Árminius Vambéry, his life and adventures

by Ármin Vámbéry

AUDIENCE WITH THE KHAN OF KHIVA.

My words seemed to have pleased his Royal Majesty, for he ordered that I should be given twenty gold pieces and a strong ass. I did not accept the money, under the pretext that it was a sin for a dervish to be possessed of money, but accepted the animal, adding, however, the request to select, if possible, a white one, for it was one of that colour which the sacred law prescribed for pilgrimages. I was about to withdraw, when I was asked by the Khan to be at least his guest during the short time I intended to pass at the capital, and to accept during this time from his treasury, daily, two tenghes (a sixpence) for my board. This offer, too, was declined with thanks, and I retired after having given my final benediction. Upon returning, I was greeted most respectfully with selam aleikums (Peace be unto you!) by the people who were thronging the courtyard of the palace and the bazaar. I did not breathe freely until I found myself in safety within the four walls of my cell.

Every feature in the Khan's face betrayed the debauched, worn-out, dull-minded, inhuman tyrant; his eyes were deeply sunken, his lips of a pallid white, and his voice was shaky. I was profoundly thankful for his exceptional kindness to me, and was pleased to think that I now could employ the time I had in wandering through the Khanate to my heart's content without any interference.

There was not much to be seen at the capital itself, and what little there was worthy of note might have been easily looked at in a couple of days. A LION IN KHIVA.But my time was entirely taken up by invitations from the Khan, the government officials and prominent merchants. Since it had become generally known that I was in the good graces of the king, everybody wished me and my dervish companions to be his guests. It was a real torture for me, to have to accept six and even eight invitations a day. I recall with a shudder, to this day, the number of times I had to sit down, early in the morning, between three and four o'clock, to a plate of rice swimming in a gravy of mutton fat. The Toshebaz (the name of the cloister where I was quartered) comprised a mosque and a large water-tank, and was therefore looked upon as a public building, and continually swarming with visitors. This offered me a very good opportunity of observing the dress, the mode of life and all the doings of the Uzbegs, and to become personally acquainted with several of them. The men wear tall pyramid-shaped fur caps on their head, and enormously large boots of Russian leather of shapeless bulk on their feet, besides which their costume consists in summer of only a long shirt. The women wear turbans of immense size, consisting of from fifteen to twenty Russian pocket handkerchiefs rolled one into the other, and are compelled, poor creatures, to drag jars of water during the greatest heat, having on their feet tremendously large boots, and muffled up in their manifold dresses. Often women were stopping at my door asking for a little khakishifa (health-powder) which the pilgrims bring with them from Medina, from the house of the Prophet, and which is used as a medicine against all sorts of ailings; or they would beg for a nefes (holy breath) and give a detailed account of their bodily sufferings. I had, of course, to comply with all requests, and touching the sore place I blew or breathed on it three times. Thereupon the patient heaved a deep sigh, and many of them insisted that they immediately felt relieved from pain. Both I and my hadji friends had reason to be gratified with the brilliant success of our dealing in the holy breath, for I myself earned fifteen gold pieces for the heavenly article.

I soon had occasion to become convinced that the mehter, the Khan's minister, was trying to injure me for no other reason except that he hated Shukrullah Bey, who patronized me. He could not very well doubt my being a Turk, but he endeavoured to make the Khan believe that I had put on the dervishship as a mask merely for some secret mission from the Sultan on which I was now going to Bokhara. Information of his perfidiousness had already reached me, and I was not at all surprised at being again invited to the Khan's court, a few days only after my first audience. A large company was present, and he received me immediately with the question, if it was true that I was versed in worldly knowledge too, and that I could write in a flowery style. He wished me to write something for him in the fashion of Stambul, which he was very desirous to see. I very well knew that the request was made in consequence of the mehter's machinations against me, who enjoyed the reputation of being clever in fine and flowery writing and had made inquiries respecting me of my hadji-companions. I produced my writing materials and wrote as follows: "High, mighty and terrible king and lord! I, thy poorest humblest servant, immersed in thy royal graces, keeping before my eyes the proverb that every fine writer is a fool, have hitherto occupied myself but little with studies of fine writing. On the other hand I recalled that other saying, that every fault becomes a virtue as soon as it pleases the king, and found courage to write down these lines."

