Travels in Central Asia / Being the Account of a Journey from Teheran Across the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarcand - Ármin Vámbéry

[Footnote 138: According to the account of this affair given by the Khokandi, a strong detachment of Cossacks, after having gone round Hazreti Turkestan from the right bank of the Jaxartes, had advanced towards Tashkend, and on their march were surprised and dispersed by the Khokandi with great loss.]

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As soon as the intelligence of this event was conveyed to Nasrullah, he in the greatest haste, and in still greater anger, called together all his forces and marched against Oratepe. Mehemmed Ali again retreated, and was accompanied by a great part of the inhabitants who feared the incensed Emir; but this time escape was impossible: his enemy followed him step by step until he could retreat no further. In the battle which then took place at Khodjend, he was defeated, and the city became the prize of the conqueror. The Khan again retreated, but, finding himself still pursued and even his capital menaced, he sent a flag of truce to his victorious enemy. A peace was concluded at Kohne Badem, by which Mehemmed Ali bound himself to cede Khodjend with many other places. That such conditions were little calculated to lead to a sincere reconciliation is easily intelligible. The malicious Emir, intending still further to offend his vanquished enemy, named as governor of the conquered province the brother and rival of Mehemmed Ali, who had previously fled to Bokhara. But nevertheless he was here wrong in his calculation. The mother of the two Khokandi princes reconciled them, and before the Emir had got wind of what had occurred, Khodjend and the other cities united themselves again with Khokand, and he had now to measure himself with two enemies instead of one.

The fury of the Bokhariot tyrant knew no bounds, nor is it difficult to understand that his thirst for revenge would prompt him to make extraordinary armaments. In addition to his ordinary army, consisting of 30,000 horsemen and 1,000 Serbaz, he took into his pay 10,000 Turkomans of the Tekke and Salor tribes, and hurrying with forced marches towards [{391}] Khokand, he took Mehemmed Ali so by surprise that he was even obliged to fly from his own capital, but, overtaken and made prisoner near Mergolan, he was, with his brother and two sons, executed ten days afterwards in his own capital. [Footnote 139]After him most of his immediate partisans fell by the hands of the executioners, and their property was confiscated. The Emir returned to Bokhara laden with booty, having first left Ibrahim Bi, a Mervi by birth, with a garrison of 2,000 soldiers in the conquered city.

[Footnote 139: To excuse this act of shame, Nasrullah spread the report that Mehemmed Ali had married his own mother, and had consequently been punished by death.]

Three months had scarcely elapsed when the Kiptchaks, who had until now observed a neutrality, weary of the Bokhariots, took the city, made its garrison prisoners, and set on the throne Shir Ali Khan, son of Mehemmed Ali. [Footnote 140] In order to prevent being a second time surprised as before, the Khokandi now conceived the idea of surrounding a portion of the city, where the residence of the Khan was, with a wall; the plan [{392}] was soon carried out by the forced labour of the prisoners of war, who had formed part of the Emir's garrison. It was to be anticipated that the Emir would seek his revenge; no one, therefore, was surprised to see soon after this occurrence 15,000 Bokhariots, under the conduct of a Khokandi pretender to the throne, an old protegé of Nasrullah, make their appearance before Khokand. But even on the march Musselman Kul (so he was named) appeared to have reconciled himself with his countrymen; the gates of the city were soon opened to him; and although Nasrullah had sent him hither with the promise of making him Khan, his first step was to turn his arms against that prince, and, joining with his countrymen, to put to flight the Bokhariots who had escorted him thither.

[Footnote 140: The genealogy of the reigning house in Khokand, beginning with Mehemmed Ali, is as follows:--]

The Emir, although now four times overreached, still would not give way, but again sent an army under the command of Shahrukh Khan, who already held the rank of commander-in-chief. [Footnote 141] But the latter did not advance beyond Oratepe, for the news that the Emir had fallen sick at Samarcand, and had subsequently returned to Bokhara, put an end to the whole campaign. A few days after the illness had attacked the prince, the world was freed by his death of one of the greatest of tyrants.

[Footnote 141: The infamous Abdul Samed Khan, the murderer of Conolly, Stoddart, and Naselli, had in the meantime been overtaken by a righteous punishment. The Emir, who had sent him to Shehri-Sebz, was at last convinced of his treason, and, not being able to reach him by forcible means, sought to employ artifice to get possession of his person. Abdul Samed evaded his fate a long time, but finally fell into the snare laid for him, and, aware of the presence of the executioner in the ante-room, he rent up his belly with his own poniard, to irritate by his death a master so like himself in character.]