Students who are conscious of a vocation for the priesthood are subjected to a probation severer than that which is prescribed to candidates for admission to La Trappe or Chartreuse. They must obey all the precepts of Mohammed’s code, and learn by long and painful practice to pronounce the shibboleth, Lā Allāh ill Allāh, thousands of times without drawing breath. Thus they attain to the coveted degree of Ishān, are qualified to instruct others, and receive the blindest devotion from the lower orders. No training can be conceived which is more calculated to inspire self-conceit and fanaticism. Now the priesthood of Bokhārā and the other cities of Central Asia have all been subjected to these sinister influences at a period of their lives when the plastic mind receives impressions which can never be effaced; and the schools and colleges are officered exclusively from the sacerdotal caste. Before the advent of the Russians to power, the mullās directed the whole mechanism of government. The most cruel and treacherous of the old Amīrs respected their lives and liberties and shaped his conduct on their counsels. The mullās’ political influence has been destroyed by the Russians’ advent to power, for the theory on which Mohammedan states are ruled is utterly at variance with Western conceptions; and the insidious energies of the priesthood are restricted to education and religious observances. There can be little doubt that the wave of sedition which is sweeping over Central Asia[714] is due to the teachings of men who desire the restoration of Islām as a predominant factor in government. The Russian masters of Central Asia, like we ourselves in India, are stepping per ignes suppositos cineri doloso, and a mistaken educational policy is, in both cases, at the bottom of the mischief that is brewing. The other Madrasas of Bokhārā are more remarkable for size than architectural merit. One of them was erected at the end of last century, at the cost of the Empress Catherine of Russia, who came under Voltaire’s influence and displayed a catholicism which outran that of the philosopher of Ferney.[715] Adjoining the Great Minār is the only public building in Bokhārā which has not seen the march of centuries—the Baths of the Chief Justice, thrown open to the public in 1897 by the generosity of the official who held that rank. The innermost chamber is a huge oven surrounded by marble divans, on which the bather reclines while an attendant cracks every joint in his body, scours him with a piece of hair-cloth, and sluices him with cold water. Thence he passes to a room heated to a temperature of about 80 degrees, where he dresses and proceeds to a spacious hall opening on the street. Here, reclining on a dais spread with carpets and pillows, he sips his tea in the blissful lassitude which follows the Turkish bath. The Zindān, or state jail, is a dilapidated structure of brick, perched on a mound to the east of the citadel. The entrance is through a dirty guardroom which gives on a courtyard. A door to the left leads to the abode of petty offenders—a smoke-stained shed, tapestried with bundles containing the property of the inmates. The latter squat on the floor apparently in good health and spirits, albeit that their rations would not be approved of at Wormwood Scrubbs. They receive from Government 1½ pounds of bread every other day, but visitors are allowed to distribute as much food as they please. On the right of the courtyard is a vaulted room lit by a barred opening in the ceiling, which serves as a ward for heinous offenders. Here will generally be found twenty or thirty wretches fastened together by a heavy chain attached to an iron ring on the neck of each. They are all murderers or banditti under trial or awaiting the Amīr’s confirmation of the death sentence; and their sullen despair is but too evident. Punishments were terribly severe in pre-Russian days. Prisoners were riveted to the wall by iron collars for years together, and shrunk under the torture to living skeletons. Twice a week they were dragged to the Rīgistān, where the Amīr in person pronounced sentence; and the spectacle of the poor half-naked wretches shivering in the snow was piteous indeed.[716] Happy were those condemned to decapitation, which was always performed with the knife, to the gratification of the market crowd. Empalement and flinging from the summit of the Great Minār were usual forms of destruction, and women taken in adultery were stoned. The prison, bad as it is when judged by European standards, is an abode of bliss when compared with those of the native régime. Beneath the Zindān is a deep vault, now filled up, which hardly a decade back served as an oubliette for human beings condemned to a lingering death, attended by horrors which no pen can describe. Truly, these dark places of the earth owe much to the softening influence of a higher civilisation.
PRISONERS OF THE AMIR OF BOKHĀRĀ
Slavery is another practice which has lost its terrors since the advent of the Russians. Bokhārā was once the greatest market in Asia for the produce of Turkoman and Kirghiz raids. Eighty years ago 40,000 Persians and more than 500 subjects of the Tsar were detained there in bondage. There was a regular tariff for these human cattle. A labourer fetched £29, a skilled artisan £64, and a pretty girl nearly £100. The treatment meted out to them by Bokhāran taskmasters was more atrocious than anything recorded by Mrs. Beecher Stowe. Meyendorff met a Russian who had endured unheard-of tortures, inflicted in order to make him reveal the route by which a comrade in affliction had escaped.[717] Half a century later the effect of European precept and example was already evident. Mr. Schuyler found the traffic in human flesh conducted with some approach to secrecy, but, after much bargaining and intrigue, he was able to purchase the freedom of a Persian lad for a sum equivalent to £25. It would be saying too much to aver that the “peculiar institution” is extinct in Bokhārā. The needs of the harem and the profound mystery with which wealthy families enshroud their domestic life render it impossible that slavery should be stamped out in any Mohammedan country. India itself is not free from the canker-spot, though every possible means have been taken to eradicate it. But the great source of supply was cut off when the Turkomans were forbidden to raid into Persia, and the lot of those who have been held in slavery is rendered endurable by the vigilance of the Russian Resident. His influence has been limited to the correction of flagrant abuses, and Bokhārā is the only Mohammedan state in Russian Asia which has been permitted to retain intact its own system of administration.
