Previous English Bokhara the ally, and the puppet of Russia, has left to his heir, the reigning Amir, a capital still breathing some aroma of its ancient glory, but a power whose wings have been ruthlessly clipped, and a kingdom indebted for a nominal independence to the calculating prudence rather than to the generosity of Russia. English imagination has for centuries been stirred visitors to by the romantic associations of Bokhara, but English visitors have rarely penetrated to the spot. The first who reached its walls was the enterprising merchant Master Anthony Jenkinson, who was despatched on several adventurous expeditions to the East between 1557 and 1572, acting in the double capacity of ambassador to Queen Elizabeth and agent to the Muscovy Trading Company, which had been formed to open up the trade with the East. He stayed two and a half months in the city in the winter of 155859, being treated with much consideration by the sovereign, Abdullah Khan; and has left a record of his journey and residence in Bokhara, the facts of which display a minute correspondence (at which no one acquainted with the magnificent immobility of the East would express surprise) with the customs and manners of to-day. In the eighteenth century the record was limited to two names-Colonel Garber in 1732, and Mr. George Thompson in 1741.2 In this Early Voyages in Russia and Persia. By Anthony Jenkinson and other Englishmen. Edited for the Hakluyt Society by E. D. Morgan, 1886. Vide Professor Grigorieff's criticism of Vambéry's History of Bokhara, in the Appendix to Schuyler's Turkistan, vol. i. I can ascertain nothing about Col. Garber (or Harber) beyond the mention of his name. Professor Grigorieff was mistaken in coupling the name 2 century William Moorcroft and George Trebeck, at the end of six years' wanderings from India, through Kashmir, Afghanistan, and Turkestan, reached Bokhara on February 25, 1825; leaving the city five months later only to die, the one at Andkui, the other at Mazar-i-Sherif.1 In 1832 Lieutenant, afterwards Sir Alexander Burnes, succeeded in reaching Bokhara also from India, in company with Dr. James Gerard, and in concluding a treaty of commerce with the Amir. Then in 1842 came the horrible tragedy which has inscribed the names of Stoddart and Conolly in the martyrology of English pioneers in the East. Sent in 1838 and 1840 upon a mission of diplomatic negotiation to the khanates of Central Asia, whose sympathies Great Britain desired to enlist in consequence of her advance into Afghanistan, they were thrown by the monster Nasrullah into a foul subterranean pit, infested with vermin, were subjected to abominable torture, and finally were publicly beheaded in 1842. Dr. Wolff, the missionary, travelling to Bokhara in 1843, in order to clear up their of Reynold Hogg with that of Thompson. The two travelled together as far as Khiva (viá Samara and the Aral Sea); but while Thompson pushed on to Bokhara, Hogg remained behind, and with great difficulty, being plundered in the steppe, escaped at length to Orenburg. Vide An Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea. By Jonas Hanway, merchant, 1753, vol. i. pp. 345-52. 1 Travels in the Himalayan Provinces, dc. By Mr. William Moorcroft and Mr. George Trebeck, from 1819 to 1825. 2 vols. 1841. The editor, who published these travels fifteen years after the authors' death, omitted any account of Moorcroft's stay at Bokhara, both because the latter's notes were very desultory and imperfect, and because Burnes had published his work in the interim. 2 Travels into Bokhara. By Lieut. Alexander Burnes. 3 vols. 1835. Burnes' account of Bokhara is still one of the best extant. Road from the station fate, ran many risks, but at length escaped with his life. For forty years, however, owing partly to the terror inspired by this disaster and to the perils of the journey, partly to the increasing influence of Russia, who did not encourage English intruders upon her new preserves, not a single Englishman set foot in Bokhara. A deep mystery overhung the place like a cloud, from which occasionally peeped the glint of Russian arms, or rang the voice of Russian cannon. A flash of light was thrown upon the prevailing darkness about half-way through this period by the heroic voyage of the Hungarian Vambéry, who penetrated to Bokhara in the garb of a mendicant dervish in 1863, and whose work, being published in English, awoke a profound sensation in this country. In 1873, Dr. Schuyler, the American, visited Bokhara under Russian patronage, in his tour through the Czar's dominions in Central Asia, and wrote a work which may be described as monumental, and is still a classic on the subject. Dr. Lansdell, the so-called missionary, was the next English visitor after Wolff, in 1882. I do not know of any others till the small batch who have obtained leave to go since the Transcaspian Railway was made, and whose experience it is my object to relate. Upon our arrival at the station we committed to the city ourselves to a calèche drawn by a troika, or team of three horses abreast, which had been sent down from the Russian Embassy in the city to meet us, and 1 Travels in Central Asia. By Arminius Vambéry. 1864. 2 Turkistan. By Eugene Schuyler. 2 vols. 1876. started for the capital. But for this good fortune we might have been compelled to make the journey either on donkey-back or in one of the huge wooden springless carts of the country called arbas, the wheels of which are from eight to ten feet high, and on whose elevated floor the natives squat contentedly, while the driver, usually seated on a saddle on the horse's back, urges the vehicle in the most casual manner over inequalities that would upset any less clumsy construction. Donkeys appeared to be the most popular method of locomotion, it being considered undignified in that country to walk. Two and even three men sit astride of the same diminutive animal, dangling their legs to the ground; or a bearded veteran, with his knees tilted up to his chin by the ridiculously short stirrups, would be seen perched upon a heap of saddle-bags, with a blue bale reared up behind him, which closer inspection revealed to be a daughter or a wife. Blinding clouds of dust, stirred by the great traffic, rolled along the road, which lay between orchards of mulberries, peaches, figs, and vines, or between fields in which the second grain crop of the year was already springing, or where hundreds of ripe melons littered the ground. We passed through several villages of low clay houses where dusty trees overhung the dry watercourses and thirsty camels stood about the wells, skirted a summer palace of the Amir surrounded by a mighty wall of sun-dried clay, and at length saw drawn out in a long line before us the lofty ramparts of the city, with buttresses and towers, The Embassy eight miles round, and pierced by eleven gates, open from sunrise to sunset, but hermetically closed at that hour against either exit or entrance till the morrow.1 Entering by one of these, the Sallia Khaneh, we made our way for over two miles through a bewildering labyrinth of streets and alleys to the Russian Embassy, situated near the Ughlan Gate, at the far end of the city. This is a large native house with an extensive fruit garden surrounded by a clay wall, which was lent to the Russians by the Amir, who had confiscated it from its former owner, both for 1 A plan of Bokhara, as also of Samarkand, is given in the Russian original, but not, unfortunately, in the English translation, of Khanikoff's work. |