These high-sounding titles pleased the Khan very much, but the mehter was too stupid to perceive the drift of my allusions. I was told to sit down and, having been treated with bread and tea, called upon by the Khan to come and talk with him. Politics were, this time, the exclusive topic of our conversation, but I, remaining faithful to the character of a dervish, showed but little interest in the matter, and every word had to be forced out of me. All this while the mehter was attentively listening and keenly scanning the expression of my countenance in the hope of my saying something to justify his suspicions, but it was all to no purpose. The Khan sent me away again with the repeated assurance of his good graces, and told me to draw upon his treasurer for my daily stipend. He ordered a yasaul (a court officer) to take me to the treasurer. I found the treasurer, who paid me at once the sum as directed, singularly employed. He was arranging the khilat (robe of honour), that is, those garments which were destined to be sent to the camp in order to invest with them the heroes, in reward of their bravery. There were four different sorts of silk suits of clothing, all of them the most glaring colours, richly embroidered with flowers in gold; and dividing them into four groups, he called them suits of four heads, suits of twelve heads, suits of twenty and of forty heads. This nomenclature struck me as very odd, all the more so as there was not the slightest trace of a head to be seen on those garments. Instead of answering my question the treasurer told me to meet him in a large public square on the following morning. I was there at the appointed time. FIERCE BARBARISM.I found about a hundred horsemen, who had just arrived from the camp, covered with dust, each of them leading a couple of prisoners, amongst them women and children, who were tied either to the horses' tails or the saddle-bows, each horseman bringing with him, besides, a sack which was thrown across the saddle. As soon as they arrived each of them handed over the prisoners, he had brought with him, as a present to the Khan, or some other grandee of the land; then they removed the sacks from the saddles and taking hold of the two sides of the one end they spilled their contents on the ground as one does with potatoes. But these were human heads, the heads of slaughtered enemies, which were rolling at the feet of the official who wrote down their number. He first carefully counted the number of heads brought by each horseman and then gave a receipt for the same, the servant kicking them meanwhile into a heap. The horsemen galloped away with their receipts, which were drafts upon the treasurer for their respective rewards, in the shape of robes of honour of four, twenty or forty heads.

A ROAD IN CENTRAL ASIA.

The Yasaul who was to take me to the treasurer had, before doing so, another order to attend to; I was therefore obliged to go with him. There were three hundred Tchaudor (a Turkoman tribe) prisoners of war in the third courtyard, and it was in reference to these that the Yasaul had received the Khan's orders. These unfortunate people were all covered with rags, and looked, owing to their fear of death and the starving they had to undergo for days past, like dead men risen from their graves. They were already divided into two groups, those under forty years of age who were fit to be sold as slaves or to be made a present of, and those who owing to their position or advanced age are looked upon as aksakals (graybeards or chieftains), and were subject to the punishments meted out by the Khan. Those of the first class were led away by their escorts, in bands of fifteen tied to each other by iron collars. The second group were anticipating with patient resignation, like sheep taken to the slaughter-house, the horrible fate in store for them. Part of them were sent to the block or to the gallows; eight of them, of an advanced age, lay down on their backs at a hint from the executioner. In this situation their hands and feet were tied, and he, kneeling on their chests, and stabbing with a sharp knife the eyes of each of them, in turn, deprived them of their eyesight. After he had accomplished his cruel task he wiped his bloody knife on the grey beard of one of his victims. It was a dreadful sight to see these miserable people, after the fetters had been removed from their hands and feet, in their groping attempts to rise from the ground. Some knocked their heads against one another, others sank to the ground again from sheer exhaustion, moaning and beating the ground with their feet in their agony. I shall think with horror of this scene as long as I live.

I bestowed upon the Khan my blessing upon taking leave. He asked me to come back by the way of Khiva as he wished to send with me an ambassador to Constantinople, whose mission it would be to obtain from the new Sultan the customary confirmation for himself. I replied that it was sinful to think of the future, but we should see by and by what Kismet (fate) ordains. I then took leave of every one whose acquaintance I had made, or whose friendship I had gained, during my stay of one month in Khiva.