EXPLOITS OF THE KHIVANS. 173 



by the cunning of its khan. The head of its leader, 

 Prince Bekovitch, was despatched as a gift to a neigh- 

 bouring khan, while those of his staff served for 

 ornaments to the city walls. It is further said that 

 the khan, actuated no doubt by the same desire for 

 a vindictive revenge which led Agha Mohammed to 

 have the bones of his persecutor Nadir Shah removed 

 from their resting-place at Meshed and placed beneath 

 the threshold of his palace, in order that he might have 

 the exquisite delight of walking over them, caused a 

 large drum to be made of the prince's skin, that he 

 might have the supreme satisfaction of hearing his 

 enemy beaten ! While the expedition under Perovski 

 was retreating to Orenburg in 1839, having ignomini- 

 ously failed to get more than half-way, two English 

 officers. Captain Abbott and Sir Eichmond Shakespeare, 

 who had penetrated to the khanate, effected the chief 

 object of the ill-starred expedition from the north, by 

 obtaining the release of the Russian prisoners by 

 diplomacy,^ and a few years later Khiva was given a 

 certain international importance as being one of the 

 countries which the Tsar Nicholas agreed to leave 

 " to serve as a neutral zone interposed between Russia 

 and India, so as to preserve them from dangerous 

 contact." 



So late as 1872 a Russian force under General 

 Markosoff suffered defeat at the hands of the Khivans 

 at Igdy ; and in the following year the now historic 

 expedition, which was " to punish acts of brigandage, 

 to recover fifty Russian prisoners, and to teach the 



1 According to Dr Wolff it was thanks to the diplomacy of Sir R. 

 Shakespeare that the Russian prisoners were liberated. In his ' Bokhara ' 

 he writes : " Mr Abbott, who preceded him (Shakespeare), was foolish 

 enough to advise the King of Khiva not to give up the Russian slaves 

 until he had treated with the Russian emperor ; but Shakespeare was 

 wise enough to recommend their immediate cession." 



