It was nearly midnight before the batchas left our I
house, and I am not sure that they did not prolong the I
fun near at hand ; but they had put us up bedsteads and I
pillows at either end of our room, and we were g la d !
enough to get to bed. Next morning they gave us for I
breakfast fruits, boiled milk and rice^ with butter, and I
sour cream. - Quite early some courtiers came, saying I
that the Emir had already asked several times after I
my health, and his Majesty (or his Highness, as the I
Russians call him) wished to know whether we were I
dull, because, if so, he would send -some persons^ to I
amuse us. I replied that we were not dull, having I
plenty of reading and writing to do. His-spokesman, I
we were told, was a colonel, and we afterwards learned I
that he was a very near attendant and minister of the I
Emir, named Hodja Abul Fais, and one of the most I
enlightened of the Bokhariots that we met. He had I
lived seven years in Constantinople, and had travelled I
to Kief, Moscow, and Orenburg. Both being travellers I
we compared notes, I telling him of my Central Asian I
journey, and my former route through Siberia round!
the world. I offered him a copy of St. Matthew’s
Gospel in Osmanli Turkish, which he appeared to I
female harem, and M. Ostroumoff, writing of the characteristics of the
Mussulmans of Central Asia, states that, from 1869— 7f, out of 103
criminal law-suits brought before the Russians, 25 were traced to the
keeping of such boys, 10 persons having committed murder and 14
robbery to find the money to pay them. Some parents, he says, themselves
use or sell their boys as batchas, and one law-suit was brought
by a father against a whole family who had thus used his son. So long I
as the batchas are young and good-lookingthey are petted and spoiled,
but afterwards they often fall into a life, as Dr. Schuyler says, of caprice,
extravagance, and dissipation. They told me that the Emir did no l
allow women to dance, which probably meant in public, as I heard 0
them doing in Khokand. Dr. Schuyler, too, speaks of their performing
in the women’ s court, hut we saw none throughout Central Asia, Such
a practice in public, if not also in private, would bp quite contrary to
Sunni Muhammadan, ideas.
read fluently. On learning what it was, he said God
had given four books to men, of which this was one,
whereupon he kissed and accepted it with thanks,
putting it away in his breast. He then asked how
old I was, guessed me too young by ten years, and
was surprised that my beard was so black and without
grey hairs.*
■After the departure of this courtier I walked out to
look at our surroundings. Our house stood on a bank
some half-dozen feet above the courtyard, with a
stream of water running near, the specific gravity of
which I tested, and found to be 99. In the yard and
the adjacent open sheds our horses were picketed,
whilst on the other side of the house were sunken,
muddy flower-beds, watered by irrigation, with chrysanthemums
in blossom. Near these beds were
dwellings resembling offices, into which I began to
pry, when Yakoob came running up in alarm to
inform me that I was entering the women’s domains.
O f course I at once drew back, though so effectually
had the fair ones kept out of sight that I had not the
least idea there were any on the premises. I fancy
however, they had seen me, and I perceived that
other eyes were upon us also. Six open doors in one
small room I had voted rather too much of a good
thing, and closed accordingly the three that gave
access to the courtyard, leaving open for light and air
those facing the garden and offices. One of the
attendants came to ask whether I would not like the
opposite doors opened, so that the air might enter, but
*, More than once this question was asked in the khanate, and
followed by a similar remark. A Russian living in the town of
Bokhara told me that the natives are usually grey at 35, that his
bfcther living there for three years began to get -grey at 24, but that
°§ g°mg back to Russia the grey hairs disappeared.