As we strolled along the shady paths veiled women eyed us furtively. A few minutes’ walk brought us to a short flight of steps leading down to a fine blue-tiled gateway. As we entered it a vista of great beauty, a masterpiece of art, was revealed, which had previously been completely hidden from view. Forty gleaming marble steps lead upward to a fine gateway, surmounted by domes. A flowering shrub hung over the wall on the right, and a cluster of scarlet poppies had forced their way between the slabs of marble. In the porch sat a typical group of natives, and our guide presented us with some ceremony to the Mullah, who was apparently in charge of the buildings—the Hazréti Shah Zindeh, or summer palace of Tamerlane. The palace is called after a saint, Shah Zindeh, whose tomb is one of the buildings; in fact it would never occur to any one that this was a palace, but rather a collection of shrines and tombs. The saint is expected to rise again some day. On reaching the top of the steps we came into a little flagged lane, with the most brilliant archway standing up against the sky (the one in the sketch), such a blaze of scintillating colour that the blue heaven looked dull and opaque in comparison. Here the tiles are finer than any of the others; they are modelled in relief and in open work, unlike any that we saw elsewhere. The designs were of an infinite variety, and it seemed a grievous pity that the little hall within was dirty and befouled by birds nesting there; all the walls within, as well as without, were covered with various kinds of tiles. Opposite this was another hall, quite different in its decoration. A little further down the winding lane were another pair of halls, also surmounted by domes, and with yet other designs on the walls; there are altogether seven of them, the remaining three being grouped together at the extreme end of the lane, and forming the termination of it. The innermost shrine is a little mosque, consisting of two rooms, a sort of holy of holies. On the wall I noticed a rough colour print of the Kaaba, and named it to our guide. He was greatly interested, and asked if I had ever been to Mecca, and I fancy reckoned me at once one of the faithful.
We were shown the great Koran, a gigantic volume to suit the size of the lectern in Bibi Khanum’s madressah. The famous original was carried to St. Petersburg after the taking of Samarkand by the Russians, but this is said to be a fine sixteenth-century copy of it. There were relics of the saint pointed out to us behind a screen, but we could not make out what they were, and we were shown the beautiful carpet, a fine specimen of those made in Turkestan. Banners of red, blue, and green hang over these treasures, and under them the guardian of the shrine sat down, intimating that he was now prepared to receive a gift. To judge by his attitude he thought it would be a lordly one, but there is always a strange discrepancy in the East between the magnitude of the gift and the air with which it is received. In various nooks and corners people lay curled up asleep, or were drowsily repeating their prayers. While I sketched our two guides were evidently discussing our merits, and at last one inquired if we were Russians, and on hearing that we were not they wanted to know whether we liked the Russians, making it abundantly plain that they did not. Nevertheless they acquiesce without much apparent feeling to the yoke of the foreigner, no doubt accepting it as “Fate.”
One of the interesting points to visit outside Samarkand is the tomb of the prophet Daniel, whom the people insist on considering to be the hero of Scripture history. We drove to it through the town, passing out of the market up a steep dusty road. A mosque dominates the city from the brow of the hill, and around it is a large cemetery of dreary, neglected graves. It was from this point that I sketched the city, and while doing so was somewhat startled by finding a large tortoise at my side, which had crawled out of the grass. The road is primitive, but no one expects anything else, and constant carriage exercise no doubt is good for the inhabitants in lieu of any other kind. The way leads through sandy, hillocky ground (suggestive of dunes by the seashore) for about a couple of miles, and then the road abruptly ends. We got out of the carriage and the driver led us on foot down a ravine to the tomb. It is the longest tomb one would suppose that could be found anywhere, being about 25 yards in length (Edouard Blanc says), and is finely situated on a rock terrace, with crags rising above it and plenty of trees below it down to the edge of a river. The legend which accounts for the extraordinary length of the tomb is that, owing to some miraculous quality, it grows a few inches every year, and that by the time it has stretched round the earth Islamism will dominate the whole world.[7] However, the Russian governor decided the miracle should cease, and ordered a building to be placed over it, an inconspicuous erection with five little cupolas along the top and surmounted by the usual standard, tuft of hair and rams’ horns; this last is the usual offering made by Sarts at a saint’s shrine, and which we saw again on the tombs outside Bokhara.
Strolling down the steep hill-side into a grove of trees below, we came to a busy scene. The trees rise out of a large terrace, where handsome carpets were spread on the ground, on which were seated parties of devotees engaged in conversation or in prayer, while their horses were tethered hard by in the shade. Close at hand servants were busily preparing food at various fires under a shed, and it looked as if it were some picnic instead of a religious exercise. Evidently the worshippers were going to make a day of it, and they looked highly picturesque with their many-coloured robes and white turbans.
The valley was a charming one, full of lofty poplars and elms. A mill was built over the river lower down, and there were many houses nestling among the trees. The yellow soil, called toprach, is extremely fertile when sufficiently watered, and the Sarts have a saying, “Plant a stick in the toprach, give it a trickle of water, and next year you will have a tree.”
There are other excursions worth making in the neighbourhood, and we greatly regretted that lack of time prevented our doing them. One in particular we thought would have been attractive, namely, a ride to the snow-covered mountains, whence there is a fine view over the plain to the city. There are ruins called Aphrosiab all round the city, and interesting coins of the Græco-Bactrian period have been found there. Till within the last few years the madressah of Timur Malik, ten kilometres distant, was still standing, but it has been laid in ruins by an earthquake. There are other mosques in the city worth visiting, especially that of Zemreh Khodja, the mausoleum of Khodja ben Khaddra, and the madressahs of Ishrak Khaneh and Khodja Akhrar.
CHAPTER XX
Bokhara
The journey from Samarkand to Bokhara only takes about six and a half hours by rail, across a dull monotonous plain as far as Kazan (pronounced Kaghan), thence on a little branch line through green fields for the last half-hour. We stopped at the Russian settlement of Kazan, an absolutely uninteresting place. We were informed that the Hotel d’Europe was comfortable, and we drove to it from the station, only to find every room engaged. The German proprietress told us they were always busy, but recommended us to the only other hotel, the Commercial. Here we found a thoroughly clean room, and the pleasantest of Russian hostesses. As usual, we were expected to have brought our bed clothes, but not having done so the hostess fetched some out of her private store, and she was quite gratified by our admiration of her handiwork on the sheets: “Made when I was unmarried,” she said, with a weary smile.
Next morning we intended taking an early train on the little branch line to Bokhara, but the heat was oppressive, so we delayed till the afternoon when the air was somewhat cooled by thunder rain. Bokhara is said to be intolerably hot, quite different from Kazan, though only eight miles distant. The fields of grain looked green and fresh, and already the crops were beginning to be cut, the deep blue of the cornflowers glinting among them. The train runs between Kazan and Bokhara half-a-dozen times per day.