CHAP. XV.

SYMPATHY.-PROCEED TO PESTH.

343

English vice-consul; in Trebizonde, from the Italian consul, Mr. Bosio, and also from my learned friend, Dr. O. Blau, and particularly from Herr Dragorich, the former the Prussian, the latter the Austrian consul. All these gentlemen, by their obligingness and friendly reception, bound me to them eternally. They knew the hardships that attend traveling in the East, and their acknowledgment of them is the sweetest reward that can fall to the lot of the traveler.

As, after having been in Kurdistan, I was no longer able to distinguish in the countenance of the Osmanli any thing Oriental, so now I could see in Stamboul nothing but, as it were, a gorgeous dropcurtain to an unreal Eastern existence. I could only indulge myself with a stay of three hours on the shore of the Bosphorus. I was glad, however, still to find time to wait upon the indefatigable savant and diplomat Baron von Prokesh-Osten, whose kind counsels with reference to the compilation of my narrative I have kept constantly before my eyes. Hence I proceeded to Pesth by Küstendje, where I left behind me my brother dervish* from Kungrat, who had accompanied me all the way from Samarcand; for the joy of tarrying long in my fatherland was not allowed me, as I was desirous, before the close of the season, of delivering an account of my journey to the

*It is needless for me to picture to the reader how this poor Khivite, transplanted by me to the capital of Hungary instead of being permitted to proceed to Mecca, was amazed, and how he talked! What most astonished him was the good-nature of the Frenghis, that they had not yet put him to death, a fate which, drawing his conclusions from the corresponding experience among his countrymen, he had apprehended.

Royal Geographical Society of England, an object furthered and obtained for me by the kind recommendations of my friends. friends. I arrived in London on the 9th of June, 1864, where it cost me incredible trouble to accustom myself to so sudden and extreme a change as that from Bokhara to London.

Wonderful, indeed, is the effect of habit upon men! Although I had advanced to the maximum of these extremely different forms of existing civilization, as it were, by steps and by degrees, still every thing appeared to me here surprisingly new, as if what I had previously known of Europe had only been a dream, and as if, in fact, I were myself an Asiatic. My wanderings have left powerful impressions upon my mind. Is it surprising if I stand sometimes bewildered, like a child, in Regent Street or in the saloons of British nobles, thinking of the deserts of Central Asia, and of the tents of the Kirghis and the Turkomans?

PART II.

TURKOMANS.

KHIVA.

BOKHARA.

KHOKAND.

CHINESE TARTARY.

ROUTES.

AGRICULTURE AND TRADE.

POLITICAL RELATIONS.

RUSSIANS AND ENGLISH.

CHAP. XVI.

BOUNDARIES AND DIVISIONS.

347

CHAPTER XVI.

BOUNDARIES AND DIVISION OF TRIBES. -NEITHER RULERS NOR SUBJECTS.DEB.ISLAM. CHANGE INTRODUCED BY THE LATTER ONLY EXTERNAL.INFLUENCE OF MOLLAHS.-CONSTRUCTION OF NOMAD TENTS.-ALAMAN, HOW CONDUCTED. PERSIAN COWARDICE. TURKOMAN POETS.-TROUBADOURS. -SIMPLE MARRIAGE CEREMONIES.— HORSES. — - MOUNDS, HOW AND WHEN FORMED. - MOURNING FOR THE DEAD.TURKOMAN DESCENT. GENERAL POINTS CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY OF THE TURKOMANS.-THEIR PRESENT POLITICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMPORTANCE.

"Non se urbibus tenent et ne statis quidem sedibus. Ut invitavere pabula, ut cedens et sequens hostis exigit, ita res opesque secum trahens, semper castra habitant; bellatrix, libera, indomita."-Pomp. Mela, de Situ Orbis, 1. ii., c. 4.

THE TURKOMANS IN THEIR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS.

BOUNDARIES AND DIVISIONS.

THE Turkomans or Türkmen,* as they style themselves, inhabit for the most part that tract of desert land which extends on this side of the River Oxus, from the shore of the Caspian Sea to Balkh, and from the same river to the south as far as Herat and Astrabad. Besides the partially productive soil which they possess along the Oxus, Murgab Tedjend,

*This word is compounded of the proper name Türk and the suffix men (corresponding with the English suffix ship, dom); it is applied to the whole race, conveying the sense that the nomads style themselves pre-eminently Türks. The word in use with us, Turkoman, is a corruption of the Turkish original.