What need to insist that the spirit in which religion is administered has a powerful influence upon both Government and society? The Iranian blood of the inhabitants (for two-thirds of the inhabitants of the city of Bokhara are Persians, Mervi, and Tadjiks), gives a little semblance of vitality to the bazaars and public places; but what dreariness and monotony in the private houses! Every trace of gladness and cheerfulness is banished from those circles where the influence of religion and the system of surveillance are so tyrannically felt. The Emir's spies force their way even into the sanctuaries of families, and woe to the man who permits himself to offend against the forms of religion or the authority of the sovereign. Ages of oppression have now so intimidated the people that husband and wife, even with no third person present, do not dare to pronounce the Emir's name without adding the words, 'God grant him to live 120 years!' It must be also admitted that the poor people feel no sentiment of hatred for their ruler, because tyrannical caprice does not seem to them as a [{187}] thing to be wondered at, but is rather looked upon in the light of an inevitable attribute of princely dignity. Emir Nasr Ullah, the father of the present ruler of Bokhara, was, in the last years of his life, a cruel profligate, who visited with capital punishment immorality in others, and yet himself violated, in the most shameless manner, the honour of his subjects. Few were the families who escaped unscathed; and still no one permitted even a breath of blame to escape his lips. The reigning Emir, Mozaffar-ed-din Khan, happily, is a well-disposed man; and although he enforces with severity the laws respecting religion and morals, he cannot be charged himself with any crime; hence the unceasing praises and glorifications of which he is the object on the part of his people.
I saw the Emir afterwards in Samarcand; he is in the forty-second year of his age, of middle stature, somewhat corpulent. He has a very pleasing countenance, fine black eyes, and a thin beard. In his youth he acted as governor one year in Karshi, and eighteen in Kermineh, and was always distinguished for the gentleness and affability of his manners. He carries out strictly the political principles of his father, and in his capacity as Mollah and pious Musselman is the declared enemy of every innovation even when he may be convinced of its utility. On his accession he had impressed upon his signet the device
'Government by justice,' [Footnote 57]
and up to the present moment has most scrupulously observed it. Many reports in circulation respecting him confirm the remark. True, according to our view of things, there seems great exaggeration in [{188}] a system of justice which led the Emir to send his Mehter, the second in rank of his officers, to execution, for having (for it was in this form that the report reached Khokand) thrown a dubious glance at one of the royal slaves; nor should a prince, whose device is 'justice,' have conducted himself as the Emir did in Khokand. But all these faults are very pardonable in a Khan of Bokhara. Towards his grandees, who for the most part well merit the treatment they meet with, he is very severe, for although punishing with death even trivial offences in these, he spares the poorer classes. Hence the expression applied to him by the people, and which does him honour, for they say of him that he is 'killer of elephants and protector of mice.' [Footnote 58]
[Footnote 57: 'El Hükm bil Adl.']
[Footnote 58: Filkush and Mushperver.]
It is singular what pains the Emir takes to throw obstacles in the way of his subjects whenever they seek to depart from the simplicity and modesty of their present, in his opinion, happy condition. The introduction of articles of luxury, or other expensive merchandise, is forbidden, as also the employment of sumptuousness in house or dress: in offences of this description there is no respect of persons. His Serdari Kul (commandant-in-chief), Shahrukh Khan, sprung from a collateral branch of the royal family of Persia (Kadjar), having fled hither from Astrabad, where he had been governor, had been long held here in high honour and distinction; but, desirous of living in the Persian manner, he ordered, at great expense, a house to be erected one story high, like those in Teheran; in this, besides other articles of luxury, glass windows were inserted; it is said to have cost altogether 15,000 Tilla, regarded [{189}] in Bokhara an enormous sum; it was of a description calculated to throw into the shade even the Ark (palace) itself. The Emir had been informed of this from the very beginning, but he waited until the whole was quite finished, and then suddenly Shahrukh Khan was accused of an offence against religion, thrown into confinement, and then exiled. The house was confiscated and reverted to the Emir: an offer was made to purchase it, and at a sum exceeding the cost price, but no! he directed it to be demolished; the ruins themselves, however, appearing too ornamental, he ordered them to be entirely destroyed, with the sole reservation of the timber, which was sold to a baker for 200 Tilla, in scorn and mockery of all who should venture to give way to a taste for luxuries. Even in his domestic arrangements the Emir is widely different from his father; and it did not appear to me that there could have been more than half the retinue of servants which M. de Khanikoff saw at the Court of Nasr Ullah, and of which, as of so many other particulars concerning Bokhara, the Russian traveller gives so careful, so exact and circumstantial an account.
