Part 11 (1/2)
Where the sand comes entirely to an end, three different ways are visible: the first (22 miles long) pa.s.ses by Karakol; the second (18 miles), through the plain to the immediate vicinity of Bokhara; the third (20 miles) traverses the mountains where water is to be met with, but it is inaccessible to camels on account of its occasional steepness. We took, as it had been previously determined, the middle route, the shortest, particularly as we were animated by the hope of finding water amongst those who tended their flocks there. Towards evening we reached fountains that had not yet been visited this year by the {162} shepherds; the water, undrinkable by man, still refreshed our beasts. We were ourselves all very ill, like men half dead, without any animation but that which proceeded from the now well-grounded hope that we should all be saved!
[Precarious State of Author; Hospitable Reception amongst Persian Slaves]
I was no longer able to dismount without a.s.sistance; they laid me upon the ground; a fearful fire seemed to burn my entrails; my headache reduced me almost to a state of stupefaction. My pen is too feeble to furnish even a slight sketch of the martyrdom that thirst occasions; I think that no death can be more painful. Although I have found myself able to nerve myself to face all other perils, here I felt quite broken. I thought, indeed, that I had reached the end of my life.
Towards midnight we started, I fell asleep, and on awaking in the morning found myself in a mud hut, surrounded by people with long beards; in these I immediately recognised children of 'Iran.' They said to me: 'Shuma ki Hadji nistid' (You, certainly, are no Hadji). I had no strength to reply. They at first gave me something warm to drink, and a little afterwards some sour milk, mixed with water and salt, called here 'Airan:' that gave me strength and set me up again.
I now first became aware that I and my other fellow-travellers were the guests of several Persian slaves, who had been sent hither in the middle of the wilderness, at a distance of ten miles from Bokhara, to tend sheep; they had received from their owners only a scanty supply of bread and water, so that they might find it impossible to make such a provision as should help them to flee away through the wilderness.
And yet these unfortunate exiles had had the magnanimity to share their store of water with their arch-enemies, {163} the Sunnite Mollahs! To me they showed peculiar kindness, as I addressed them in their mother tongue. Persian, it is true, is spoken also in Bokhara, but the Persian of the Irani is different from the former.
I was much touched to see amongst them a child five years old, also a slave, of great intelligence. He had been, two years before, captured and sold with his father. When I questioned him about the latter, he answered me confidingly. 'Yes; my father has bought himself (meaning paid his own ransom); at longest I shall only be a slave two years, for by that time my father will have spared the necessary money.' The poor child had on him hardly anything but a few little rags, to cover his weak little body; his skin was of the hardness and colour of leather. I gave him one of my own articles of attire, and he promised me to have a dress made out of it for himself.
The unhappy Persians gave us besides a little water to take with us. I left them with a mixed feeling of grat.i.tude and compa.s.sion. We started with the intention of making our next station at Khodja Oban, a place to which pilgrims resort to visit the grave of a saint of the same name: it was, indeed, out of our road, lying a little to the north, still, as Hadjis, we were bound to proceed thither. To the great regret of my companions we lost our way at night between the hills of sand that are on the margin of the desert, and out of the middle of which Khodja Oban projects like an oasis; and when, after a long search, the day broke we found ourselves on the bank of a lake full of sweet water. Here terminated the desert, and with it the fear of a death from thirst, robbers, wind, or other hards.h.i.+ps. We had now come positively to the frontiers of Bokhara, properly so called; and when, {164} after two leagues' journey, we reached Khakemir (the village where the Kervanbas.h.i.+ resided), we found ourselves already in the middle of a country tolerably well cultivated. The whole district is watered by ca.n.a.ls connected with the river Zereshan.
In Khakemir there are but 200 houses. It is only two leagues distant from Bokhara. We were obliged to pa.s.s the night here, that the tax-collector (Badjghir) and reporter (Vakanuvisz), informed of our arrival in accordance with the law, might be in a position to complete their report of search and examination outside the city.
