description of it may be compared with Mr. Atkinson’s. Inside it was
adorned with thick carpets of various hues, and bright-coloured cushions,
for the accommodation of the inmates. In the centre a small fire gave
out a cloud of white smoke, which rose in coils and wreaths to the roof,
and there escaped through an aperture left for the purpose. The fuel
used is saxaul, the wood of the bramble tree, and it emits an acrid,
pungent odour. The women in the tent had their faces uncovered; they
received their visitor with a warm welcome, and spread some rugs for him
to sit down by their side. They were all of them moon-faced, with large
mouths, but good eyes and teeth.
The master of the kibitka, who was clad in a long brown robe, thickly
wadded to keep out the cold, poured some water into a large caldron, and
proceeded to make tea, while a young girl handed round raisins and dried
currants. A brief conversation then arose. The Kirghiz were much
surprised to learn that their visitor was not a Russian, but had come
from a far Western land, and were even more surprised to find that he had
brought no wife with him—a wife, in the opinion of the Kirghiz, being as
indispensable to a man’s happiness as a horse or camel. In entering into
matrimony, the Kirghiz have one great advantage over the other Moslem
races; they see the girls whom they wish to marry, and are allowed to
converse with them before the bargain is concluded between the parents,
one hundred sheep being the average price given for a young woman.
* * * * *
On the 12th of January Major Burnaby left Kasala for Khiva. His retinue
consisted of three camels, loaded with a tent, forage, and provisions,
his Tartar servant, who bestrode the largest camel, and a Kirghiz guide,
who, like himself, was mounted on horseback. His provisions included
stchi, or cabbage soup, with large pieces of meat cut up in it, which,
having been poured into two large iron stable buckets, had become hard
frozen, so that it could be easily carried slung on a camel’s back. He
also took with him twenty pounds of cooked meat. A hatchet, to chop up
the meat or cut down brushwood for a fire, and a cooking lamp, with a
supply of spirit, formed part of his equipment.
Crossing the icy surface of the Syr-Daria, our traveller once more
plunged into the solitude of the steppes, bravely facing the storm-wind
and the ridges of snow which rolled before it, like the wave-crests of a
frozen sea. After a five hours’ march, he called a halt, that the camels
might rest and be fed—for they will feed only in the daytime; wherefore
it is wise to march them as much as possible during the night. Their
ordinary pace is about two miles and a third in an hour; and the best
plan is to start at midnight, unload them for about two hours in the day
to feed, and halt at sunset: thus securing sixteen hours’ work per day,
and accomplishing a daily journey of at least thirty-seven miles.
The kibitka was soon raised. “Imagine,” says our traveller, “a bundle of
sticks, each five feet three inches in length, and an inch in diameter;
these are connected with each other by means of cross sticks, through the
ends of which holes are bored, and leather thongs passed. This allows
plenty of room for all the sticks to open out freely; they then form a
complete circle, about twelve feet in diameter, and five feet three in
height. They do not require any pressing into the ground, for the
circular shape keeps them steady. When this is done, a thick piece of
cashmar, or cloth made of sheep’s wool, is suspended from their tops, and
reaches to the ground. This forms a shield through which the wind cannot
pass. Another bundle of sticks is then produced. They are all fastened
at one end to a small wooden cross, about six inches long by four broad;
a man standing in the centre of the circle raises up this bundle in the
air, the cross upwards, and hitches their other ends by means of little
leather loops one by one on the different upright sticks which form the
circular walls. The result is, they all pull against each other, and are
consequently self-supporting; another piece of cloth is passed round the
outside of this scaffolding, leaving a piece uncovered at the top to
allow the smoke to escape. One stick is removed from the uprights which
form the walls. This constitutes a door, and the kibitka is complete.”
While the Major and his followers were enjoying a meal of rice and
mutton, and a glass of hot tea, three Khivans rode up to them—a merchant
and his two servants. The Khivan merchant was strongly built, and about
five feet ten inches in height. He wore a tall, conical black Astrakhan
hat; an orange-coloured dressing-gown, thickly quilted, and girt about
the loins with a long, red sash; and over all, enveloping him from hand
to foot, a heavy sheepskin mantle. His weapons consisted of a long,
single-barrelled gun, and a short, richly mounted sabre. An exchange of
civilities followed, and then both parties retired to rest. At about
three o’clock in the morning, after some difficulty with his guide and
camel-driver, the Major resumed his march, and for six hours the weary
tramp and toil over the frost-bound plain continued. At nine a halt was
called, soup was made, and the party breakfasted. By the time they were
ready to set out again, the Khivan merchant’s caravan had come up, and
all went on together.
