After the sun has looked long enough upon this miserable spectacle, the city in all its parts begins slowly to assume animation. The people return in crowds from the mosques; they are encountered on their way by troops of asses laden with wood, corn, grass, large pails of milk, and dishes of cream, pressing from all the city gates, and forcing their way in varied confusion through the narrow and crooked streets. Screams of alarm from the drivers, the reciprocal cries issuing from those who buy and those who sell, mix with that mighty hee-haw of the asses for which Bokhara is renowned. To judge by the first impression, it might be supposed that the different drivers would be obliged to fish out their wood from milk, their grass from cream, charcoal from corn, silkworm-cocoons from skimmed milk. But no, nothing is spilt, nothing thrown down; the drivers are wont to flog each other through in right brotherly fashion, till in the end all arrives in safety at its destination.
At an hour after sunrise the Bokhariot is already seated with his cup of Schirtschaj (milk-tea): this beverage is composed of tea made from bricks of tea in the form of Kynaster, and abundantly flavoured with milk, cream, or mutton fat. This favourite drink of the Tartars, in which large quantities of bread are broken, would be more rightly described as a soup; and although the treat was highly commended to me, I had great difficulty in getting accustomed to it.
After tea begins the day's work, and then one remarks particular activity in the streets. Porters loaded with great bales hurry to the bazaar. These goods belong to the retail dealers, who every evening pack up their shop and transport it to their own house. And then a long chain of two-humped camels that have no burdens are being led into the Karavanserai, destined to convey the produce of Central Asia in every direction. Here, again, stands a heavily-laden caravan from Russia, accompanied on its way by the prying eyes of the custom-house officials and their cohorts, for those long bales contain valuable productions of the industry of the unbelievers, and are destined accordingly to be doubly taxed. Merchants of all religions and from all nations run after the caravan; the newly-arrived wares find customers even before they are unpacked, and at such moments Afghans, Persians, Tadjiks, and Hindoos, seem to get more excited than is the case even with the heroes of the Exchange in Paris, Vienna, or Frankfort-on-the-Maine. The Kirghis camel-driver, fresh from the desert, is the quietest of all; he is lost in astonishment, and knows not whether most to admire the splendour of the mud huts, the colour of the dresses, or the crowds swaying to and fro. But the greatest source of amusement to me was to observe how the Bokhariot, in his quality of inhabitant of a metropolis, jeers at these nomads; how he is constantly on the alert to place the rudeness of the sons of the desert in relief by contrasting it with his own refinement and civilisation. Whilst the bazaar life, with all its alarm, tumult, shrieks, cries, hammering, scolding, and knocking, is in full force, the youths greedy of knowledge swarm about the numerous Medresse (colleges), there to learn to extract from their useless studies lessons of a more exalted kind of stupidity and a more grovelling hypocrisy.
The greatest interest attaches to the primary school posted in the very centre of the bazaar, and often in the immediate neighbourhood of between ten and fifteen coppersmiths' workshops. The sight of this public school, in which a Mollah, surrounded by several rows of children, gives his lessons in reading, in spite of the noise, is really comical. That, in a place where sturdy arms are brandishing hammers, hardly a single word is audible, we may readily suppose. Teachers and pupils are as red in the face as turkey-cocks from crying out, and yet nothing but the wild movement of the jaw and the swelling of the veins indicate that they are studying.[17]
In the afternoon (I speak here of summer-time, for of the winters I have no personal experience), there is more tranquillity both in bazaar and street. On the banks of the water reservoir and of the canals, the true believers are engaged in performing the holy ablutions. Whilst one man is washing his feet from their layer of sweat and dirt, his neighbour uses the same water for his face, and a third does not scruple to quench his thirst with it. Water that consists of more than one hundred and twenty pints is, according to the texts of Islam, blind; which means that filth and dirt lose themselves therein, and the orthodox have the privilege to enjoy every abomination as a thing pure in itself. After a service in the mosques, all becomes again animated; it is the second summons to work during the day, for a period by no means so long. The Mussulman population soon begin their evening holiday, whilst Jews and Hindoos still remain busy. The former, who are for the most part employed in the handicraft of silk dyers, move stealthily and timidly through the streets, their spirits broken by their long and heavy servitude; the latter run about like men possessed, and their bold bearing shows that their home is not far off, and the time not so remote when they also had a government of their own.
It is now within three hours of sunset. The élite of society betake themselves to the Khanka (convent), to enjoy a treat, semi-religious and semi-literary. It consists in the public reading of the Mesnevi, which is declaimed at that time of the day by an experienced reader in the vestibule of the Khanka. This masterpiece of Oriental poesy presents in its contemplations of terrestrial existence much elevation of thought. Versification, language, metaphors, are, in reality, full of charm and beauty; but the audience in Bokhara are incapable of understanding it, and their enthusiasm is all affectation. I often had seated at my side on these occasions a man who, in his excitement, would emit deep-drawn sighs, and even bellow like a bull. I was quite amazed; and when I afterwards made enquiry as to his character, I heard that he was one of the meanest of misers, the proprietor of many houses, yet ready to make obeisance for even the smallest copper coin. No one is at all inclined to adopt the sentiment he hears there as the rule of his life, and still it is regarded as becoming to be deeply impressed by the beauty of the expression. Every one knows that the sighs and exclamation of his neighbour proceed from no genuine emotion, and still all vie in these demonstrations of extraordinary feeling.
Even before the last beams of the setting sun have lost themselves in the wide waste of sand on the west, the Tartar capital begins to repose. As the coolness commences, the stifling clouds of dust subside. Where canals or water-reservoirs are near at hand, they are rendered available—the ground is watered and then swept. The men seat themselves in the shade to wait for the Ezan (evening prayer); that heard, an absolute stillness ensues, and soon all are seated before the colossal dish of pilau, and after they have well loaded their stomachs with this heavy and greasy meal, any desire they may have felt to leave the house is quite extinguished. Two hours after sunset all the thoroughfares are as silent as death. No echo is heard in the darkness of the night but the heavy tread of the night-watchman making his rounds. These men are charged to put in force the strictest police regulations against thieves and seekers of love adventures; they scruple not to arrest any man, however honourable his position, if his foot crosses his threshold after the beat of the tattoo has issued its order that all the world should sleep.
What in this mode of town life so pleases the Bokhariot—what makes him give so marked a preference to his own capital—is not difficult to divine. His mind has become familiarized with a simple mode of living, in which, as yet, little luxury is to be found, and which, in externals, admits not much perceptible distinction between ranks and conditions of men. A universal acquiescence in the same poverty, or to use a more appropriate expression, the absence of different degrees of visible property, makes Bokhara, in the eye of many Asiatics, a favourite residence. I once met a Persian in Teheran who had been a slave in Bokhara fifteen years. And there, in the middle of his fatherland, and surrounded by his relatives, he sighed and pined for the Tartar capital. At the outset he was delighted with the bazaars, filled with articles of European luxury; he contemplated them with childish delight; but later he saw how the wealthier alone made their purchases, and how all despised a man like him, clad in a cotton dress, the costume of the poor. No wonder his wish carried him again back to the spot where, at the time unconscious of his happiness, he was permitted to share great physical comfort, without a thorn in his eye or a pang in his heart.