As, after having been in Kurdistan, I was no longer able to distinguish in the countenance of the Osmanli anything Oriental, so now I could see in Stamboul nothing but, as it were, a gorgeous drop curtain to an unreal Eastern existence. I could only indulge myself with a stay of three hours on the shore of the Bosphorus. I was glad, however, still to find time to wait upon the indefatigable savant and diplomat Baron von Prokesh-Osten, whose kind counsels with reference to the compilation of my narrative I have kept constantly before my eyes. Hence I proceeded to Pesth by Küstendje, where I left behind me my brother Dervish [Footnote 94] from Kungrat, who had accompanied me all the way from Samarcand; for the joy of tarrying long in my fatherland was not allowed me, as I was desirous, before the close of the season, of delivering an account of my journey to the Royal Geographical Society of England--an object furthered and obtained for me by the kind recommendations of my friends. I arrived in London on the 9th of June, 1864, where it cost me incredible trouble to accustom myself to so sudden and extreme a change as that from Bokhara to London.
[Footnote 94: It is needless for me to picture to the reader how this poor Khivite, transplanted by me to the capital of Hungary instead of being permitted to proceed to Mecca, was amazed, and how he talked! What most astonished him was the good-nature of the Frenghis, that they had not yet put him to death, a fate which, drawing his conclusions from the corresponding experience amongst his countrymen, he had apprehended.]
Wonderful, indeed, is the effect of habit upon men! Although I had advanced to the maximum of these extremely different forms of existing civilisation, as it were, by steps and by degrees, still everything appeared to me here surprisingly new, as if what I had [{298}] previously known of Europe had only been a dream, and as if, in fact, I were myself an Asiatic. My wanderings have left powerful impressions upon my mind. Is it surprising, if I stand sometimes bewildered, like a child, in Regent Street or in the saloons of British nobles, thinking of the deserts of Central Asia, and of the tents of the Kirghis and the Turkomans?
PART II.
| TURKOMANS |
| KHIVA |
| BOKHARA |
| KHOKAND |
| CHINESE TARTARY |
| ROUTES |
| AGRICULTURE AND TRADE |
| POLITICAL RELATIONS |
| RUSSIANS AND ENGLISH |
CHAPTER XVI.
| BOUNDARIES AND DIVISION OF TRIBES |
| NEITHER RULERS NOR SUBJECTS |
| DEB |
| ISLAM |
| CHANGE INTRODUCED BY THE LATTER ONLY EXTERNAL |
| INFLUENCE OF MOLLAHS |
| CONSTRUCTION OF NOMAD TENTS |
| ALAMAN, HOW CONDUCTED |
| PERSIAN COWARDICE |
| TURKOMAN POETS |
| TROUBADOURS |
| SIMPLE MARRIAGE CEREMONIES |
| HORSES |
| MOUNDS, HOW AND WHEN FORMED |
| MOURNING FOR DEAD |
| TURKOMAN DESCENT |
| GENERAL POINTS CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY OF THE TURKOMANS |
| THEIR PRESENT POLITICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMPORTANCE. |