228 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [July, 



to profess the Sunni religion, yet the greater portion remained Shi- 

 'ahs tit heart, and this of course was an additional cause of hatred 

 towards their oppressors. 



I was informed by my visitors as well as by my host, who seemed 

 to be thoroughly acquainted with the statistics of the district, 

 that Samarkand comprises, under the present governor, five tumans 

 or cantons, yielding on an average 70,000 batwans of corn of 

 various sorts, that is to say, about 9,168,320 kilogr. of grain, 

 of which 30 per cent., or about 2,750,000 kilogr., are levied by 

 the government as JcMraj, or land tax. On every field of corn of one 

 * tanab, 5 equal to 3,098 hectares, the government levies a tax of 18 

 tangas or francs, and 6 tangas for each tanab sown with grass. This 

 revenue ought to suffice the governor for his own subsistence ; for 

 the pay of his servants and officers, and for the wages and support 

 of 250 naukars, or sepoys, that form the garrison of the province in 

 time of peace. The rest is sent to the Amir as ' peshkash' or 

 present for the New Year's clay on the 21st of March. For instance, 

 in 1841, he sent the sum of 150,000 tangas by his son to Bukhara. 

 This does not include the revenue which is sent direct to Bukhara to 

 the Zakatcki Bashi, an official totally independent of the governor. 

 The tax levied on the flocks of sheep, comes under a different 

 administration and is brought to the Amir every spring, by offi- 

 cers specially enrployed for the purpose. I could not gain exact 

 information as to the value of these two last duties ; but the customs 

 of Samarqand can yield but an inconsiderable sum ; for the duties 

 are only levied on caravans from Kokan and Bukhara. 



On the 4th, 5th, and 7th of September, I visited all the objects of 

 interest in Samarqand, of which there are but few ; but before 

 describing them, I must say a few words about the town in general. 

 The topographer, Yakovlef, who accompanied Messrs. Lehman and 

 Bogoslofski, has drawn up a plan of Samarqand, which I have en- 

 closed in my description of the Khanat of Bukhara, published in 

 1843. 



The wall of the town was in very good condition, when I visited 

 it. The whole forms an almost perfect square, or rather trapezium ; 

 for the northern side is longor than the others. The most irregu- 

 lar wall is that on the west, where the fort projects. This wall 