The sovereign, whose official style and title is Khān of Bokhārā and Commander of the Faithful,[718] is nominally absolute master of his realm and of the lives and fortunes of his subjects. In practice his power is subject to considerable limitations. As a Mohammedan prince he is bound to obey the injunctions of the Koran and the canonical law of Islām.[719] The clergy were all-powerful under the last independent Amīr, and their influence is still widely felt, the more so in that it is occult. The ruler is surrounded by greedy and venal followers, and his Court is a centre of intrigues. His prime minister, answering to the vezīr of the Turkish monarchy, is here styled Kushbegi, and stands next in rank to the sovereign. He is official guardian of the state jewels, which, to judge by the display made by the Amīr on state occasions, must rival the figments of the Arabian Nights.[720] He is responsible for the collection of taxes and customs duties, and is master of the palace, where he always resides, and keeps the keys of the city gates. Beneath him is a vast hierarchy of executive and Court officials, whose rank is bestowed by patents under the Amīr’s seal, or symbols such as horse-tails, hatchets, flags, and maces.[721] The struggle for these baubles amongst the crowd of courtiers versed in all the arts of fawning and flattery would arouse our pity and contempt, were we not conscious that such sordid aims are still the levers of human action nearer home.
A BOKHĀRĀN BEAUTY AND HER TWO CHILDREN
For administrative purposes the Khānate is divided into thirty-six provinces, each under its governor, called Beg, who is intrusted with the collection of revenue and the execution of judicial decrees. He reports as to the state of his charge weekly, and submits death sentences for the Amīr’s confirmation. Below the Beg are the Amlākdārs; who exercise similar functions in the amlāks, or districts. The state is, in theory, the owner of the soil, and the bulk of its revenue is derived from the land tax, an impost which has many features common with feudalism. Estates belong to four categories. Milk lands are free of rent, because they were originally bestowed by the sovereign in fee simple on successful generals. Milk-i-Khārāj are tenures which, at the period of conquest, were owned by non-Mohammedans, and remained in their possession subject to the payment of a land tax. This, in the case of irrigated soil, amounts to one-fifth, and in that of dry fields to one-tenth of the gross produce. The third description is Dash Yak, so styled because one-tenth of the produce is set apart for the support of a mosque; and the fourth Vakf, which is an endowment wholly devoted to religious uses. The Amīr’s proportion of the fruits of the soil is assessed by the Amlākdārs and their underlings, after actual inspection of each field just before the harvest is gathered in. If the cultivator objects to the Government estimate he may demand a re-measurement. The other sources of revenue are one-fortieth of the value of goods exposed for sale; and the jazya, or infidel tax, from which Russian subjects are exempt, ranging, according to the assessee’s wealth, between one and four tangas. The administration of justice is in the hands of Kāzīs—native judges appointed by the Amīr after an examination in the laws of Islām, who are assisted by Muftis, or registrars in charge of the Court’s seal. The Kāzī posted at Bokhārā has two of these subordinates, and is styled Kalān, or chief, though he has no power to revise his colleagues’ decisions. Legal procedure is cumbrous and ineffectual, and litigants in Bokhārā learn by sad experience what “hell it is in suing long to bide.” Public morals and the due observance of religious rites are supposed to be safeguarded by an official styled Rā´īs. This censor’s insignia of office are a scimetar-shaped strip of leather, with which he is legally empowered to administer “forty stripes save one” to evil-doers, without, however, raising his arm above the shoulder. He drives the faithful to public prayers like a flock of sheep, meddles in family affairs, levies blackmail, and has elevated delation to the rank of a science. With the Kāzī he serves as a spy on the executive officers, and is an object of universal dread. These social pests have been abolished by the Russians in the districts under their administration, and they have won more gratitude by this obvious measure than by any of their reforms. It has been often said that an Eastern prince’s rule is tempered by the fear of assassination. In Bokhārā the permanent army was once the skeleton at the Amīr’s banquet. In order to maintain his authority and overawe turbulent neighbours he was compelled to pay a large standing force, of which he stood in as much dread as the Cæsars did of their Pretorian Guard. In the days of independence the regulars mustered 10,000 men, armed with matchlocks, and there were about 40,000 men on an irregular footing, of whom perhaps a third carried serviceable weapons.