I now first became aware that I and my other fellow-travellers were the guests of several Persian slaves, who had been sent hither in the middle of the wilderness, at a distance of ten miles from Bokhara, to tend sheep; they had received from their owners only a scanty supply of bread and water, so that they might find it impossible to make such a provision as should help them to flee away through the wilderness. And yet these unfortunate exiles had had the magnanimity to share their store of water with their arch-enemies, [{163}] the Sunnite Mollahs! To me they showed peculiar kindness, as I addressed them in their mother tongue. Persian, it is true, is spoken also in Bokhara, but the Persian of the Irani is different from the former.
I was much touched to see amongst them a child five years old, also a slave, of great intelligence. He had been, two years before, captured and sold with his father. When I questioned him about the latter, he answered me confidingly. 'Yes; my father has bought himself (meaning paid his own ransom); at longest I shall only be a slave two years, for by that time my father will have spared the necessary money.' The poor child had on him hardly anything but a few little rags, to cover his weak little body; his skin was of the hardness and colour of leather. I gave him one of my own articles of attire, and he promised me to have a dress made out of it for himself.
The unhappy Persians gave us besides a little water to take with us. I left them with a mixed feeling of gratitude and compassion. We started with the intention of making our next station at Khodja Oban, a place to which pilgrims resort to visit the grave of a saint of the same name: it was, indeed, out of our road, lying a little to the north, still, as Hadjis, we were bound to proceed thither. To the great regret of my companions we lost our way at night between the hills of sand that are on the margin of the desert, and out of the middle of which Khodja Oban projects like an oasis; and when, after a long search, the day broke we found ourselves on the bank of a lake full of sweet water. Here terminated the desert, and with it the fear of a death from thirst, robbers, wind, or other hardships. We had now come positively to the frontiers of Bokhara, properly so called; and when, [{164}] after two leagues' journey, we reached Khakemir (the village where the Kervanbashi resided), we found ourselves already in the middle of a country tolerably well cultivated. The whole district is watered by canals connected with the river Zereshan.
In Khakemir there are but 200 houses. It is only two leagues distant from Bokhara. We were obliged to pass the night here, that the tax-collector (Badjghir) and reporter (Vakanüvisz), informed of our arrival in accordance with the law, might be in a position to complete their report of search and examination outside the city.
The very same day a messenger went express, and the following one, very early in the morning, arrived three of the Emir's officers, with faces full of official dignity and importance, to levy upon us the imposts and duties, but more especially to learn tidings concerning the adjoining countries. They first began to overhaul our baggage. The Hadjis had, for the most part, in their knapsacks holy beads from Mecca, dates from Medina, combs from Persia, and knives, scissors, thimbles, and small looking-glasses from Frenghistan. And although my friends declared that the Emir, 'God grant him to live 120 years,' would never take any customs from Hadjis, the collector did not in the slightest degree allow himself to be diverted from his functions, but wrote down each article separately. I remained, with two other mendicants, to the last. When the official looked at my face he laughed, told me to show my trunk, 'for that we' (meaning, probably, Europeans, as he took me for one) 'had always fine things with us.' I happened to be in excellent humour, and had on my Dervish or fool's cap. I interrupted the cunning Bokhariot, saying 'that I had, [{165}] in effect, some beautiful things, which he would see himself when he came to examine my property, movable and immovable.' As he insisted upon seeing everything, I ran into the court, fetched my ass, and led it to him up the stairs and over the carpets into the room; and after having introduced it, amid the loud laughter of my companions, I lost no time in opening my knapsack, and then showed him the few rags and old books which I had collected in Khiva. The disappointed Bokhariot looked round him in astonishment, demanding if I really had nothing more. Whereupon Hadji Salih gave him explanations as to my rank, my character, as well as the object I had in view, in my journey; all of which he noted down carefully, accompanying the act with a look at me and a shake of the head full of meaning. When the collector had finished with us, the functions of the Vakanüvisz (writer of events) began. He first took down the name of each traveller with a detailed description of his person, and then whatever information or news each might have it in his power to give. What a ridiculous proceeding--a long string of questions respecting Khiva, a land of kindred language, origin, and religion with Bokhara; their frontiers having been for centuries and centuries coterminous, and their capitals lying only a few days' journey distant from each other.
[First Impression of Bokhara the Noble.]
Everything was in order, only some difference of opinion arose as to the quarter in the capital where we should first put up. The collector proposed the custom-house, hoping, at least, there to be able to squeeze something out of us, or to subject me to a stricter examination. Hadji Salih (for the latter, possessing much influence in Bokhara, now took the lead in the [{166}] karavan) declared, on the contrary, his purpose to put up in the Tekkie; and we started at once from Khakemir, and had only proceeded half-an-hour through a country resplendent with gardens and cultivated fields, when Bokhara Sherif (the noble, as the Central Asiatics designate it) appeared in view, with, amongst some other buildings, its clumsy towers, crowned, almost without exception, by nests of storks. [Footnote 42]
[Footnote 42: In Khiva nightingales abound, but there are no storks; the reverse is the case at Bokhara, in which there is not a single tower or other elevated building where we do not see birds of the last-named description, sitting, like single-legged sentinels, upon the roofs. The Khivite mocks the Bokhariot upon this subject, saying, 'Thy nightingale song is the bill-clapping of the stork.']
At the distance of about a league and a half from the city we crossed the Zerefshan. It flows in a southerly direction, and, although its current is tolerably strong, is fordable by camels and horses. On the opposite side was still visible the tête du pont of a once handsomely-built stone bridge. Close to it stood the ruins of a palace, also of stone. I was told that it was the work of the renowned Abdullah Khan Sheibani. Taken altogether, there are, in the immediate environs of the capital of Central Asia, few remains of her former grandeur.