throat is cut at the bottom of the great minaret I
wished to ascend, whilst the woman, with her head
covered, and buried to the waist in a ditch, is shot ■with
a pistol. This was said frequently to happen, but that
bribery could often buy off the would-be informer.*
This informant corroborated the throwing of certain
criminals from the top of the minaret, saying, that about
7 years before, there was a gang of robbers between
Bokhara and Katte-Kurgan who were caught, and most
of their throats cut, and their bodies thrown in a heap
at the frontier, but that the chief was hurled from the
tower, the women of the town having received notice
to hide themselves, t
Thus primed with information, true or false, I took
occasion one morning, when the Kush-beggi’s messengers
came, to ask how many prisoners there were in
the Khana-Khaneh and Zindan prisons, to which they
replied, “ Very few” ; for that they did not keep them
long, not even for 5 months, but speedily gave them
150 stripes, or beheaded, or released them. I asked
if it were true that in the Khana-Khaneh ticks were
kept alive to annoy and prey upon the prisoners.
They somewhat indignantly denied it, saying that
they had three sorts of prisons, the Ab-Khaneh, Ben-
* With this may be compared the very; old law in patriarchal times
touching prostitution, by which Judah would have Tamar burnt (Gen.
xxxviii. 24), the Levitical law concerning adultery (Lev. xx. 10; Deut.
xxii. 22), and the continued existence of some such punishment obtaining
at the time of the birth of Christ (Matt. i. 19), though John viii. 5
has it “ that such should be stoned.”
f Throwing from a height would appear to have long been a recognized
mode of putting to death in the East, and to remain so still. The
men of Capernaum thus led our Lord to the brow of the hill whereon
their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong (Luke iv.
29), and in the very year of my travels this was one of the modes of
being put to death offered by the Arabs to Professor Palmer and
Captain Gill.
Khaneh, and Khana-Khaneh, representing better class,
intermediate, and dark prisons. They also denied that
prisoners were sent out into the town to beg; but this
last denial was certainly a falsehood, for when we
turned1 back from the lepers’ village I asked one of
the natives to take us back to the embassy in such a
way that we might pass the Zindan prison. I saw
that I had asked a hard thing, and at first he said it
was more than he dared to do ; but ultimately he was
better than his word, and, looking up a passage as
we rode along, I saw outside a lofty building two
prisoners chained together by the neck, and who, on
my approach, cried most piteously for alms, which
I gave them, as also did Yakoob, whose heart was
evidently touched. The building before me, I make
no doubt, is the one that Khanikoff calls the “ Zindan,”
saying that it has two compartments, the upper and
lower dungeons, the former consisting of courts with
cells, and the latter of a deep pit, at least 20 feet deep,
into which the culprits and their food are let down by
ropes. This latter I suppose to have been the one
in which Colonel Stoddart was first placed. A s for
the Khana-Khaneh, I stood near the door, I was afterwards
told, when examining the great whip at the
entrance to the citadel, but I did not know it at the
time. It was from hence, I imagine, that Stoddart
and Conolly were taken to execution, or from the
Ab-Khaneh, said by Khanikoff to be also in the
palace, but of which I heard nothing.
O f course we heard during our stay in the khanate
something of the Emir’s manner of life and his family
affairs. Much, no doubt, was untrue and exaggerated,
but I am not sure that I shall be justified in withholding
from the reader the accounts we were told.