XXV.
FROM SAMARKAND TO HERAT.
I did not remain long with my new fellow-travellers from the Khanate of Kokhand. But I attached myself all the more closely to a young mollah from Kungrat by the name of Ishak, who wished to go with me to Mecca. He was a kind-hearted youth, as poor as myself, and looking upon me as his master, he was always ready to serve and oblige me.
The road from Samarkand follows the direction of the road to Bokhara up to the hill whence we saw the city for the first time. The next day found us already in the desert. In truth, however, compared to the other deserts through which I had passed, it might have been more fitly denominated an extensive grassy plain or a prairie. One meets here everywhere with herdsmen, owing to the numerous wells around which nomadic Uzbegs have their tents erected. The wells are for the most part very deep, and near them are tanks forming reservoirs for water, of stone or wood, at which the cattle are watered. To avoid the fatiguing labour of drawing water from the wells with buckets which are exceedingly small, the herdsmen attach the rope of the bucket to the saddle of a mule, passing it over a pulley, making thus the mule perform the work of drawing water. Quite a picturesque scene is presented by such a well, the flocks of sheep wandering or resting near it with their serious shepherds, and I was forcibly reminded by it of similar sights in the Lowlands of Hungary. On the second day after our departure we met a caravan coming from Karshi, near one of the wells. One of this caravan, a young woman who had been sold by her husband to an old Tadjik, and had discovered the infamous transaction after she reached the desert, was tearing her hair, bitterly wailing and crying, and upon catching sight of me she frantically rushed up to where I stood and exclaimed: "My hadji, thou hast read books: where is it written that a Mussulman may sell his wife, the mother of his children?" In vain I told the Tadjik that to do so was to commit a grievous sin, he only composedly smiled; the judge at Karshi apparently not having shared my views, the buyer felt quite sure as to the validity of the bargain.
We proceeded but slowly owing to the excessive heat, and it took two days and three nights to reach Karshi. Nakhsheb was the ancient name of Karshi, and as a city it ranks second in the Khanate of Bokhara in extent and commercial importance. I went in search of an Uzbeg by the name of Ishan Hassan, to whom my friends had given me a letter of introduction. I found him and was very cordially received by him. He advised me to buy an ass, cattle being very cheap in Karshi, and to purchase with my remaining money knives, needles, thread, glass beads, Bokhara-made pocket-handkerchiefs, and particularly carnelians brought here from India, and to trade with these articles amongst the nomadic people we should meet along our road. All the hadjis do the same thing. In exchange for a needle or a couple of glass beads you get bread and melons enough to last a whole day. I saw that the good man was right, and went on the very same day with the Kungrat mollah to make the intended purchases. One half of my khurdjin was full of my manuscripts, mostly of literary and historical contents, which I bought in the bazaar of Bokhara; the other half was used by me as a storehouse for my wares, and thus I became at once an antiquarian, a dealer in fashionable articles, a hadji and a mollah, deriving an additional source of income from the sale of benedictions, nefesses, amulets, and similar wonderful articles.
After a stay of three days I left, in company of the mollah Ishak and two other hadjis, for Kerki, about fifty-six miles distant from Karshi. After three days' travelling we reached the Oxus in the morning, at a place where there was a small fort on our side of the shore, and on the opposite side on a steep height the frontier fort surrounded by the small town of Kerki. The Oxus flowing between the two forts is here nearly twice the width of the Danube near Budapest, but owing to its rapid current, which drove us considerably out of our course, it took us fully three hours to cross over. TAKEN FOR A RUNAWAY SLAVE.The boatmen were very clever, and would not accept anything of us for ferrying us over. But scarcely had we placed our feet on the shore when the deryabeghi (the river officer) of the governor of Kerki stopped us, accusing us of being runaway slaves intending to return to Persia, and compelling us to follow him immediately with all our luggage and things to the castle of the governor. My surprise and terror may be easily imagined. Three of my companions whose speech and features at once betrayed their origin were allowed to go free before long. I did not fare quite so well; things would not pass off so smoothly with me, they making all kinds of objections; but finally I flew into a rage, and exchanging the Turco-Tartar dialect I had been using for that of Constantinople, I emphatically insisted either upon having my passport shown to the Bi (governor) at once, or upon being taken into his presence.
At the noise I made the toptchubashi (an officer of artillery), who was of Persian origin, said something in a whisper to the deryabeghi. Then he took me aside, and telling me that he had gone several times to Stambul, from Tebriz, his native city, he knew very well persons belonging to Roum, and I might be perfectly quiet, as no harm would befall me.
Every stranger must submit to this searching investigation; for as slaves who had become free and were returning home had to pay a tax of two gold pieces at the border, there were many of them who resorted to all kinds of subterfuges and disguises to steal unrecognized over the frontiers. The servant who had taken my passport to the governor soon returned, not only bringing back with him my papers, but a present of five tenghis which the governor had sent me.
I was very sorry to learn that Mollah Zeman, the chief of the caravan going from Bokhara to Herat, was not expected to make his appearance before the lapse of eight or ten days. I consequently left in company of Mollah Ishak to go amongst the Ersari-Turkomans living in the neighbourhood. Here I entered once the house of Khalfa Niyaz, an ishan who had inherited sanctity, science, and authority from his father. He had a cloister of his own, and had obtained a special license from Mecca to recite sacred poems. In reading, he always had a cup filled with water placed by his side, and would spit into the water whenever he had finished reading a poem. The saliva thus permeated by the sanctity of the words he would then sell as a miraculous panacea to the highest bidder.
As we had an abundance of leisure, my faithful mollah and I, we visited the Lebab-Turkomans (viz., Turkomans on the bank). We were given quarters in the yard of an abandoned mosque. In the evening hours the Turkomans would bring with them one of their poetical tales, or a poem out of their collections of songs, and I was in the habit of reading it out aloud to them. It was delightful to have them sitting around me in the stilly night within view of the Oxus rolling onward, they listening to me with rapt attention while I read about the brave feats of one of their heroes.