his Imperial master, the Tsar. They burn saxaul, or
charcoal made therefrom, and coarse grasses, called
-jtn-tak andjin-gul, which cost for a donkey-load from
9d. to is. 3d. Dung is little used for fuel in towns,
being more valuable as manure.
For building materials I rarely saw stone used,
unless for wells or foundations. They have, however,
a limited supply o f whitish and grey-veined marbles.
The whole of the country north o f the Amu is covered
with limestone. Ordinary houses are built of timber,
filled up with intervening mud and stones. The burnt
bricks used for building medresses cost from ¡s. to
ys. 6d. per thousand. They were said not to have any
sun-dried bricks. Potters’ clay is found and used, but
pottery would seem to be precious, since there is one
trade devoted to mending i t ; and cleverly, too, is this
done, even when the vessel has been broken into the
smallest pieces.
Concerning the products of their gardens, one man
at Shahr-i-sabz told me comprehensively that they
had “ all kinds of fruits except lemons, oranges, and
dates.” T hey grow good peas, but do not eat them
green. T h e y use willow bark for tanning, and their
chief cures are effected with medicinal plants.
A s for the animal kingdom, my informants told me
they had in the mountainous portion of the khanate
tigers, bears, wolves, deer, and wild boars. T o these
I may add a very remarkable and peculiarly small
breed of goats, covered with a very long and coarse
hair, reaching almost to the ground. M. Oshanin
saw them in Karategin, and also herds o f Yaks.*
* The Dong, or wild Yak {Bos grunniens), as Colonel Yule observes,
has till late years been only known by rumour. It is a native of Tibet and
high Asia, between the Altai and the Himalayas. Colonel Prejevalsky
They are in use all across Mongolia, and I have a
photograph, lent me by Mr. Delmar Morgan, of a
so-called “ Tibetan c ow ” (which I suppose is a crossbreed),
introduced by the Russians into Turkistan.
The yaks pasture in the coldest parts of Tibet and
the eastern portion of Bokhara upon short herbage,
peculiar to mountain tops and bleak plains. It remains,
therefore, to be seen whether the animal will thrive
in the lowlands. During our stay in Bokhara we
A T IB E T A N COW AND N A T IV E KE E PER .
drank excellent milk, and Yakoob, finding out my
weakness for cream, not only kept us constantly
supplied with it for our tea, but made the remainder
into butter.
A s regards animal products, I learned that the Arab
sheep is kept for its wool, which sells at from 3\d. to
shot one south of Koko-Nor, 6 feet high, and 11 feet in length apart
from the tail, which was 3 feet more. The cow yak is considerably
inferior in size to the bull, and her horns are small. The animal is
capable of domestication, and an extensive variety of crosses with
ordinary cattle is produced.