XXII.
FROM KHIVA TO BOKHARA.
We met for our departure in the cool and shady yard of the Toshebaz. The charity and liberality of the inhabitants of Khiva was manifestly traceable in the altered appearance of the mendicant caravan. The moth-eaten fur caps which we had adopted amongst the Turkomans had given way to turbans of spotless white. The conglomeration of tatters, dignified by the name of apparel, was gone, and the very travelling outfit was far superior to our former holiday apparel. Our bags were filled to bursting, and we experienced great satisfaction in observing that even the poorest of us was provided with an ass, however diminutive. The time for carrying black flour with me was now over; its place was supplied by white cakes, and my store contained such luxuries as rice, butter and sugar. The only article I would not change was my dress. I had been presented with a shirt, it is true, but I did not put it on, thinking that such superfluities, for which the time had not come yet, might have an effeminate effect upon me. It was rather late in the afternoon of the 2nd of June when, having happily got over the never-ending benedictions and farewell embraces, our party left Khiva. The over-zealous ran after us for half an hour, shedding copious tears and saying to us in taking leave: "Who knows when Khiva will be again so fortunate as to have so many pious men for guests within her walls!" Godshe was the name of the small town where we passed the first night. Here we put up for the first time at the kalenterkhane, that is, an inn for the separate and special accommodation of dervishes which it is customary for every larger community to provide. From here to Khanka we uninterruptedly passed through cultivated land. INTOXICATED DERVISHES.In the kalenterkhane at Khanka I found two half-naked dervishes, who were just in the act of abandoning themselves to the indulgence of opium-eating when I entered. They at once asked me to join them, offering me a goodly dose thereof, and were quite astonished to hear me refuse their kind proffer. They were not to be easily baffled in their friendly attentions, and treated me to tea instead. While I drank my tea they swallowed their poppy-seed poison. In half an hour's time the drug had taken effect; they were both in the realms of the happy; but while the face of the one sleeper wore an expression of joy and delight, the agonies of terrible fear were depicted in the countenance of the other.
Towards evening on the day of our departure from Khanka we came to the Oxus. The spring rains must have considerably swelled the volume of its waters, forcing them beyond their ordinary bed; for I found the river much more considerable than I imagined it to be. The yellow water of the Oxus is not so good in its bed as it is in the canals issuing from it, or in its side-branches, where the water, flowing more slowly, is apt to cool off sooner. Where the sand is settling in the Oxus, there the water for sweetness and purity has no rival in the world. Toll must be paid for crossing the Oxus, but the payment of it will in itself not pass a person; one must also be provided with a petek (a license to cross). The hadjis had one passport, in common; I had myself been given a separate one which ran thus: "Be it known to the guards on the frontier and the collectors of customs and tolls that Hadji Mollah Abdur-Reshid Effendi was granted a license. Let nobody molest or interfere with him."
Our transportation across the river commenced at ten o'clock in the forenoon; and it was sundown when we reached the opposite shore. We might have crossed the mighty river itself in half an hour's time, but on its smaller side-branches we ran aground; the sandbanks, every ten minutes, forcing the passengers and animals to disembark in order that the ferry-boat might be pushed off into deeper water, and more time being lost getting on board again. The shipping and the unloading of the asses, particularly the stubborn ones, gave no end of troublesome and hard work; the passengers being compelled, for the most part, to carry the animals bodily from and into the boat. There is one laughable scene before my eyes at this very moment; how tall, rawboned Hadji Yakub packed his little ass on his back, gathering up in his lists the struggling legs of the frightened animal, which meekly leant its head on the neck of the hadji. Our caravan could proceed but very slowly. When we were near Akkamish (white reed), the kervanbashi, two others, and myself, trusting to the speed of our animals, took advantage of the tardy progress of the caravan, and turned aside to visit Shurakhan, where the weekly fair was being held, in order to replenish our provisions.
Shurakhan consists chiefly of those three hundred shops which are open two days a week, and where the permanent inhabitants of the neighbouring country and the nomads happening to camp there, can obtain the necessaries of life. I entrusted my companions with the making of the needful purchases, and sauntered away to the kalenterkhane, outside the place. Here I met again with several dervishes whose frames, reduced to mere skeletons, plainly showed their indulgence in bang (opium prepared from hemp). Bang is most universally used for intoxicating purposes in Khiva, and the sinful indulgence in it by many arises from the fact that the Koran forbidding the use of wine and other spirituous liquors, the transgression of that commandment is punished with death by the government. I returned to the fair to join my friends, but it was with great difficulty that I succeeded in pushing my way through the swarming multitude. Everybody was on horseback, buyers as well as sellers. Kirghiz women on horseback were vending kimiss (a sourish beverage prepared from mare's milk) in large skin jugs, and it was amusing to see with what dexterity they put the mouth of the jug to the lips of their customer, who was on horseback too, without ever spilling a single drop. At the caravan they had been looking out for us with the greatest impatience, and we resumed our march at sunset, for henceforth we were to travel at night only. As we marched on by the light of the moon, the spectacle was indeed entrancing—the moving caravan and its fantastic shadows, upon which the pale moon shed its mysterious silvery light, flanked on the right by the Oxus rolling its darkling waters with a hoarse murmur, on the left the awful desert of Tartary stretching its endless vista. We met with some Kirghiz Nomads on the following day, and I seized the opportunity of addressing a few words to a Kirghiz woman, asking her if she did not weary of this roving gipsy life of hers. "We cannot be so indolent," she answered, "as you mollahs are, and spend the entire day in one place. Man must move about, the sun, the moon, the stars, the water, animals, birds, fish, all are moving; only the dead and the earth lie motionless."
As we were continuing our march along the willow-covered shores of the Oxus, we were met by five merchants from Khiva, on horseback, who had made their way from Bokhara to this point in four days, and who, moreover, brought us the cheering news that the roads were perfectly safe and that most likely we should on the following day meet with the caravan they had left.
A KHIVAN PAIR.It was at the break of day on the 4th of July when we suddenly stumbled upon two men, in an entirely nude state, who in a pitiful voice could only repeat, "A piece of bread! a piece of bread!" and then fainted away. They were at once given some bread, water and mutton fat, and recovering themselves they told us that they were sailors from Hevaves, had been attacked by a band of Tekke-Turkoman robbers, numbering about one hundred and fifty, and had been robbed by them of their boat, their clothing, their bread and everything else they had. "For the love of God," they said, "run or hide, for you are sure to come across them in a couple of hours, and although you are pious pilgrims, they will strip you of everything and leave you naked in the wilderness, for the Kafir (infidel) Tekke is capable of everything."