352 Narrative of tie Travels of Khwajah Ahmud Slmh. [No. 4. 



Kokund or Kokan is a large and thickly populated city ; the 

 houses are built of pucka bricks ; they generally are only of one story, 

 though there are a few of two or more. Houses here do not last 

 long, owing to the dampness of their foundations ; the soil is very 

 moist, and during the winter there is a great deal of mud in the 

 streets ; it is so bad that people can only move about at that season 

 on horseback, and horses frequently sink into it as deep as their 

 shoulders ; when storms of wind coming from the west prevail, they 

 dry this up to a great extent. The city is a walled one ; the prin- 

 cipal officer in it, besides the Khan is the " Ming Bash," or 

 prime minister, who performs the general duties of the Government ; 

 the military and civil establishments are all mixed up together. 

 There is abundance of water every where, and in the city there are 

 numerous fine bazars and extensive seraies. 



The name of the present ruler of Kokan is Khuda Yar Khan, he 

 is a man of about 25 years of age, he has a brown beard and only 

 wears his turban out of doors. His palace is situated in a fort 

 which is separated from the town by a stream ; it seems to be a place 

 of no strength and has no command over the town ; it has two gates, 

 across which there is a chain, which has to be removed each time to 

 admit of the ingress or egress of passengers ; over one of these there 

 is a balcony in which the king locates himself when he reviews the 

 troops or upon high days and holidays. Both in the court yard of 

 the palace and outside of the town there are guns. The army are 

 armed with muskets, lances, knives, axes, and swords on the end of 

 muskets ; they consist entirely of Cavalry with the exception of a 

 new Regiment of Infantry which they are forming and which may 

 be some 3 or 400 strong ; there is no regular army, but the troops 

 consist entirely of Ooloos or Militia. Many landholders hold their 

 lands from Government on condition of their being ready always to 

 turn out a contingent when so required. The Kokanese under 

 Kasim the Ming Bash, when they were defeated by the Russians 

 at Ak Musjid, were about 10,000 strong and lost 20 guns, all that 

 they had with them. These guns are drawn by horses two or three 

 to each, they have men kept specially as gunners ; gunpowder is 

 made in the city ; I do not know where they get their sulphur from, 

 but there was lots of it exposed for sale in the Kokan bazar ; saltpetre 

 is manufactured on the spot. 



