1870. J Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 227 



His Sepoy guard was ranged in two lines under the deep dark 

 gateway of his castle, dressed in loose gowns and pointed cloth 

 hats bordered with sheepskin. Their equipments were as varied 

 as they were fantastical ; one could imagine they had been armed 

 for the occasion with weapons borrowed from some Museum of 

 the Middle Ages. There were guns, spears, clubs, axes, and even 

 bows, and quivers full of arrows. After crossing one or two courts, 

 we entered a vaulted passage, also filled with soldiers. It termi- 

 nated in a large court with a fountain in the centre, and a spacious 

 Aiwdn, or roof, supported with wooden pillars. 



Ibrahim Dadkhwah was not there, but I had scarcely seated my- 

 self on a small carpet spread for me, when he appeared and sat 

 down on a cushion in the middle of the Aiwan. Seeing, that my 

 place was so far removed from the governor's, I rose and heedless 

 of Ohauri? agasi-s frantic signals, seated myself within half a yard 

 of him. 



This conduct, which the Bukharis evidently considered very bold, 

 made a different impression on the old Uzbak with whom my 

 business was ; for he addressed me very cordially in the Tartar 

 language. 



The day following, which, in accordance with some foolish point 

 of Bukharian etiquette, I was obliged to spend at home, that I 

 might rest from the fatigues of the journey, a numerous party 

 came to visit me. They were natives of Marw, and therefore 

 descendants of the inhabitants of that town who, in the reigns 

 of Shah Murad and his son Amir Haidar, had been carried 

 away by force and settled in Samarqand. They brought me 

 quantities of peaches, and received in exchange several yards of 

 cloth and a few tangas, the small silver coin of the country worth 

 about ten pence. I gathered from their conversation that they 

 were bitter, though secret, enemies of the Bukharian govern- 

 ment. The invasion of Nadir Shah and the conquest of Bukhara 

 by the Persians had made a deep impression on their memories, 

 and they still cherished a firm hope of one day seeing a repetition 

 of those events, the more so as they can foresee no better termina- 

 tion of their sufferings. This leads me to think that although the 

 present generation was born on the soil of Bukhara, and is obliged 