Mozaffar-ed-din Khan has (for it is a custom of his religion) four legitimate wives and about twenty others, the former natives of Bokhara, the latter slaves, and, as I was told seriously, only employed to tend upon the children, of whom there are sixteen, ten girls (but I beg pardon, princesses), and six boys (Tore). The two eldest princesses are married to the governors of Serepool and Aktche; only, as these two cities have fallen into the hands of the Afghan, his two sons-in-law live as the Emir's guests, like kings sans portefeuilles. The harem is presided over by the sovereign's mother, formerly a [{190}] Persian slave (born at Kademgihah, near Meshed), and by his grandmother, Hakim Ayim. It bears a high character for chastity and orderly training. It is forbidden to the laity on pain of death to enter, or even to throw a glance or direct a thought thither: this is permitted alone to pious Sheikhs or Mollahs, whose Nefes (breath) is of notorious sanctity; and it was by this title that our friend Hadji Salih was summoned to administer a dose of the Khaki Shifa (health powder from Medina). The cost of the harem, as far as dress, board, and other necessaries are concerned, is very small. The ladies make not only their own clothes, but often even the garments of the Emir, who is known to be a strict economist, and to exercise severe control over everything. The daily kitchen expenses of the palace are said to be from sixteen to twenty Tenghe (rather more than from nine to ten shillings), which is very likely, as his table rarely offers any confectionery, and consists merely of pilow boiled with mutton fat. The expression 'princely table' is inapplicable to Bokhara, where one and the same dish satisfies prince, official, merchant, mechanic, and peasant.
The man that has wandered about through the deserts of Central Asia will still find in Bokhara, in spite of all its wretchedness, something of the nature of a metropolis. My fare now consisted of good bread, tea, fruit, and boiled meats. I had two shirts made, and the comforts of civilised life became to me so agreeable that I was really sorry when I received notice from my friends to prepare for the journey, as they wished to gain their remote Eastern homes before the winter set in. My intention was to keep them company provisionally as far as Samarcand, [{191}] as I somewhat dreaded my interview with the Emir, and their society in many respects would be of great service to me. I was to decide in the last-named city whether to proceed to Khokand and Kashgar, or to return alone by Kerki, Karshi, and Herat. My excellent friends, Hadji Bilal and Hadji Salih, did not wish to influence me, but to provide for the case of a possible return. Desirous as far as they could to aid me, they had introduced me to a Kervanbashi from Herat, who was staying in Bokhara, and thought of finally returning in three weeks to the former city. His name was Mollah Zeman: he had been formerly known to my friends. They recommended me to his care, as if I had been their own brother, and it was determined, if I returned from Samarcand, that we should meet three weeks afterwards in Kerki, on the farther bank of the Oxus. This, the first step suggestive of a final separation, was very affecting to us all. Hitherto I had found consolation in the very uncertainty of my purpose; for to my fancy an extension of my travels to Kashgar, Aksu, and Khoten, rich in musk--countries to which no European before me had penetrated--had infinite charm and poetical attraction.
[Slave Depot and Trade]
But my thoughts have been so engaged by the memory of this visit to Mollah Zeman, that I was about to forget to describe the spot where I found him. It was in a karavanserai appropriated to the trade in slaves. Of this I cannot forbear to give the reader a slight sketch. The building, which formed a square, contained, it may be, from thirty to thirty-five cells. Three wholesale dealers in this abominable traffic had hired these buildings as a depôt for the poor wretches, who were partly their own goods and [{192}] chattels, and partly entrusted to them as commission brokers for the Turkomans. As is well known, the Karaktchi, unable to wait long, are accustomed to sell their slaves to some Turkoman who has more means at his disposal. The latter brings them to Bokhara, and is the chief gainer by these transactions, as he buys immediately from the producer. In the very first days of his arrival in the capital, he sells all those for whom he can find customers; the remainder he leaves behind him in the hands of the Dellal (broker), who is more especially the wholesale dealer. Human beings are sold in Bokhara and Khiva from the age of three to that of sixty, unless they possess such defects as cause them to be regarded as cripples. According to the precepts of their religion, unbelievers alone can be sold as slaves; but Bokhara, that has nothing more than the semblance of sanctity, evades without scruple such provisions, and makes slaves not only of the Shiite Persians, who were declared 'unbelievers' so long ago as 1500 by the Mollah Schemseddin, but also many professors of the Sunnite tenets themselves, after they have, by blows and maltreatment, been compelled to style themselves Shiites. It is only the Jew, whom they pronounce to be incapable, that is unworthy of becoming a slave, a mode of showing their aversion, of course, anything but disagreeable to the children of Israel, for although the Turkoman will make booty of his property, and strip him of everything, he will not touch his body. At an earlier period, the Hindoos also formed an exception. More recently, as they flocked by Herat into Bokhara, the Tekke or Sarik began to lay down new rules for their procedure. The unfortunate worshipper of Vishnoo is now first metamorphosed [{193}] into a Musselman, then made a Shiite; and not until this double conversion has taken place is the honour conferred upon him of being plundered of all his property, and being reduced to the condition of a slave.