VICISSITUDES OF BOKHARA. 181 



from God," under stress of which it is said that "the 

 skin becomes dry and shrivelled, the hair of the body- 

 falls off, the nails and teeth tumble out, and the whole 

 body assumes a horrible and unseemly appearance." ^ 

 And this is the city of which its priests delight to 

 declare that whereas in all other parts of the globe light 

 descends upon earth, it ascends from holy Bokhara ! 



But the bazaar and its inmates are not solely re- 

 sponsible for the fascination of Bokhara. There are 

 monuments which recall stirring tales of the past. On 

 one side of the Bigistan or market square rise the 

 massive walls and gateway of the ark or citadel, built 

 more than eight centuries ago by Alp Arslan, " the 

 valiant lion," and it is borne in upon you that this is 

 "Bokhara the Noble," the city which has seen great 

 days, and whose rulers have made whole pages of the 

 strange history of the ancient world. There is some- 

 thing which inevitably appeals to you in the strange 

 vicissitudes through which it has passed. Here, long 

 ago, in the days of the Amir Ismail, was the capital of 

 a vast empire and far-famed seat of learning and cul- 

 ture. Nine centuries passed, and great changes were 

 sweeping across the map of Asia : rival Powers from 

 the West were bidding for the ancient kingdoms of the 

 East, and the first half of the nineteenth century saw 

 both British and Russian aspirants at the Court of 

 Bokhara. 



Those were the days of the bloody Nasrullah. The 

 prolonged torment undergone by the two English emis- 

 saries, Stoddart and Conolly, as they languished in the 

 foul depths of a vermin-infested dungeon, and their 

 eventual decapitation in the market-place in 1843, 

 caused the name to stink in the nostrils of Englishmen. 



^ Travels into Bokhara. Sir A. Burns. He describes this disease as a 

 peculiar kind of leprosy, which he calls mukkom or kolee. 



