MOSQUE AT BOKHARA
We penetrated into the bazaars, but they offered no special features of interest, Bokhara having like the other cities of Central Asia to a large extent lost its ancient skill in art. The silks sold in it are made in Moscow mainly, and the cottons are also European. The railway and the protective tariff have combined to kill the old trade that used to exist between Bokhara and India, passing over the trade route through Afghanistan. The fine architecture all belongs to the past. One of the mosques was ornamented with beautiful designs in brickwork, enhanced by a fine note of colour near the top of the minarets in green tiles. The colour ornamentation of the mosques is for the most part much more restrained than that of Samarkand, but seen in the midst of the uniform dust colour of its sun-dried bricks it is the more effective. There are not nearly so many trees as at Samarkand, though outside one of the city gates we found a shady road, and there are twelve large canals in the neighbourhood to supply the gardens as well as the ordinary drinking supply. A crowd of camels was waiting hard by; presumably they remain outside the city because the streets are too narrow and tortuous to be blocked by such unwieldy beasts. There was an elevated booth on the other side of the gate where the gay throng seemed to be engaged in the act of worship and pleasure simultaneously; but the foreground of the picture was filled up with a compact mass of graves, looking as if they were centuries old.
The largest building in the city is the mosque of Kelan, built by Tamerlane, and there are many other mosques varying in size and interest. We climbed up to the roof of one for the sake of the view, but it was not much, and we were told that we should have gone up a tower for the purpose. Almost every minaret is surmounted by a stork’s nest, for Bokhara is noted for its storks.
As we came away we saw a string of covered carts with gay carpets over them making their way to the station. They were backed up to a siding, where the veiled beauties within them were rapidly transferred to second-class carriages away from the public gaze. Then the gay coverings were folded up and put in the luggage van, and the carriages were brought round and attached to our train; evidently they contained people of importance, for there was a large crowd of natives to see them off, and on reaching Kazan their carriages were again detached preparatory to being joined to the express as soon as it arrived. Many Persians are to be found throughout Turkestan; the railway stations are crowded with them, and our Russian Red Cross nurse told us a charming idyllic story which I cannot forbear repeating, of one of their veiled beauties with whom she had talked on her journey. The Persian lady was a princess travelling with her husband on their honeymoon. The husband said they had seen one another seven years ago in a garden, and had fallen deeply in love. Owing to his inferior rank the princess’s father would not hear of their marriage, and it was only after seven years that his consent was at last obtained. “She is not beautiful as she was then,” he continued, but there was a look of great tenderness on both their faces, showing that the love at all events had not diminished, and they further explained that they had determined to have a European honeymoon, and were now on their travels. Another happy couple whom our friend met was guarded by the wife’s stalwart brothers. The husband and wife had been married nine years and were still deeply in love, but they were very sad because the wife (aged twenty-one) had as yet no son. They were now on a pilgrimage to pray for one, as the husband said he had not taken a second wife, nor did he wish to do so, “but, of course, if Providence did not send a son——.” He repudiated the idea that as a Mohammedan he might be expected to have four wives if he chose, and said he was very fond of his present wife. Certainly the position of women is the worst evil of Mohammedanism, taken in connection with Mohammed’s own history, and in the light of the teaching of the Koran.
It might have been hoped that Russian influence would have had some effect in ameliorating things; but even the Russophile Skrine[9] admits that it has had no civilizing influence on the Khanate of Bokhara. Slavery, tyranny, and barbarism are still allowed free scope, in order that their disintegrating effect may the more readily place it under Russian dominion.
CHAPTER XXI
Through the Caucasus
We left Kazan for the homeward journey, intending only to stop at Vienna on the way, but fate decreed otherwise. The train started in the evening, and we travelled two nights and a day through flat country to the Caspian Sea. The railway through Turkestan runs parallel first with the Afghan frontier—across which no Russian dare step on pain of his life—and then parallel with the Persian border. The mountains of Persia formed a beautiful outline against the stormy sky as we passed through Askabad, the southernmost point of the line, and when the rain came down in blinding torrents we watched the patient camels and their drivers on the plain, behaving as if completely oblivious of the storm. Not so the Cossack on his fiery steed; he looked as if possessed by the storm demon, tearing across the plain as if the furies were behind him. A land of strange contrasts—the immovable calm of the East, and, vainly beating against it, the restless West. The question forces itself irresistibly upon the mind—which will conquer?
BAKU