In advance rode the guide, singing a song in praise of mutton, and
descriptive of his partiality for that succulent meat. The Kirghiz poets
make the sheep the special subject of their metrical eulogium; in truth,
it fills in their poetry as conspicuous a place as the dove in the
love-songs of the Latin bards. Nor is to be wondered at. The sheep
represents the wealth, the property of the nomads. During the summer and
autumn they live upon their milk, and never think of killing them except
to do honour to a guest by serving up before him a leg of mutton. In the
winter they are, of course, obliged very frequently to sacrifice the
highly esteemed animal, but they live upon horseflesh and camel’s flesh
as much as they can. Their clothing is furnished by the sheep, being
made entirely of sheep’s wool wrought into a coarse homespun. Finally,
if they want to buy a horse, a camel, or a wife, they pay in sheep; and a
man’s worth in the world is reckoned by the numbers of his flock.
On the following day, in the course of their march, the travellers came
upon a Kirghiz encampment, the members of which were considerably excited
by Major Burnaby’s announcement of his desire to purchase a whole sheep.
The head of the principal kibitka, accompanied by a pretty Kirghiz girl,
hastened to conduct him to the sheepfold, that he might select an animal,
and the fattest of the flock became his for the small sum of four
roubles. The pretty young girl acted as butcher, receiving the skin and
head in acknowledgment of her trouble, and the carcase was conveyed to
the Major’s tent, where it was duly cooked, and devoured by his
followers, who showed the most intense appreciation of his liberality.
The march being resumed, Major Burnaby made for a place called
Kalenderhana, instead of the Russian settlement of Petro-Alexandrovsky,
having a shrewd suspicion that if he went thither, as the governor of
Kasala had desired, he would, in some way or other, be prevented from
reaching Khiva. Pushing forward steadily, he left his Khivan merchant
far behind, and strode across an undulating country in the direction of
south-south-west. Next he came into a salt district, barren and dreary;
and afterwards reached the desert of Jana-Daria, the dried-up bed of a
river, which is lost in the sand. Still continuing his march, he came
upon an unbounded ocean of sand, which, in the glaring sunshine,
glittered like a sea of molten gold. When this was traversed, the
country grew pleasanter and more fertile. Traces of game appeared.
Sometimes a brown hare darted through the herbage; while in the distance
herds of saigak, or antelopes, bounded with elastic tread across the
sward. A chain of mountains running east and west rose up before the
wanderer’s path, and presented a picturesque spectacle, with their broken
crests, sharp pinnacles, and masses of shining quartz. Upon their rugged
sides could be traced the furrows ploughed by the torrents which the
spring lets loose and feeds with its abundant rains. Through a dark and
deep defile, about seven miles long, the little company penetrated the
mountain barrier of the Kazan-Tor, and descended into a broad plain,
overspread by a network of canals for irrigation, where a striking
indication of the desultory but ceaseless hostilities waged between the
Kirghiz and the Turcomans was presented in the rude fortifications, a
high ditch and a wattled palisade, that encircled every little village.
Kalenderhana was fortified in this manner. Here Major Burnaby was warmly
welcomed, and in great state escorted to his Kirghiz guide’s house, or
kibitka, where a curious throng quickly surrounded him, and proceeded to
examine, and comment unreservedly upon, every part of his attire. Major
Burnaby, if less outspoken, was not less curious, and carefully noted
that the hostess was a good-looking woman, clad in a flowing white
dressing-gown, with a whiter turban, folded many times around her small
head. The brother-in-law, a short hump-backed fellow, had a horse to
sell, which Major Burnaby expressed his willingness to purchase, if he
went to Khiva. The guide had been ordered by the Russian governor of
Kasala to conduct the Englishman to Petro-Alexandrovsky, and at first he
was reluctant to run the risk of punishment; but the domestic pressure
put upon him could not be resisted, and he agreed to go to Khiva, on
condition that the Major completed his bargain with the horse-dealer.
