In spite of the costume, strictly Bokhariot, which I had this day assumed, and of my being so tanned by the sun that even my mother would have had a difficulty in recognising me, I was surrounded, wherever I appeared, by a crowd of inquisitive persons. Ah! how they shook me by the hands, and how they embraced me; how they wearied me to death! An immense turban [Footnote 45] crowned my head, a large Koran hung suspended from my neck;
[Footnote 45: The turban, it is well known, represents the pall that every pious Musselman must bear on his head as a continual memento of death. The Koran only enjoins a pall (Kefen) having a length of 7 ells. But zealots often exceed the measure, and carry about on their heads 4 to 6 such palls, thus making altogether from 28 to 42 ells of fine muslin.]
I had thus assumed the exterior of an Ishan or Sheikh, and was obliged to submit to the corvée which I had so provoked. Still, I had reason to be contented, for the sanctity of my character had protected me from secular interrogations, and I heard how the people about questioned my friends, or whispered their criticisms to each other. 'What extreme piety,' said one, 'to come all the way from Constantinople to Bokhara alone, in order to visit our Baha-ed-din!' [Footnote 46] 'Yes,' said a second, 'and we, too, we go to Mecca, the holiest place of all, to be sure, with no little trouble.' But these people (and he pointed to me) having nothing else to do, their whole life is prayer, piety, and pilgrimage.' 'Bravo! you have guessed it,' I said to myself, delighted that my disguise was becoming so pregnant of consequence. And really I was, during my whole stay in the capital of Turkestan, not once an object of doubt or suspicion to the people, in other respects cunning and malicious enough. They came to me for my blessing; they listened to me when, on the public places, I read to them the history of the great Sheikh of Bagdad, Abdul Kadr Ghilani. They praised me, but not a farthing did I ever get from them; and the semblance of sanctity in this nation presented a singular contrast with the genuine piety and benevolence of the Khivan Ozbegs.
[Footnote 46: Baha-ed-din,--or according to Bokhariot pronunciation, Baveddin--is an ascetic and saint renowned throughout all Islam, the founder of the Nakishbendi order; members of it are to be met with in India, China, Persia, Arabia, and Turkey. He died in 1388, and the convent, as well as the mosque, and space walled in for his grave in the village of Baveddin, were erected by direction of Abdul Aziz Khan in the year 1490.]
[Spies set upon Author; Fate of recent Travellers in Bokhara]
But in playing my part it was not so easy to deceive the Government as the people. Rahmet Bi, whom I before spoke of, not being able to come at me openly, set spies incessantly at work. These, in conversing with me, took care to embrace a variety of subjects, but always came to the subject of Frenghistan, hoping, probably, that I should betray myself by some unguarded expression or other. Perceiving that the twig which they had so limed did not catch its bird, they began to speak of the great pleasure which the Frenghis experience in the 'noble' Bokhara, and how already many of their spies, but particularly the Englishmen, Conolly and Stoddart, had been punished. [Footnote 47] Or they recounted to me the story of the Frenghis who had arrived only a few days before, and had been imprisoned (referring to the unfortunate Italians); how they had brought with them several chests of tea sprinkled with diamond dust, to poison all the inhabitants of the holy city; how they converted day into night, and brought about other infernal strokes of art. [Footnote 48]
[Footnote 47: The sad fate of these two martyrs has continued to remain, as I remarked, a secret even in Bokhara; the most contradictory reports are up to the present day in circulation upon this subject. The reader will readily understand that without betraying my real identity it was impossible for me to put the necessary questions to elicit any fresh information; and the sad event having been so frequently and so fully entered into by Wolff, Ferrier, T. W. Kaye, and others who have written officially and unofficially upon the subject, any notices collected by myself in my journey through Bokhara seem entirely useless and uncalled for.]
[Footnote 48: They, it appears, have recently been liberated.]