182 BOKHARA THE NOBLE. 



No light has ever been thrown on the mystery of the 

 inaction of the Government on that occasion, who, not 

 content with doing nothing of themselves to inquire 

 into the fate of their two emissaries, put every sort of 

 obstacle in the way of others who were willing to under- 

 take the task of discovery. The description of the 

 adventurous journey eventually made with this object 

 by the eccentric missionary, the Rev. Joseph Wolff, is 

 one which is of unsurpassed interest even at the present 

 day, though his arrival was too late to effect their 

 release. 



There is, I believe, no actual reason why such atroci- 

 ties should not occur at the present day, for the reigning 

 Amir has the power to do what he will with his own 

 subjects. Indeed, Lord Curzon, writing in 1889, tells 

 of a captive, who had himself committed a cold-blooded 

 murder in the town, having his eyelids cut off and his 

 eyes gouged out, and being then tied to the tail of an 

 ass and dragged to the market-place to be quartered 

 and thrown to the dogs, only a short time before his 

 visit. ^ But beyond the privilege of disposing of his 

 own subjects, little real power is left to the ruler of 

 Bokhara, for when Bokhara is spoken of as an inde- 

 pendent State, it is but in name, be it understood, 

 that its independence exists. 



There was a rumour current in native circles when I 

 was in those parts that the lord of Bokhara had decided 

 to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. The difficulties and 

 fatigue of such a journey were pointed out to him by 

 his kind friends the Russians, and he was strongly 

 advised not to go. With reflection, however, the desire 

 of his soul to behold the great centre of the Moham- 

 medan universe — towards which he turned in daily 

 prayer — increased many fold, and he at length made it 



^ Russia in Central Asia. 