[722] At the present time the army is little more than a plaything, for the “Great White Tsar” has garrisons at the principal strategic points, and Bokhārā under his ægis is secure from foreign aggression. The troops now number only 10,000 men, of whom 1000 are armed with Berdan rifles, presented to the Amīr some years ago by the Russians, and the rest with percussion muskets. They are drilled and clad on European models, but here the parallel ceases. Inefficient as is the Bokhāran army, the paramount power is anxious to effect a deduction in its strength, which will ultimately not exceed 3000 men. It is a significant fact that while the civil officers, from the Kushbegi down to the Amīn who measures the crops, receive no remuneration beyond what they can squeeze from the people, the Amīr’s forces are well and regularly paid. The company officers draw about £5 per mensem; the private soldiers, 6s. 6d. in our money. In the official intercourse between the Amīr and his suzerain we detect the influence of Anglo-Indian example. For many years the Khānates were represented at Tashkent, the administrative capital of Turkestān, by envoys selected from their own subjects; but the growth of commerce with Russia, and the necessity of drawing closer the bonds uniting the protected state with its master, led to the appointment of a Russian officer of rank as Resident with the Amīr. His political relations with the latter are nominally confined to tendering advice in administrative matters. When, some years back, frauds were prevalent in the packing of cotton for export to Russia,[723] the Resident approached the Amīr through an unofficial channel as to the means of checking practices ruinous to trade. The outcome of these negotiations was the appointment of three cotton inspectors, whose function it is to visit the markets and report to the Kāzī all cases in which they suspect that rubbish is inserted in bales exposed for sale. Again, the Russians have deemed it to be their duty to foster the production of wine. The grapes of Bokhārā are as fine as her peaches and apricots—which is saying a good deal—and a potent fluid resembling Amontillado, with a pleasant sub-acid after-taste, is retailed at fourpence a bottle. But intoxicants are denounced in the Koran as things accursed, and the prohibition has much worldly wisdom, because Asiatics drink, not in order to cheer the heart of man, but to drown the senses in brutish oblivion. A compromise between religious duty and worldly interest has been arrived at. Bokhārans may not make wine themselves, but they are at liberty to sell the grapes to Armenians and Jews, who have a monopoly of the manufacture. A dealer vending wine or spirits to a Mohammedan is punished with a fine of 1000 roubles. The Resident has a court of his own for the decision of civil and criminal cases in which the injured party is a foreigner. His jurisdiction is unlimited, and his sentences without appeal. Documentary evidence is insisted on as a basis of money claims. The Russian law is administered, as modified by local custom, and no advocate is allowed to intervene between the tribunal and the parties. Where the defendant belongs to that category, the case comes before a judge of the peace, who is independent of the Resident and a subordinate of the Ministry of Justice at St. Petersburg. His sentences run through a gamut of appeals, precisely as those tried by the courts of the mother country. This alien jurisdiction is highly popular, and subterfuges are adopted in order to bring cases triable by the native judges within its purview. The post and telegraph services are in Russian hands; and a hospital is maintained, under European management, which costs the Amīr £2000 annually. Those who are cognisant of the perennial friction between Chief and Resident at many Indian courts will be surprised to learn that the relations between suzerain and vassal in Bokhārā have invariably been cordial. The Amīr, Sayyid `Abd ul-Ahad, is now in his thirty-seventh year.[724] He is tall and muscular, and would be handsome but for growing corpulence, that curse of Eastern princes. He is still devoted to hawking and other forms of sport, affable and dignified. Every year he visits one of the hot springs in the Caucasus, and often winters in the Crimea. The heir-apparent, Sayyid Mīr `Alīm, has been educated in St. Petersburg, and holds the rank of lieutenant in a Cossack regiment. In early youth the Amīr had convincing proof of the resistless power of Russia. He saw his haughty father die broken-hearted of the humiliation entailed by his abortive effort to roll back the tide of European aggression. He knows, too, that the capital is at the Russians’ mercy, for they own the rich province of Samarkand, through which the Zarafshān flows to fertilise his thirsty fields, and that it would be an easy matter to divert its course; and so he is always ready to anticipate his master’s wishes. There was a spice of truth in the late governor-general’s remark, “the Amīr of Bokhārā is the most zealous of my lieutenants.” While a ruler so pliant continues to sit on the throne of Bokhārā he need not fear annexation. The Russians are well aware that the people of the Khānate prize the measure of national life allowed them, and prefer the rough-and-ready methods of an Amīr of their own race to the highly developed mechanism imported from the West. They dread the responsibility of granting citizenship to two and a half millions of Asiatics, spread over an area of 80,000 square miles, which costs them nothing to administer, while its products swell the growing volume of the empire’s commerce.