The very same day a messenger went express, and the following one, very early in the morning, arrived three of the Emir's officers, with faces full of official dignity and importance, to levy upon us the imposts and duties, but more especially to learn tidings concerning the adjoining countries. They first began to overhaul our baggage. The Hadjis had, for the most part, in their knapsacks holy beads from Mecca, dates from Medina, combs from Persia, and knives, scissors, thimbles, and small looking-gla.s.ses from Frenghistan. And although my friends declared that the Emir, 'G.o.d grant him to live 120 years,'
would never take any customs from Hadjis, the collector did not in the slightest degree allow himself to be diverted from his functions, but wrote down each article separately. I remained, with two other mendicants, to the last. When the official looked at my face he laughed, told me to show my trunk, 'for that _we_' (meaning, probably, Europeans, as he took me for one) 'had always fine things with us.' I happened to be in excellent humour, and had on my Dervish or fool's cap. I interrupted the cunning Bokhariot, saying 'that I had, {165} in effect, some beautiful things, which he would see himself when he came to examine my property, movable and immovable.' As he insisted upon seeing everything, I ran into the court, fetched my a.s.s, and led it to him up the stairs and over the carpets into the room; and after having introduced it, amid the loud laughter of my companions, I lost no time in opening my knapsack, and then showed him the few rags and old books which I had collected in Khiva. The disappointed Bokhariot looked round him in astonishment, demanding if I really had nothing more.
Whereupon Hadji Salih gave him explanations as to my rank, my character, as well as the object I had in view, in my journey; all of which he noted down carefully, accompanying the act with a look at me and a shake of the head full of meaning. When the collector had finished with us, the functions of the Vakanuvisz (writer of events) began. He first took down the name of each traveller with a detailed description of his person, and then whatever information or news each might have it in his power to give. What a ridiculous proceeding--a long string of questions respecting Khiva, a land of kindred language, origin, and religion with Bokhara; their frontiers having been for centuries and centuries coterminous, and their capitals lying only a few days' journey distant from each other.
[First Impression of Bokhara the n.o.ble.]
Everything was in order, only some difference of opinion arose as to the quarter in the capital where we should first put up. The collector proposed the custom-house, hoping, at least, there to be able to squeeze something out of us, or to subject me to a stricter examination. Hadji Salih (for the latter, possessing much influence in Bokhara, now took the lead in the {166} karavan) declared, on the contrary, his purpose to put up in the Tekkie; and we started at once from Khakemir, and had only proceeded half-an-hour through a country resplendent with gardens and cultivated fields, when Bokhara Sherif (the n.o.ble, as the Central Asiatics designate it) appeared in view, with, amongst some other buildings, its clumsy towers, crowned, almost without exception, by nests of storks. [Footnote 42]
[Footnote 42: In Khiva nightingales abound, but there are no storks; the reverse is the case at Bokhara, in which there is not a single tower or other elevated building where we do not see birds of the last-named description, sitting, like single-legged sentinels, upon the roofs. The Khivite mocks the Bokhariot upon this subject, saying, 'Thy nightingale song is the bill-clapping of the stork.']
At the distance of about a league and a half from the city we crossed the Zerefshan. It flows in a southerly direction, and, although its current is tolerably strong, is fordable by camels and horses. On the opposite side was still visible the _tete du pont_ of a once handsomely-built stone bridge. Close to it stood the ruins of a palace, also of stone. I was told that it was the work of the renowned Abdullah Khan Sheibani. Taken altogether, there are, in the immediate environs of the capital of Central Asia, few remains of her former grandeur.
{167}
CHAPTER X.
