as the citadel, and the domes surmounting many
medresses ; but we were too far off to get anything
like a view of the whole of the town. W e could see a
good long stretch o f the wall, looking truly ancient,
and perhaps rather imposing, with no houses or buildings
outside, with battlements and buttresses, which
from a distance appear like towers, though not higher
than the wall itself. The buttresses are called burj",
and are 131 in number. The wall is 7 miles 980
yards round, 24 feet high, and 10 feet thick at the
base.* I asked the date o f building the wall, and they
said “ a thousand years ago,” and that the population of
the city is about 2,000,000! t Wolff gives the population
at 180,000, but Khanikoff estimated it between
60,000 and 70,000. I should judge this to be much
nearer the mark, since Khanikoff estimates the area
covered by the city to be 1,860 acres, or about 3
square miles.
There were no houses near the mosque, on whose
summit we were standing, so I took occasion to twit
* The condition of the walls in Central Asia more than once brought
up Scripture analogies. At Aulie-Ata they presented a scene such as
Nehemiah (ii. 13) saw when he “ went out by night, and viewed the
walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down.” The rent and cracked
walls of Etchmiadzin, in Armenia, reminded me of the derisive expression
of Tobiah, “ That which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even
break down their stone wall ” (Neh. iv. 3); but I do not remember being
struck with a similar multiplicity of cracks in Central Asia, where I
think the walls were thicker. Once more, in the so-called Jasper
wainscoting of Tamarlane’s tomb, we saw an exemplification of
Oriental magnificence pictured in the expression, “ the foundations of
the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of costly stones ”
(Rev. xxi. 19), or better, perhaps, “ I will lay thy foundations with
sapphires, and I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of
carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones ” (Isa. liv. n-12).
t The latter, at all events, is a specimen of their ignorance as to
high numbers, with which they seem quite unable mentally to deal.
Also they love set numbers, saying there are in the city 360 mosques
and 360 streets and lanes.
Mirza Y usuf about his fear that we should overlook
the apartments of the women. Then, remounting our
horses, I galloped off to finish the remaining gates,
namely, Sheikh-Jelal, Kara-Kul, Shir-ghiran, and so
entered, as before, the gate Talipaj. This we did in
about half an hour, including the stoppage at Namazgah,
but the run was not so long as we had had on the
preceding occasion. It was an autumnal morning,
decidedly cool, not to say cold ; so by the time we
reached the embassy I told our old gentleman that, as
the morning was fresh, I thought he might like a
warming, whereupon Fazul, seeing the joke, looked at
me, and expressively hid his face in his khalat to laugh.
Our custodian took it good-naturedly, however, saying
that an occasional gallop was good, since it stirred the
blood.
The Kush-beggi had appointed noon as the hour
for receiving us, but it was not till some time later he
sent, with apologies for delay, to say that he was ready.
We therefore paraded through the streets with our
retinue and certain of the local dignitaries, and came
to the Righistan, or public place. On one side of this
is the citadel, or palace of the Emir, built on a square
mound, 35 or 40 feet high, and about a mile in circuit,
with an area of 24 acres. On this area, surrounded by
a high crenelated wall, are built the palace, the houses
of the Kush-beggi, and certain of the court grandees
and their retinue. A t the entrance are two lofty
towers, and, looking up, I noticed the clock made by
Giovanni Orlandi, who fell into the hands of Nasr-
Ullah, and when condemned to death because he would
not turn Mussulman, was pardoned on promising to
make the despot a machine for measuring time. There
were also a few cannons lying about, and, as we drew J O