Broad cloth.
The broad cloths of England are never brought from India to Bokhara: they are imported from Russia; and such is the present state of this trade, that a most intelligent merchant of Cabool, whom I met at Bokhara, was thinking of taking an investment of it to Lodiana in India, where he could afford to sell it cheaper than it is to be had there, notwithstanding the length of the journey! The finest English broad cloth, which sells in India for twenty-two rupees a yard, may be purchased for fifteen in Bokhara; but the merchants who bring it from Russia say they are losers by it. It is much more prized than the broad cloth manufactured in Russia, from its retaining its colour, and lasting better; and, if the price could be reduced so as to meet the means of the natives, it would soon supplant the other article. Velvets. Velvet is brought into Bokhara from Russia: it is flowered cotton velvet, and about two feet broad. There is a demand for it, and it is not imported from India. The Russians have imitated, with much success, the brocades of India, and export great quantities of what is called “false brocade” to Bokhara: it looks nearly as well as that of Benares, and sells for half the price: it is wove in narrow webs. There is nothing to prevent the successful fabric of this article in Britain. Nankeens. The staple commodity of Russian manufacture exported to this country is nankeen: it is seldom of a white colour, for they have imitated the patterns of this country, which are striped and dark. The article sells for 1½ tillas per piece of forty yards: it is in general use among the people for their pelisses, or “chupkuns.” I had at first imagined that it was a Chinese import; but it is brought by the Russian caravans, and sent as far as Cabool, and even India. I have seen it at Lahore. One of the most important articles of import from Russia is kirmiz die, or cochineal: it is used to die raw silk. Kirmiz die. Cochineal. Till lately, it was sent in great quantities from Bokhara to India and Cabool: but the article has been brought from the seaports of India to the Punjab; and the trade in kirmiz, like that in cloths, declines yearly, and will shortly be confined to Bokhara. It now sells there for eight or nine tillas a maund of Tabreez, which is equal to seven lbs. English, and it may be had cheaper than this at Cabool. It is an article which may be exported from India to Cabool with advantage. I bear an impression that the kirmiz, or cochineal, may be procured in Bokhara; but no one knows how to prepare it.
Indian goods.
The demand for Indian goods in Bokhara is steady. Muslins. Dacca muslins of the larger sort sell for twenty tillas per score, the smaller being half the price. There are about five hundred pieces of Benares brocade (kincob), imported yearly: that from Guzerat is too expensive. The whole of the natives of Bokhara and Toorkistan wear turbans of white cloth which are imported from the Punjab: they are about thirty yards long and a foot broad, and sell for a tilla each. They are in universal use among both sexes, and might be manufactured in Europe, and sent with advantage into Toorkistan. Shawls. The shawl trade is only one of transit: it is not considerable. Two lacs of rupees worth of shawl goods have passed to Russia within the last year (1832). There is never more than double this sum risked in the trade. The number of pairs of shawls varies from one hundred and twenty, to three hundred; but they must be of the finest texture, since none others will bring a price in Russia. Several natives of the valley of Cashmere, have from time to time repaired to Russia; and the shawl fine-drawers, or “rufoogurs,” sometimes alter the patterns of the shawl to suit the taste of the purchasers, who, by all accounts, are not a little fastidious. The passion for shawls among the Russian nobles is great, and will account for the exorbitant prices given for them, to which I have before alluded. Indigo. The greatest import from India is indigo, which averages five hundred camel-loads a year. A portion of it is again exported to Yarkund, in the Chinese territories; where, though the plant is found, they are ignorant of the means of preparing it. The sugar of India is also brought into Toorkistan, for the cane does not grow in Bokhara. Sugar. The China sugar, brought by way of Bombay, will not bear the expense of a journey beyond Cabool; nor can the Chinese themselves send it further than Yarkund, for the same reason. This coarse sugar has not a very great sale, for the richer people use the refined loaf-sugar of Russia; and the poorer classes employ the “turunjbeen,” a saccharine substance, gathered like manna, which is found in this country, and which I have mentioned in the account of Bokhara.
Trade with China.
