CHAPTER VI. 
FROM 'FASHKEND TO MARGELAN 
I SPENT nearly seven weeks in Tashkend ; but as 
I have already described the town in my former book, 
I will only record here one or two special reminiscences. 
The governor-general, Baron Vrevsky, received me with 
boundless hospitality ; I was his daily guest, and enjoyed 
the opportunity of making- acquaintances who were of 
great assistance to me in my journey across the Pamirs. 
During- Christmas and New Year I was a guest at 
many festivities. Christmas Eve, the first and pleasantest 
during- my travels in Asia, I spent at the residence of 
Baron Vrevsky in almost the same manner as at home 
in the North. Many of the Christmas presents laid out 
awaiting their future owners were accompanied with 
1 rench verses ; and in the middle of one of the rooms 
of the palace stood a gigantic Christmas tree, made 
of cypress branches, and decorated with a hundred tiny 
wax candles. We spent the evening in the customary 
ways, in conversation, by a smoking samovar in the 
drawing - room, which was tastefully furnished with , all 
Pne luxury of the East. Portraits of King Oscar, the 
I sar, and the Emir of Bokhara, each signed with the 
autograph of the original, adorned the walls. The fair 
sex could not have been represented more worthily 
than by the Princess Khavansky, the governor-general’s 
charming daughter, who did the honours at all enter- 
tainments, private as well as official, with grace and 
dignity. 
Christmas Plve was kept en famille ; but for New 
Years Plve Baron Vrevsky invited some thirty guests 
67 