This was at last arranged, and a Tartar being sent forward with a letter
to the Khan, requesting permission to visit his capital, the traveller
resumed his journey, with Nazar proudly seated astride the new purchase.
A brief ride carried them to the bank of the great Amu-Daria, the Oxus of
Alexander the Great, which at this time was frozen over, presenting a
solid highway of ice, half a mile in breadth. There they met with some
Khivan merchants—stalwart men, with dark complexions and large eyes,
dressed in long red thickly wadded dressing-gowns and cone-shaped black
lambskin hats. A caravan of camels was crossing the river, and numerous
arbas, or two-wheeled carts, each drawn by one horse, passed to and fro.
Every man whom they encountered saluted them with the customary Arab
greeting, “_Salam aaleikom_!” to which the response was always given,
“_Aaleikom salam_!” Soon after crossing the frozen river, Major Burnaby
determined to halt for the night; and the guide began to look about for
suitable quarters. He pulled up at last by the side of a large,
substantial-looking square building, built of clay. A rap at the high
wooden gates brought out an old man bent nearly double with age, who, on
hearing that the travellers wanted a night’s hospitality, immediately
called to his servants to take charge of the horses and camels, and
across the square-walled courtyard ushered Major Burnaby into his house.
The guest-room was spacious and lofty. One end of it was covered with
thick carpets; this was the place of honour for visitors. In the centre
a small square hearth was filled with charcoal embers, confined within a
coping about three inches high. On the coping stood a richly chased
copper ewer—which might have been dug out of the ruins of the buried
Pompeii, so classic was it in shape and appearance—with a long swan-like
neck, constructed so as to assist the attendant in pouring water over the
hands of his master’s guests before they began their repast. On one side
of the hearth was a square hole about three feet deep, filled with water,
and reached by a couple of steps. It was the place of ablution—something
like the _impluvium_ in a Roman villa—and its sides were lined with
ornamental tiles. The windows were represented by two narrow slits, each
about two feet long by six inches wide, while some open wooden
trellis-work supplied the place of glass.
After a brief absence the host reappeared, carrying in his hand a large
earthenware dish full of rice and mutton, while his servants followed,
with baskets of bread and hard-boiled eggs. A pitcher of milk was also
produced, and an enormous melon, weighing quite twenty-five pounds. When
the host and his visitor had completed their repast, they began to
converse, the Khivan asking many questions about the countries which the
Englishman had travelled. To his inquiry whether there were camels in
England, Major Burnaby replied with an amusing description of our
railways and locomotives.
“We have trains,” he said, “composed of arbas with iron wheels; they run
upon long strips of iron, which are laid upon the ground for the wheels
to roll over.”
“Do the horses drag them very fast?” asked the Khivan.
“We do not use live horses, but we make a horse of iron and fill him with
water, and put fire under the water. The water boils and turns into
steam. The steam is very powerful; it rushes out of the horse’s stomach,
and turns large wheels which we give him instead of legs. The wheels
revolve over the iron lines which we have previously laid down, and the
horse, which we call an engine, moves very quickly, dragging the arbas
behind him; they are made of wood and iron, and have four wheels, not
two, like your arbas in Khiva. The pace is so great that if your Khan
had an iron horse and a railway, he could go to Kasala in one day.”
Next morning, after remunerating his host for his hospitality, Major
Burnaby proceeded towards the goal of his daring enterprise. He passed
through the busy trading town of Oogentel, the first in Khivan territory
on the road from Kalenderhana, and, as an Englishman, attracted the
attention of the population. This attention grew into wild excitement,
when he found his way to a barber, intent upon getting rid of a beard of
thirteen weeks’ growth. In Oogentel the people shave their heads and not
their chins; so that the traveller’s desire to have his chin shaved,
instead of his head, begat an extraordinary sensation. An increasing
crowd gathered round the barber’s shop; moullahs (or priests),
camel-drivers, and merchants jostling one another in their anxiety to
obtain good points of view, like the London populace on the Lord Mayor’s
Show day. The thought occurred to Major Burnaby that this fanatical
Moslem multitude might not be displeased if the barber cut an
unbeliever’s throat, and it was not without a qualm he resigned himself
to his hands. No such catastrophe happened, however; but the barber,
rendered nervous by the accumulated gaze of hundreds of eyes, let slip
the thin strip of steel which did duty for a razor, and inflicted a
slight wound on his customer’s cheek. As no soap was used, and the
substitute for a razor was innocent of “edge,” the operation was
sufficiently disagreeable; and if the crowd were sorry, Major Burnaby was
heartily rejoiced when it came to an end and he was free to continue his
journey.