Besides the Russian and British Indian trade, Bokhara carries on an extensive and direct commercial intercourse with the Chinese garrisons of Cashgar and Yarkund. A coarse kind of China ware, musk, and bullion, are received from that quarter, but the chief import consists of tea; and the extent of the trade, as well as the remoteness of the tracts by which it is brought, equally arrest our attention. The inhabitants of Toorkistan are inordinately fond of that beverage, which they drink at all hours; nine hundred and fifty horse-loads of tea, or about 200,000lbs., have been this year brought from Yarkund to Bokhara. The greatest part of this quantity is consumed in Toorkistan; but little of it finds its way south of the Hindoo Koosh. The trade is carried on by the natives of Budukhshan. These merchants praise the equity of the Chinese, and the facilities of transacting matters of commerce with them. They levy a duty of one in thirty on all traders, which is very moderate. The tea is brought from the central provinces of China in boxes, by a tedious journey of many months. It is transferred to bags, and then sewed up in raw hides, as the boxes would not stand the journey. A horse-load of 250lbs. costs sixty tillas in Yarkund, and sometimes sells for a hundred in Bokhara: it is entirely green tea. The best tea found in Toorkistan is imported overland from a place called Tukht, in China, situated on the banks of a river, and sent by way of Astracan, in small tin or lead boxes. It goes by the name of “banca” tea, I believe from the tin in which it is packed: it sells for four rupees the pound, and is very high-flavoured. This tea is superior to any which I ever saw in England; and I have been informed that it retains its flavour from never having been subjected to the close atmosphere in a ship’s hold or the sea air. The Yarkund caravans cross the high lands of Pamere, and follow the valley of the Oxus to Budukhshan, Balkh, and Bokhara. The road is unsafe, and in many places dangerous, from overhanging cliffs. An earthquake, which occurred in January, 1832, threw down several of these, and also destroyed many villages and people in Budukhshan. The traveller likewise experiences a difficulty of breathing in crossing the Pamere ridge; and the caravans are sometimes attacked by the wandering Kirgizzes. Obstacles both natural and political endanger the path of the traveller and merchant. There is another and better route from Yarkund to Bokhara by the valley of the Sirr, or ancient Jaxartes, and Kokan, but less frequented than that by Budukhshan, from differences which exist between the Khan of Kokan and the Chinese. The Kokan route may be travelled by a caravan in forty-five days; and, as far as that town, the merchandise is conveyed from Bokhara in carts. The route by Budukhshan is more circuitous, and occupies a period of sixty-five days. At Khooloom, which is a mart between Yarkund, Bokhara, and Cabool, the ponies are exchanged for camels, and the load of two horses is borne by one camel to Bokhara. Trade with Persia. The Persian trade is inconsiderable, from the unsettled state of the roads, and the hatred which subsists between the people, who differ in their religious tenets. The shawls of Kerman form the principal article of import. Opium has also found its way from Persia to Bokhara, and is again exported to Yarkund and Cashgar, in China, where the same demand exists for it as on the sea-coast. In Bokhara it is sold for five tillas per maund of Tabreez.[40] These articles, as well as others of inferior note, are despatched by the route of Meshid, in Khorasan.
Exports of Bokhara to other countries. Silk.
I shall next notice the exports of Bokhara; and these are far from inconsiderable, since it has silk, cotton, and wool. The silk of Bokhara is chiefly produced on the banks of the Oxus, where the mulberry thrives luxuriantly; and nearly all the Toorkmuns are engaged in rearing silk-worms during the months of summer. It is exported in considerable quantities to Cabool, and even finds its way to India. At Bokhara it varies in price from nine to ten tillas for eight English lbs. The silk is wound and manufactured at Bokhara into a stuff called “udrus,” of a mottled colour,—red, white, green, and yellow,—which is the fashionable and most expensive kind of dress in Toorkistan. It sells from one half to one and a half tillas per piece of eight yards long and a foot broad. It is woven by the Mervees, now settled in Bokhara; but is not exported. Cotton. There are likewise extensive cotton manufactures in Bokhara. I have mentioned the coarse chints which it exports to Russia; but most of the people dress in the native manufactures. There are dark and striped coarse cloths of different hues, of which a pelisse, or “chogha,” may be purchased for half a tilla. I do not suppose they would be worth imitating in Europe. The cotton thread of Bokhara seems to be in as much demand as that of Britain: it is exported in quantities to Russia, and much of the raw material is sent to Balkh, Khooloom, and Koondooz. Wool. The wool (pushm) of Toorkistan is sent across the mountains to Cabool and the Punjab, where it is manufactured into a coarse kind of shawl. It sells from six and a half to eight tillas per maund of Bokhara, which is equal to 256 lbs. English. A few years since it sold for double the price; but the articles manufactured from it have been found inferior, and the sale of the wool has declined. It is procured from among the Kuzzaks and wandering tribes about Bokhara, who were long ignorant of its value, and yet use it in the common ropes by which they bind their horses and cattle. Skins. The lamb skins of Bokhara are celebrated in the East: they are only procured at Karakool, a small district that lies between Bokhara and the Oxus. They are exported to Persia, Turkey, and China, but chiefly to the former country; the merchants of which purchase them for ready money, being afraid to risk a commercial investment across the desert. It is not possible to negociate a bill between Meshid and Bokhara.
Duties on trade.
The duties demanded on European goods at Bokhara are most moderate. They are levied according to the Koran, and are fixed at one fortieth of the capital, or 2½ per cent. A merchant who was not a Mahommedan would have to pay higher duties; a Christian so much as 20 per cent.; a Hindoo 10 per cent., since the law so enacts it; but the greater part of this trade must ever be carried on by Mahommedans. The same principles guide the authorities in Cabool, though the chiefs eastward of the Lower Indus are more extravagant in their demands. Trade, however, is not obstructed by their exactions; while the upper routes, through the Punjab, are nearly closed on that account. Besides the regular customs, there is a transit duty levied in several places between the Indus and Bokhara; and some increased disbursements arise from the hire of escorts through troubled parts of the route. The merchants do not consider them exorbitant, and complain much more loudly of the rapacity and malpractices of the subordinate native officers of revenue in the British provinces. Abuses in the British Custom-house. It is stated that these persons, when on duty at the custom-houses, purposely delay the merchants in their journey, though provided with the requisite passes; and that it is impossible to get their goods cleared without bribery. One merchant of Cabool assured me that he had been mulcted, in copper money, for one cart in which he was travelling, without goods, to the amount of eighteen rupees, between Hurdwar and Benares. The mercantile community of Cabool and Bokhara complain of this evil, and feel it the more, as the public duties are considered moderate, and their property is well protected. The Russian government, on the other hand, is free from such corruption, though it levies heavier duties: these have been made the subject of remonstrance on the part of the king of Bokhara, and are now partially reduced.