feeling of relief as I left it behind. Our route lay at
first through highly-cultivated gardens and fields on
both sides of the road. Round the fields were ridges
of soil to confine the water when let in to submerge
the surface, and certain mounds of earth, rising from
the plain, were pointed out to us as being gradually
carted away by the natives for the repair of their
fields.
We were now approaching the termination of the
oasis that extends more or less widely along the Zaraf-
shan valley from Katte-Kurgan past Bokhara to Kara-
Kul, and we had the opportunity of seeing a little of
Bokhariot agriculture. The extent of liyali, or rain-
watered land (from Turki liyctl, rain), in the north of
the khanate is not great, about 40 miles in length
only, I was told, between Katte-Kurgan and Kermineh,
and there the crops vary a good deal according to the
weather. Owing to the mildness of the Bokhara
climate the irrigated soil gives two crops in the year.
T he field that has yielded a crop of winter wheat or
barley is sown at the beginning of June, and after the
harvest a second sowing takes place of peas, millet, or
carrots, or less frequently of sesame, poppy, or lentils.
After this second crop is reaped the field is prepared
early the next year for the spring sowings. T h e land
thus tilled is allowed to give one winter and two spring
harvests before it lies fallow, or shidgar, as it is called.
For the spring crops the greater portion of the fields
are sown, not only with rice and sorghum, but also
with cotton and lucerne, and on small portions of land
are grown melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, and onions.
A s we passed along I noticed late crops of jugara,
bearded wheat, and cotton. O f this last plant I
picked some pods, which I brought home. Yakoob
gave us £ 1 per acre as the price of untilled land, but
for cultivated lands three to four times as much. This
is a wide difference, however, from the price mentioned
by Khanikoff forty years ago, for he says from
£10 to £20 per acre. A noticeable feature, as we
proceeded, was the number of farmhouses surrounded
I by walls, usually a dead flat, but sometimes crimped,
and crossed with lines, each presenting the appearance
of a miniature fortress. T hey were surrounded by
gardens, and other efforts of Bokhariot culture. These
orchards form a fair criterion of the wealth of their
owners, because everyone who can afford to increase his
garden thereby increases his wealth, the silver poplar
and willow being about the only trees allowed to grow
there that are not fruitbearing.
The gardens are formed of enclosed ground called
hazat, the surface being levelled to facilitate irrigation.*
Those skirting our way for the first 11 miles appeared to
belong to men in well-to-do circumstances. Next we
came to a salt land, less fertile than the preceding, but
such as might be cultivated. A t noon we passed the
ruins of a large, mud-built castle, once inhabited by a
wealthy family, and near this were two small hovels,
where a bazaar, so called, held once a week, is visited
by half-a-dozen people. I take this to be the ruin
marked on the Russian map Shari-Islam, 16 miles
from Bokhara, and Dr. Wolff’s second stopping-place,
* The vegetables in use at Bokhara are beetroot, carrots, radishes,
cabbage, onions, cucumbers, peas, lentils, melons, water-melons, and
pumpkins. In small quantities are also raised red-pepper, turnips,
mushrooms, fennel, and cumin. Melons, water-melons, cucumbers and
pumpkins are sown on well-manured soil that has been ploughed over
at least ten times. Thè sowing is done in rows. The growing plants
are three times hoed, banked up with narrow ridges round each, and no
water allowed till the plant is sufficiently advanced. Later, trenches
are made, and water introduced once a week.