This put the finishing touch to the low estimate I
had formed of the extent of native Central Asian trade.
In the Tashkend bazaar one saw here and there a
fair stock of goods, but as we travelled on, it was rare
to see a native shop in which the stock might not
have been bought, one would think down to the very
last stick, for a few hundred pounds. I cannot think
we saw a single native building throughout Central
Asia in which the contents exceeded in value ,£2,000.
I do not remember one that struck me as containing
half that value, and we certainly saw no silversmiths’ or
jewellers’ shops that displayed half the stock of an
English shop in a small town. I am stating impressions
rather than facts, received, it must be remembered,
sometimes on other than market-days ; but when the
stock of three or four dealers had sometimes to be
brought to enable us to purchase a few representative
specimens of jewellery, one soon found that there was
little made ready to hand.
I did purchase certainly one set o f jewellery in
Central Asia that has been much admired, consisting
of an Albert chain, locket, and studs of cloisonné turquoise
enamel work. I have shown it to Mr. Augustus
Franks, at the British Museum, and to the leading art
jewellers of Regent Street, and they all called it new
to them, and said the like could not be made in London.
These things, however, if not ordered, had been made
with an eye to Russian demand, and the man told
me he was the only maker of them. In fact, the old
Biblical custom seemed still to rule, that one takes
silver and gold to a smith, as we take cloth to a tailor,
whose business it is to make it up.*
* “ His mother took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them
to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image ”
We asked in Khiva to be taken to a silversmith’s,
and so we were in the strict sense of the word, for
there was a workshop with two crucibles of stone to
be heated by. charcoal fires, two small anvils, and,
if I remember rightly, silver in the bar as we had seen
at Kuldja, whilst the work the man had in hand was
the silvering the handle of a battle-axe, by order of
the Khan, to be carried by some new place-man as an
insignia of office; but as for getting a collection of
Khivan jewellery, it was not apparently there to be had,
and I could spend only a shilling for three ear-rings, for
the sake of buying something as a souvenir.
I was anxious to form some idea, if possible, of the
manufactures of Khiva, and asked to be taken to some
of their workshops ; but things were at so low an ebb,
that in the coppersmiths’ row I could not get a kurgan,
or ewer, that was worth bringing away. The Divan-
beggi subsequently gave me one for his present, which
I was well pleased to have as a souvenir of Khiva.
It is small, but prettily graven, though not so finely as
some of those we saw at Khokand. They took us
likewise to what might by compliment be called a silk
factory, where, after crawling through a door 3 feet
high, we found a few looms o f the roughest description.
The Khivan silks, when woven, do not compare well
with those of Bokhara and Khokand. I saw them,
however, making a thick, red silk, that is sent to
Bokhara to be used chiefly for head-dresses of rich
Kirghese women. It sells for .£1 per Russian pound.
From the caravansary we were taken to see some
of the medresses and mosques. MacGahan says there
(Judges xvii. 4); and, once more, “ They lavish gold out of the bag, and
weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it
a god” (Isa. xlvi. 6).