and to carry off prisoners even from his own army. He had quite forgotten his real enemies--the gold pieces of Bokhara; for the sympathies of the Turkomans are ever with those that pay best. Thus far of the internal policy of Bokhara.{433}

Khiva has been much enfeebled by the continual wars it has had to maintain with its own tributaries--who are ever ready to renew the contest--the Yomuts, Tchaudors, and Kasaks. The superiority of numbers is on the side of Bokhara; and if the Emir has hitherto been unable to conquer Khiva, the sole cause is the bravery of the Özbeg population. Allahkuli was, as I heard, the first who sent an ambassador to Bokhara and Khokand (probably it was at the suggestion of Conolly), in order to organise a system of mutual aid and defensive alliance against that power of Russia which was ever on the increase. Not only did Bokhara decline to enter into such alliance, but it even evinced a disposition to enter into relations with Russia. Khokand, on the other hand, as well as Shehri Sebz, and Hissar (cities which were then at war with the Emir), declared their readiness to adhere to the proposition of Khiva. But this union never assumed any other form but that of a wish, never was carried into effect; and how difficult its realisation would be is best shown by an ancient Arab proverb, adopted by the Central Asiatics as descriptive of their own national character, and which is to the following effect: 'In Roum are blessings, in Damascus beneficence, in Bagdad science; but in Turkestan nought but rancour and animosity.' [Footnote 159]

[Footnote 159: 'El bereket fi Rum el muruvet fi Sham el ilm fi Bagdad, el togz ve adavet fi Mavera Ül-nehr.']{434}

Khokand, owing to the continual dissensions between the Kiptchaks, Kirghis, and Kasaks, is a prey to the same evil as Khiva. When we add to this the unexampled cowardice of its Özbeg inhabitants, it will no longer appear surprising if, in spite of its having the greatest population and the most extensive territory of the three Khanats, it has, nevertheless, been continually conquered by Bokhara.

(b.) External Relations.

In its political relations with foreign countries, Central Asia, comes only in contact with Turkey, Persia, China, and Russia.

The Sultan of Constantinople is regarded as Chief of Religion and Khalif, and as it was the practice in the middle ages for the three Khanats of Turkestan to receive, as badges of investiture from the Khalif of Bagdad, a sort of court office, this old system of etiquette has not been abandoned even at the present day; and the princes, on their accession to the throne, are wont still to solicit, through the medium of an extraordinary embassy to Stamboul, these honorary distinctions. The Khan of Khiva assumes his rank as Cupbearer, the Emir of Bokhara as Reis (guardian of religion), and the Khan of Khokand as Constable. These courtly functions have always been in high estimation, and I have been informed that the different functionaries fulfil formally once every year the corresponding duties. But the bond that unites them with Constantinople goes thus far, and no farther. The Sultans cannot exercise any political influence upon the three Khanats. The inhabitants of Central Asia, indeed, are in the habit of associating with the word Roum (as Turkey is here called) all the power and splendour of ancient Rome, {435} with which, in the popular opinion, it is identified; but the princes seem to have seen through this illusion, nor would they be disposed to recognise the paramount grandeur of the Sultan unless the Porte associated its 'Firman of Investiture,' or its 'Licences to Pray,' with the transmission of some hundreds or thousands of piastres. In Khiva and Khokand these Firmans from Constantinople continue to be read with some demonstration of reverence and respect. The former Khanat was represented in Constantinople during a period of ten years, by ShÜkrullah Bay; the latter, during the reign of Mollah Khan, had only four years ago an ambassador, Mirza Djan, at the court of the Sultan. These envoys were, in accordance with ancient usages, sometimes maintained for long periods of years at the cost of the State, a charge not altogether convenient as far as its budget for foreign affairs was concerned, but nevertheless altogether essential and necessary to the pretension to a spiritual superiority in Asia.

The Ottoman Empire could only have gained effectual political influence in these remote regions of the East when it was roused from its slumbering Oriental existence before the time of Peter the Great. In its character of Turkish dynasty, the house of Osman might, out of the different kindred elements with which it is connected by the bond of common language, religion, and history, have founded an empire extending from the shore of the Adriatic far into China, an empire mightier than that which the great Romanoff was obliged to employ not only force but cunning to put together, out of the most discordant and heterogeneous materials. {436} Anatolians, Azerbaydjanes, Turkomans, Özbegs, Kirghis, and Tartars are the respective members out of which a mighty Turkish Colossus might have arisen, certainly better capable of measuring itself with its greater northern competitor than Turkey such as we see it in the present days.

With Persia, its nearest neighbour, Khiva and Bokhara interchange ambassadors but rarely. The fact that Persia avows the principles of the Shiite sect, forms in itself just such a wall of separation between these two fanatical nations as Protestantism created between the two great classes of Christians in Europe three centuries ago. To this feeling of religious animosity let us add, also, the traditional enmity between the Iranian and Turanian races that has become matter of history, and we may then easily form an idea of the gulf that separates the sympathies of nations that nature has made inhabitants of adjoining countries. Persia, which, according to the natural course of events, should form the channel to convey to Turkestan the benefits of modern civilisation, is far from producing there even the slightest effect. Powerless to defend even her own frontiers from the Turkomans, the disgraceful defeat she sustained, as before mentioned, at Merv, in an expedition directed, in fact, against Bokhara, has utterly destroyed her prestige. Her power is the object of very little apprehension in the three Khanats, for the Tartars affirm that God gave the Persians head (understanding) and eyes, but no heart (courage).{437}

With respect to China, its political relations with Central Asia are so rare and insignificant, that they scarcely merit any mention. Once, perhaps, in a century a correspondence takes place. The Emirs are in the habit of sending occasionally envoys to Kashgar, but the Chinese, on their side, never venture so far into Turkestan as Bokhara. With Khokand negotiations take place more frequently, but it sends only functionaries of inferior rank to the Musselman barbarians.

With Russia political relations are upon a very different footing. Having been for centuries in possession of the countries that border upon the deserts of Turkestan on the north, an extensive commercial intercourse has rendered Russia more observant of what is going on in the three Khanats than their other neighbours, and has caused a series of efforts of which the only possible termination seems to be their complete occupation. The very obstacles which nature has interposed have rendered, indeed, the progress of Russia slow, but perhaps her progress is only on that account the more certain. The three Khanats are the only members now wanting to that immense Tartar kingdom that Ivan Vasilyevitch (1462-1505) imagined, and which he began actually to incorporate with his Russian dominions, and which, since the time of Peter the Great, has been the earnest though silent object of his successors.

In the Khanats themselves this Russian policy has not passed entirely unnoticed. Princes and people are well aware of the danger that threatens them, and it is only Oriental indifference and religious enthusiasm that lull them in the fond sleep of security. {438} The majority of the Central Asiatics with whom I conversed upon this subject, contented themselves by observing that Turkestan has two strong defences: (1) the great number of saints who repose in its territory, under the constant protection of the 'noble Bokhara;' (2) the immense deserts by which it is surrounded. Few men, and these only merchants, who have resided long in Russia, would regard a change in their government with indifference, for although they have the same detestation for everything that is not Mohammedan, yet, at the same time, they never cease to extol the love of justice and the spirit of order that distinguish the 'Unbelievers.'

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