I heard from good authority that the death of the Emir Nasrullah was solely owing to a paroxysm of rage at the constant ill success that attended his campaigns against Khokand, and the unprecedented obstinacy with which the city of Sheri-Sebz [Footnote 142] resisted, for although he had taken the field thirty times against it, and had been then besieging it six months, it was all without effect. Upon this occasion his adversary was a certain Veliname, whose sister he had married to obtain by the connection a faithful vassal in the brother of his wife. Now it happened that the news of the capture reached the Emir when on his deathbed; although half senseless, the tyrant ordered his rebel brother-in-law to be put to death with all his children. But as circumstances prevented him from feasting his eyes with that spectacle of blood, in the evening, a few hours before his death, he summoned to his presence his wife, the sister of Veliname; the unhappy woman, who had borne him two children, trembled, but the dying Emir was not softened--she was executed close to his couch, and the abominable tyrant breathed his last breath with his glazing eye fixed upon the gushing blood of the sister of his detested enemy.
[Footnote 142: Sheri-Sebz, previously named Kesh, is the native city of Timour, and renowned for the warlike character of its inhabitants.]
B.
THE WAR BETWEEN BOKHARA AND KHOKAND WAGED BY THE EMIR MOZAFFAR-ED-DIN.
In the meantime affairs in Khokand had taken a different turn. Musselman Kul had been put to death, and in his place Khudayar Khan had been raised to the 'white felt.' At his first accession, the latter showed great ardour and activity. He was engaged victoriously in several combats with the Russians, who were pressing on from the Jaxartes. Whilst he was thus occupied on the frontiers, Mollah Khan was nominated Khan in his capital; but as he had only inconsiderable forces to oppose to those of his rival, he thought it better to fly to Bokhara, and seek the aid of the Emir Mozaffar-ed-din for the recovery of his throne. This prince, immediately after the death of his father, besieged the city Sheri-Sebz, which, in spite of the vengeance of which it had already been the object, and the blood that had flowed there, was again in open revolt. He was before the walls of Tchiragtchi, a stronghold belonging to Sheri-Sebz, when the intelligence reached him that the governor of Oratepe, a native of Sheri-Sebz, had allied himself with the Khokandi, and that Mollah Khan was already marching at their head against Djizzak.
The Emir Mozaffar-ed-din, urged on by his guest and protegé , Khudayar Khan, could not restrain himself. He abandoned his position before Sheri-Sebz, although he was pressing it hard, and rushed at the head of 15,000 men against Khokand, whose Khan (Mollah Khan) threatened, from his acknowledged ability, to prove a formidable antagonist. Adopting the unscrupulous policy of his father, Mozaffar-ed-din caused him to be assassinated in a conspiracy which the Emir had himself set on foot. In the great confusion that ensued, he next made himself master of the capital, and then set Khudayar at the head of the government, after the legitimate heir, Shahmurad, had fled to the Kiptchaks.
Khudayar Khan had scarcely exercised four months the royal functions so new to him, when the Kiptchak, with Shahmurad at their head, assailed, and forced him a second time to fly to Bokhara. The Emir, seeing himself so slighted and mocked at in his character as protector, hastily assembled all his forces to wreak his vengeance upon Khokand in some exemplary manner; and after having sent on before him Shahrukh Khan with 40,000 men, and Mehemmed Hasan Bey with thirty pieces of artillery, he hastened after them himself, escorted by a few hundred Tekke, with the fixed design not to return until he had reduced under his sceptre all as far as the frontiers of China.
In Khokand the firm intention of the young Emir was well known, so also was his cupidity; and he met, accordingly, with the most resolute resistance. The Ulemas pronounced the Emir, who was invading their country, to be Kafir (an unbeliever), and preached against him the Djihad (war of religion). All flew to arms, but in vain. The Emir attached to his own dominions not only Khokand, but all the territory as far as the Chinese frontiers. The greatest resistance which he met with was from the Kiptchaks, under their chieftain Alem Kul. These were attacked by the Turkomans; and the combat that ensued must have proved highly interesting, for two of the most savage of the primitive races of Tartary stood there face to face. After the death of the Alem Kul in the battle, his wife set herself at the head of the horde. The war was continued; but at last a peace was made with the [{396}] Emir. The Khanat, from which the conqueror had sent all the cannon, and immense stores of arms and treasures, to Bokhara, was divided into two parts. Khokand fell to the share of Sahmurad, the darling of the Kiptchaks, Khodjend to Khudayar Khan. Mozaffar-ed-din returned to his capital. I met him on his way thither on August 15, 1863.