Non succurrit tibi quamdiu circum Bactra haereas? --Q. Curtii Rufi lib. vii. 8.
[Samarcand to Karshi through Desert]
My new travelling companions were from Oosh Mergolan, and Namengan (Khanat of Khokand). It is unnecessary to describe them particularly. They were far from being to me like those friends from whom I had just parted; nor did we remain long together. I attached myself, in preference, to a young Mollah from Kungrat, who had travelled with us to Samarcand, and hoped to proceed, in my company, as far as Mecca. He was a young man, good-humoured, and as poor as myself, who looked up to me as one superior to himself in learning, and was disposed to serve me.
From Samarcand to Karshi there are three ways, first by Shehri Sebz, which may be styled almost a circuitous way, and is the longest; secondly, by Djam, only fifteen miles, but through a stony and mountainous country, and consequently difficult, if not impracticable, for carts; thirdly, through the desert. [{223}] barely eighteen miles in length. On setting out, we had, anyhow, to take the Bokhara road as far as the hill, whence Samarcand first becomes visible to the traveller approaching it from the former city. Here we turned off to the left. The way then passes through two villages, in the midst of land well cultivated. After proceeding three miles, we halted at the karavanserai, Robati Hauz, where the road divides into two others, that on the left passing by Djam, that on the right traversing a desert. We took the latter. In comparison with those deserts through which I had already made my way, this one, with respect to size, may be styled a moderate-sized field. It is everywhere visited by shepherds, from the convenience of its numerous wells of tolerably good water; in the neighbourhood of these the Ozbegs constantly pitch their tents. The wells are, for the most part, deep, and have each near them a somewhat elevated reservoir of stone or wood, always in the form of a square, into which is thrown the water drawn from the wells, for the use of cattle. As the buckets are small, and the shepherd would be soon tired by repeatedly using them, an ass, or more often a camel, is employed; the rope is attached to the saddle, and the animal draws up the bucket by walking a distance equal to the length of the cord. The appearance of these wells, of the drinking sheep, and the busy shepherd, has, in the stillness of those evening hours, something not unpoetic; and I was very much struck by the resemblance between this part of the desert and our Puszta (heaths) in Hungary.
In consequence of the strictness with which the police regulations were enforced everywhere by the Emir of Bokhara, the routes here are so safe, that not merely small karavans, but even single travellers, traverse the desert unmolested. On the second day we met at one of the wells a karavan coming from Karshi. There was amongst the travellers a young woman who had been treacherously sold by her own husband to an aged Tadjik for thirty Tilla. It was not until she reached the desert that she became fully aware of the cruel trick to which she was victim: the wretched creature, shrieking and weeping and tearing her hair, ran up to me like one distracted, and exclaimed, 'Hadjim (my Hadji), thou that hast read books, tell me where it is written that a Musselman can sell his wife who has borne him children! 'I affirmed it to be a sin, but the Tadjik only laughed at me, for he had, probably, already an understanding with the Kazi Kelan (superior judge) of Karshi, and felt sure of his purchase.
As we advanced but slowly on account of the great heat, we took two days and three nights to reach Karshi. We first came in sight of it on reaching a plateau, where the road again divides into two, that on the right hand leading to Kette Kurgan, and that on the left conducting to the river that flows hither from Shehri Sebz, and disappears in the sand at a considerable distance beyond Karshi. From this point the whole way to the city, which is distant two miles, passes continually through cultivated land and numerous gardens, and as Karshi has no walls, one does not know before crossing the bridge that one is in the city.
Karshi, the ancient Nakhsheb, is, both from its size and its commercial importance, the second city in the Khanat of Bokhara; it consists of the city (proper) [{225}] and the citadel (Kurgantche), which latter is on its north-western side, and weakly fortified. Karshi has, at present, ten karavanserais and a well-supplied bazaar, and, should no political disturbances occur to prevent, is considered likely to play an important part in the transit trade organised between Bokhara, Kaboul, and India. The inhabitants, estimated at 25,000 souls, are for the most part Özbegs, and form the nucleus of the troops of the Khan. The population consists, besides, of Tadjiks, Indians, Afghans, and Jews: the latter have the privilege of riding even in the interior of the city, which they are not allowed to do in any other part of the Khanat. With respect to its manufactures Karshi, less so, however, than Hissar (at a little distance from it), is distinguished by its fabrication of knives of different kinds. These are not only exported to all parts of Central Asia, but are conveyed by the Hadjis to Persia, Arabia, and Turkey, where they realise three times, and often four times, the cost price. One kind, with Damascus blades, and handles with gold and silver inlaid, is really worked with great taste, and might, both for durability and temper, put to shame the most famous produce of Sheffield and Birmingham.
[Nomads]
Amongst the letters of recommendation with which my friends had furnished me to different Khans and Mollahs on my way, one was addressed to a certain Ishan Hasan, who stood in high repute in Karshi. When I visited him he received me in a friendly manner, and advised me, as all cattle, and particularly asses, were cheap, to purchase one of these long-eared coursers, nor did he omit to tell me also to do like all other Hadjis, and employ what little money I had left in procuring knives, needles, thread, glass beads, [{226}] Bokhariot sacking, but, most of all, cornelians imported from Bedakhshan, and which are also cheap there; for he said that, as we were going amongst tribes of nomads, we should, by means of such merchandise, be able to gain something, and besides maintain ourselves better, for that for a single needle or a few glass beads (Mondjuck), one might often obtain bread and melons to support one a whole day. I saw at once that the good man was right, and proceeded the very same day, in company with the Mollah from Kungrat, to purchase some of the articles specified, so that, whilst one side of my Khurdjin knapsack was filled with my manuscripts, the other was occupied by a stock of cutlery. Thus I became simultaneously antiquary, haberdasher, Hadji, and Mollah, besides filling the accessorial functions of dispenser of blessings, Nefes, amulets, and other wonders.