The Tajiks weave both silk and cotton, but rarely
hair or wool, except in the mountains.*
On the third day of our sojourn in Samarkand
we visited the prison, which I shall describe hereafter.
I may here mention, however, concerning' the
principal feeders of the prisons— I mean the public-
houses— and also a propos of the drunkenness alleged
above to be the prime cause of military offences, that
* Among their products, called by their native names, are the
following:— i . Alatcha, a cotton material striped with various colours,
some of which is glazed. When made of foreign thread it is called
Alatcha-feringi. A workman can weave about 9 yards of alatcha in
a day, and receives 2 \/d. for his wages. A ju r a {i.e., a piece) of a latcha '
costs from 1 s. 81. to 4J. rod., or alatcha-feringi from 12s. to 16s.; and
an adult male Tajik needs from three to four pieces of alatcha in a
year. 2. Kalama, a white cotton material with stripes, usually of
blue, red, or yellow, of which men use about four pieces a year, and
women one, costing 2J. ¡d . a piece. 3. Fata is a small thin-checked
cotton material, used for turbans and for girdles, made in about 40
weaving shops in Samarkand, a weaver making a piece, 5 yards long,
in 2 days, and thus earning l\d. For turbans two pieces are jo in e d ;
for a girdle one piece suffices. Women do not wear this material at
all, and a piece lasts a man from 2 to 3 years. 4. Khosa is a white
cotton material, used for shrouds, for turbans, and the lining of good
robes; 8 yards cost from 10d. to is, There are in Samarkand 200 workshops
for making khosa, some of which is exported to Bokhara and
Khiva. Turkoman women, and the poorest of the Tajiks in Zarafshan,
make their turbans of it. 5. Pianja is the same material but wider.
6. Daka is a stout cotton cloth of imported thread; little of it is made
in Samarkand. A workman earns 6d. for making 7 yards. 7. Tibit-
salyi{i.e., Wool-turban) is a fabric with cotton warp and woollen weft,
used for turbans and girdles. The Samarkand weavers learned the art
of making it abont 40 years since from Ura-Tiube. The length of a-
piece is from 4 to 16 y a rd s ; a workman makes 7 yards in a day for 6d.
I t costs at the rate of from 2s. to 10s. for 12 yards. 8. P a r ifa s h a is
a silk or half-silken material, worn by women for robes, and is usually
white and blue. 9. Pasma and biko-sab are similar, but the former
with wide, the latter with narrow stripes. 10. Adrias and Al-Chimbar
(the latter, I presume, for making trousers) differ in width, adrias being
10 inches, and the other 18 inches wide. Of semi-silken fabrics generally,
it should be observed that they are watered, something after the
style o f moire antique, by special workmen in the bazaars. The instrument
by which this pattern is produced is called a kudung. It is
in the Zarafshan province for six years, 1868— 1873,
the number of public-houses, wine-cellars, distilleries,
and breweries, progressed in the following order :—
3, 5, 10, 45, 53, 40.* These figures, relate, I believe,
to the Russian population, since the Mussulmans are
supposed to be, and for the most part are, abstainers
from intoxicating drinks.
On returning each day to the palace after our sightseeing
and researches, we were favoured at dinner
a tolerably weighty hammer with a rounded projection of hard wood
called ziran, that grows in the Zarafshan district, whilst the table on
which the material is spread has likewise rounded eminences of ziran.
Pasma, or cloth of camels’ hair for winter clothing, is largely prepared
in Ura-Tiube, and is usually of cinnamon colour, or of black. Basma-
i-tibit is similar, but being half of wool is much finer and better looking.
Kokma, or camlet, which may be of camels’ hair, or wool of goat or
sheep, is principally produced by the nomads, especially by the Kirghese
of Semirechia. Koshma, or felt, is one of the necessities of Central
Asian nomad life, whilst there are three kinds of carpet held in esteem,
Mashata (from Meshed ?), juinabe, or Turkoman, and Ah-chatchak,
from Khokand. There is a carpet, without pile, called Palas, prepared
in Kurama, Khojend, and to some extent in the Zarafshan district, and
the Uzbegs, wintering in the direction of the Urmitan pass, make excellent
carpets called gelym, with long downy nap. Another material
prepared by the Tajiks, but not yet mentioned, is Kanaus, of three
kinds, smooth, striped, and printed, and they also knit stockings. A
pair of the latter I bought in Tashkend, of cinnamon colour, were said
to be of fibre from bark ; they were supposed to be warm, and cost 5J.,
but I am uncertain whether they were of Russian or native make.
* These are statistics compiled by M. Virsky in the Turkistan
A n n u a l for 1876, whilst the Turkistan Calendar for 1879 gives
information concerning distillation and the drink traffic in Turkistan ;
that there were used for distilling, in 1875-6, of rye flour 377 tons, wheat
flour 489 tons, rice 89 tons, and malt 132 tons. Also that in 1876 there
were issued from the cellars of the distilleries 73,262 gallons of spirit.
Of beer and mead breweries, in 1876, there were 10; of works for m aking
vodka from grapes and fruit 7; and from wine 8. The number of
licenses issued in the latter half of the year to houses in which drink
was sold was 7 1 ; wine-cellars 160; beershops 35 ; that is, 266 places
for the .sale of alcoholic drink, whilst the licenses for tea-houses and
buffets numbered 76. The number of distilleries in 1876-7 was 6, and
fermenting cellars 35, with a capacity of 58,000 gallons.