In four days and a half going down the Oxus [Footnote 36] I reached Kungrat, and the return journey by land took us twice the time. The two banks, with the exception of that part of the left one where, opposite to Kanli, rises the mountain Oveis Karayne, is flat, and on an average well cultivated and peopled. Between Kanli [{142}] and Kungrat there is a desert, lasting three days' journey; the opposite bank, on the contrary, particularly where the Karakalpak dwell, is covered by primaeval forests. On my return to Khiva I found my friends tired of waiting; they urged me to quit Khiva the very next day, as the heat, which was increasing in intensity, inspired just apprehensions for our journey to Bokhara. I went to take my leave of Shükrullah Bay, to whom during my stay in Khiva I had been under so much obligation. I was really deeply moved to see how the excellent old man tried to dissuade me from my purpose, sketching to me the most horrible picture of Bokhara Sherif (noble Bokhara). He pictured to me the policy of the Emir as suspicious and treacherous--a policy not only hostile to Englishmen but to all foreigners,--and then he told me as a great secret, that a few years before even an Osmanli, sent by the late Reshid Pasha to Bokhara as a military instructor, had been treacherously murdered by order of the Emir, when he was desirous, after a stay of two years, to return to Stamboul.
[Footnote 36: The upward navigation of the Oxus from Kungrat to Khiva takes 18 days.]
This warm dissuasion of Shükrullah Bay, who at first had the most confident belief in my Dervish character, surprised me extremely. I began to think, 'this man, if he is not sure of my identity, still having seen more of me, has penetrated my incognito, and now perhaps has some widely different idea and suspicion.' The excellent old man had in his younger days been sent in 1839 to Herat to Major Todd, and had also been several times to St. Petersburg. He had often, as he told me, frequented in Constantinople the society of the Frenghi, a source of great pleasure to him. What if, entertaining some idea of our real way of thinking--of our efforts in a scientific direction-- [{143}] he had from some peculiar feeling of benevolence taken me under his protection? When I bade him farewell I saw a tear in his eye--a tear, who knows by what feeling dictated?
[Author's last Benediction of the Khan.]
To the Khan also I gave a final blessing. He enjoined me to return by Khiva, for he wanted to send an envoy with me to Constantinople, to receive at the hands of the new Sultan the usual investiture of his Khanat. My reply was 'Kismet,' which means that it was a sin to think of the future. We shall see what fate had in store. Bidding farewell to all my friends and acquaintances, I left Khiva, after having sojourned there nearly a month.
CHAPTER IX.
| FROM KHIVA TO BOKHARA. |
| DEPARTURE FROM KHIVA FOR BOKHARA |
| FERRY ACROSS THE OXUS |
| GREAT HEAT |
| SHURAKHAN |
| MARKET |
| SINGULAR DIALOGUE WITH KIRGHIS WOMAN ON NOMADIC LIFE |
| TÜNÜKLÜ |
| ALAMAN OF THE TEKKE |
| KARAVAN ALARMED RETURNS TO TÜNÜKLÜ |
| FORCED TO THROW ITSELF INTO THE DESERT, 'DESTROYER OF LIFE' |
| THIRST DEATH OF CAMELS |
| DEATH OF A HADJI |
| STORMY WIND |
| PRECARIOUS STATE OF AUTHOR |
| HOSPITABLE RECEPTION AMONGST PERSIAN SLAVES |
| FIRST IMPRESSION OF BOKHARA THE NOBLE. |
Et nous marchions à l'heure de midi traversant les souffles brûlants et empestés qui mettent en fusion les fibres du cerveau. . .
Je m'enfonce dans une plaine poussièreuse dont le sable agité ressemble à un vêtement rayé .--Victor Hugo, from Omaïah ben Aiëdz.