At nine versts from Oogentel he and his party crossed the canal of the
Shabbalat, and rode through a barren tract of sand until they arrived at
a cemetery. The tombs were made of dried clay, and fashioned into the
strangest shapes; while over several of the larger floated banners or
white flags, from poles ten or twelve feet high, indicating the last
resting-place of some unknown and unchronicled hero. _Multi fortes
vixerunt ante Agamemnona_; but they have found no bard to record their
deeds of prowess in immortal verse. The Khivan warriors who fell in
defence of their wild father-land must sleep for ever in nameless graves.
At a village called Shamahoolhur, the traveller was received with true
Khivan hospitality. His entertainer was a fair-looking man, with a
genial address and a hearty glance in his dark eyes, and appeared, from
his surroundings, to be possessed of considerable wealth. He was a
sportsman, and kept several hawks; these birds being used in Khiva to fly
at the saigahs and hares. The bird strikes his victim between its eyes
with a force which stuns or confuses it, so that it can make no
resistance or attempt at escape when the hounds seize it.
“Do you not hunt in this way in your country?” said the Khivan.
“No; we hunt foxes, but only with hounds, and we ourselves follow on
horseback.”
“Are your horses like our own?” he asked.
“No; they are most of them stouter built, have stronger shoulders, and
are better animals; but though they can gallop faster than your horses
for a short distance, I do not think they can last so long.”
“Which do you like best, your horse or your wife?” inquired the man.
“That depends upon the woman,” I replied; and the guide, here joining in
the conversation, said that in England they did not buy or sell their
wives, and that I was not a married man.
“What! you have not got a wife?”
“No; how could I travel if I had one?”
“Why, you might leave her behind, and lock her up, as our merchants do
with their wives when they go on a journey!”
The next morning Major Burnaby encountered on the road the messenger he
had despatched to Khiva. He was accompanied by two Khivan noblemen, one
of whom courteously saluted the English traveller, and explained that the
Khan had sent him to escort him into the city, and bid him welcome.
They rapidly approached the capital, and above its belt of trees could
see its glittering crown of minarets and domes. The landscape round
about it was very pleasant to see, with its leafy groves, its walled
orchards, and its avenues of mulberry trees; and recalled to the
traveller’s mind the descriptions which figure in the pages of Oriental
story-tellers. A swift ride brought the party to the gates of Khiva.
The city is built in an oblong form, and surrounded by two walls; of
which the outer is not less than fifty feet in height, and constructed of
baked bricks, with the upper part of dried clay. This forms the first
line of defence. At a quarter of a mile within it rises the second wall,
somewhat lower than the first, and protected by a dry ditch. It
immediately surrounds the tower. The space between the two walls is used
as a market, and high above the throng of vendors and buyers, and the
press of cattle, horses, sheep, and camels, rises the cross-beam of the
ghastly gallows, on which all people convicted of theft are executed.
But as we have already spoken of this now famous city, we must confine
ourselves in these pages to Major Burnaby’s individual adventures.
Lodging was provided for him in the house of his escort, and directly on
his entry he was served with refreshments. Afterwards he was conducted
to the bath. In the evening a succession of visitors arrived; and it was
late when the Major was at liberty to seek repose.
II.
In the afternoon of the following day two officials arrived from the
Khan, with an escort of six men on horseback and four on foot, to conduct
the English officer to the palace. Mounting his horse, he rode forth,
preceded by the six horsemen, and with an official on either side; the
rear being brought up by Nazar, with some attendants on foot, who lashed
out freely with their long whips when the staring crowd drew
inconveniently near the _cortége_. Fresh sightseers arrived every
moment, for the name of England exercises a charm and a power in Khiva,
where people are never weary of talking of the nation which holds in fee
the gorgeous Indian empire, and is regarded as the rival and inevitable
foe of the White Czar. The very housetops were lined with curious eyes.