BOKHARA RECEPTION AT THE TEKKIE, THE CHIEF NEST OF ISLAMISM RAHMET BI BAZAARS BAHA-ED-DIN, GREAT SAINT OF TURKESTAN SPIES SET UPON AUTHOR FATE OF RECENT TRAVELLERS IN BOKHARA BOOK BAZAAR THE WORM (RISHTE) WATER SUPPLY LATE AND PRESENT EMIRS HAREM, GOVERNMENT, FAMILY OF REIGNING EMIR SLAVE DEPOT AND TRADE DEPARTURE FROM BOKHARA, AND VISIT TO THE TOMB OF BAHA-ED-DIN.
_Within earth's wide domains Are markets for men's lives; Their necks are galled with chains, Their wrists are cramped with gyves._
_Dead bodies, that the kite In deserts makes its prey; Murders that with affright Scare school-boys from their play!_ --Longfellow.
[Bokhara; Reception at the Tekkie, the Chief Nest of Islamism]
The road led us to the Dervaze Imam, situated to the west, but we did not pa.s.s through it, because, as our Tekkie lay to the north-east, we should have been forced to make our way through all the throngs in the bazaar. We preferred, therefore, to take a circuitous route along the city wall. This we found, in many places, in a ruinous state. Entering by the gate called Dervaze Mezar, we speedily reached the s.p.a.cious Tekkie. It was planted with fine trees, formed a regular square, and had forty-eight cells on the ground floor. {168} The present Khalfa (princ.i.p.al) is grandson of Khalfa Husein, renowned for his sanct.i.ty, and the Tekkie itself is named after him. The estimation in which his family stands is shown by the fact that his relative, above mentioned, is Imam and Khatib (court priest) of the Emir, an official position which made me not a little proud of my host. Hadji Salih, who was a Murid (disciple) of the saint, and was consequently regarded as a member of the family, presented me. The respectable 'Abbot,' a man of gentle demeanour and agreeable exterior, whom his snow-white turban and summer dress of fine silk well became, received me in the warmest manner, and, as I maintained for half-an-hour a conversation couched in tumid and far-fetched language, the good man was overjoyed, and regretted that the Badewlet [Footnote 43] (his Majesty the Emir) was not in Bokhara, that he might immediately present me.
[Footnote 43: Badewlet means properly 'the prosperous one.']
[Rahmet Bi]
He a.s.signed me a cell to myself in the place of honour, that is where I had, as neighbours, on one side a very learned Mollah, and on the other Hadji Salih: this establishment was filled with personages of celebrity. I had fallen, without having remarked it, upon the chief nest of Islamite fanaticism in Bokhara. The locality itself, if I could but accommodate myself to its spirit, might turn out the best and safest guarantee against all suspicions, and save me all disagreeable scenes with the civil authorities. The reporter had returned my arrival as an event of importance; the first officer of the Emir, Rahmet Bi, who during his master's campaign in Khokand commanded in Bokhara, had directed that the Hadjis should, that very day, be questioned concerning me; {169} but in the Tekkie the Emir's orders were inoperative, and so little respect was entertained for the investigation, that no communication at all was made to me on the subject. My good friends replied in the following manner to the doubts of laymen:--'Hadji Res.h.i.+d is not only a good Musselman, but at the same time a learned Mollah; to have any suspicion of him is a mortal sin.' But, in the meantime, they advised me how I was to act, and it is solely to their counsels and invaluable suggestions that I can ascribe my having entirely escaped mishap in Bokhara; for, not to mention the sad ends of those travellers who preceded me to this city, I have found it a most perilous place, not only for all Europeans, but for every stranger, because the Government has carried the system of espionage to just as high a pitch of perfection as the population has attained pre-eminence in every kind of profligacy and wickedness.
[Bazaars]
I went next morning, accompanied by Hadji Salih and four others of our friends, to view the city and the bazaars; and although the wretchedness of the streets and houses far exceeded that of the meanest habitations in Persian cities, and the dust, a foot deep, gave but an ign.o.ble idea of the 'n.o.ble Bokhara,' I was nevertheless astonished when I found myself for the first time in the bazaar, and in the middle of its waving crowd.