Through the hum and din of voices the Englishman proceeded to the Khan’s
residence; a large building, with pillars and domes reflecting the sun’s
rays from their bright glazed tiles. At the gates stood a guard of
thirty or forty men with flashing scimitars. The company passed into a
small courtyard, from which a door opened into a low passage, and this
led to some squalid corridors, terminating in a large square room, where
was seated the treasurer, with three moullahs, busily engaged in counting
up his money. He made a sign to the attendants, and a large wooden box
was at once pushed forward, and offered to Major Burnaby as a seat. An
interval of fifteen minutes, as the playwrights say, followed. Then a
messenger entered the room, and announced that the Khan was at liberty to
receive the stranger. Away through a long corridor, and across an inner
courtyard, to the reception-hall—a large dome-shaped tent or kibitka. A
curtain was drawn aside, and the Englishman found himself face to face
with the celebrated Khan.
The portrait he draws of the Khivan potentate differs in some particulars
from that drawn by Mr. MacGahan (see p. 283):—“He is taller than the
average of his subjects, being quite five feet ten in height, and is
strongly built. His face is of a broad massive type; he has a low square
forehead, large dark eyes, a short straight nose, with dilated nostrils,
and a coal-black beard and moustache. An enormous mouth, with irregular
but white teeth, and a chin somewhat concealed by his beard, and not at
all in character with the otherwise determined appearance of his face,
must complete the picture. He did not look more than eight and twenty,
and had a pleasant genial smile, and a merry twinkle in his eye, very
unusual amongst Orientals; in fact, a Spanish expression would describe
him better than any English one I can think of. He is _muy simpatico_. . . .
The Khan was dressed in a similar sort of costume to that generally
worn by his subjects, but it was made of much richer materials, and a
jewelled sword was lying by his feet. His head was covered by a tall
black Astrakhan hat, of a sugar-loaf shape.”
Tea having been served in a small porcelain cup, the Khan entered into
conversation with his visitor, through the medium of Nazar, a Kirghiz
interpreter, and a moullah. At first it turned upon the relations
existing between England and Russia, the Crimean War, the Indian
Government, and other branches of _la haute politique_; the Khan
displaying a quick and clear intelligence. At last he said—
“You do not have a Khan at the head of affairs?”
“No,” replied Burnaby, “a Queen; and her Majesty is advised as to her
policy by her ministers, who for the time being are supposed to represent
the opinion of the country.”
“And does that opinion change?”
“Very frequently; and since your country was conquered we have had a
fresh Government, whose policy is diametrically opposite to that held by
the previous one; and in a few years’ time we shall have another change,
for in our country, as the people advance in knowledge and wealth, they
require fresh laws and privileges. The result of this is, they choose a
different set of people to represent them;” and the Major entered on a
brief exposition of constitutional principles, which to the Khan must
surely have been unintelligible.
“Can your Queen have a subject’s head cut off?”
“No, not without a trial before our judges.”
“Then she never has their throats cut?” [the Khivan punishment for
murder].
“No.”
“Hindostan is a very wonderful country,” continued the Khan; “the envoy I
sent there a few years ago {359} has told me of your railroads and
telegraphs; but the Russians have railroads, too.”
“Yes,” replied Burnaby; “we lent them money, and our engineers have
helped to make them.”
“Do the Russians pay you for this?” he inquired.
“Yes; so far they have behaved very honourably.”
“Are there not Jews in your country like some of the Jews at Bokhara?”
“One of the richest men in England is a Jew.”
“The Russians do not take away the money from the Jews?”
“No.”
Here the Khan said a few words to his treasurer, and then remarked, in
allusion to the tribute he pays to Russia annually:—“Why do they take
money from me, then? The Russians love money very much.” As he said
this, he shook his head sorrowfully at the treasurer; and the latter,
assuming a dolorous expression, poured out with a pitiful accent the
monosyllable “Hum!” which, in Khivan language, seems to convey as
pregnant a meaning as Lord Burleigh’s shake of the head in “The Critic.”
With a low bow from the Khan, the interview terminated.