KHIVA THE PEOPLE AND THE COUNTRY.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 226, 4 July 1873, Page 6

KHIVA THE PEOPLE AND THE COUNTRY.

(From tlie • f Indian-Pioneer.') .'; Few parts of-tbework? are lessknown to Europeans than that strange aitia #ac- ; siaii G-oyemnieritVis ;' now? despatching; ia" powerful expedition. We propose, theretore, to lay, before our readers a sKdrt description; the country and'.iits people, and a : brief account of its recent history, its connection with Russia, and the last great invasion of the Russians in 1839. The-kingdom of Khiva, the most westerly _of the three Khanats of Turki3tan, consists of two 'portions, different in all I characteristics - the Oasis and the Desert. The old name of the country, Kharism the Chorasmia of the ancients—is applied ' to both parts. The present name of Khiva, is restricted to the Oasis. The river '' Oxus, some 600 miles from its ' ■source in. the Hindoo Koosh Mountains, quits the desert of Bokhara, and turning to the west' into those of Kharism, finds its way, after- a further course, of some 80 miles, into a fertile valley from 40 to 60 miles broad. This valley .extends" in a ■ north-westerly direction to the mouth ofthe river in the Sea of Aral, a distance of • .nearly 200 miles, and forms the" Khanat of-Khiva. The Oxus divides into several branches, 'which during the floods, over- ' ilow: the country, and its'water, famed'' through Asia for its sweetness, imparts ' an extraordinary fertility to the soil. The Delta of the Oxus rivals the Delta of the Nile;, KKiva is the Egypt of Asia. The branches of the river are connected by an artificial network of canals, and - the land iis skilfully irrigated and cultivated. Rich' pastures of green grass, shaded by lofty;poplars, alternate with arable lands. In this favored valley the productions of Europe and of Asia flourish side by side. Corn and rice are grown in equal abundance, and of the best quality; cotton, and' l rwan —a root prized for its red - A™

to reward the agriculturist with twentyfold crops ; the apples and peaches of Hezaresp grace the tables of Bussian Boyards and Turkish Pashas ; the melons and pomegranates of Khiva are delicacies at the banquets of the Emperor of China. The silk of Shahbad is preferred by the ladies of Turkistan to that produced in the itself. The canals are lined for miles by avenues of fruit-trees, principally mulberry, and the villages nestle in groves of willows and chenars. M. Yambery enumerates 31 towns, hisides the capital, within the narrow limits of the populous valley ; and each town is the local centre and capital of a cluster of' numerous neighboring villages. capital, contains 5,000 houses built of mud—a matter of necessity in a country with an alluvial soil, and interspersed among gardens .and fruit orchards and- groves of palms and elms. Here is the seat of Government and the palace of the Khan, conspicuous among the surrounding .domes and minarets. A loftyrampart surrounds the city. ' The religion' of the Prophet is preached in sixmosquesof white stone, and the learning and philo- '-' , sophy of Arabia are taught in five colleges " to 600 students.' To the great bazaar the '' caravans from Orenberg and Astrakhan ■ bring cutlery, guns, and ironware, . cotton\' and. muslin goods, calico and chintz, and * sugar, which have been exchanged- in.: those cities for the leather, silk, cotton,, preserved fruits, dried fish, and felt clothes • at Khiva. There is but little trade withany eountry, except Prussia—the dangers of the journey across the southern and ■ ' eastern deserts-almost prohibiting commercial intercourse with Persia, Bokhara," or Afghanistan. This fertile Delta, con- . taining from 10 to 12,000 square miles,. - has been estimated to supporc only half a million inhabitants ; but-European travels, lers' often under-estimate .the density of Asiatic population. The Deltas of many/ great rivers: support populations of 500 and • 700 to the square mile.- If'we allot only " ' 150 to the valley of the Oxus, we should- L have a million and a half as the" pbpula- 1 ' ' tion of the Khanat. This 'is composed - firstly of Uzbegs. - The -JJzbegs are the" ruling race all over Turkistan, the conquerors of .the old Persian and" Khurasanian population. They have forsaken the., nomad life,of their ancestors, and are now dwellers in citiesj and their breeds betray the mixture of their Turanian blood with- '■ the' Turanian elements of the subject-po- •- pulation. They-are a bold, manly, eour—"' ageous, and honest race,- but' indolent, : " proud, and licentious. The Sarts—the'*ancient Khurasanian race, who [originally '' peopled Kharism—and the Persians" con-", stitute the second element in the popul£tion. These are both always found subject to their Uzbeg conquerors, and gene'-" " rally as slaves. They have all the vices of slavery—craft, subtlety, and cowardice their ability frequently enables them to amass wealth or rise to distinction. 1 In Khiva proper there are also found a few Turcomans of the desert, and a few Carakulpaks and Kasaks, immi- - grants from the great Tartar hordes who • roam. over the steppes of south-west Siberia. Jn Khiva, as in all eastern. '

countries,the Khan is the sole owner of the soil; the only taxes are the land rent," and the customs duty of 2| per cent, ad valorem on the imports. The highest civil, military, and religious functionaries are paid by grants of rent-free land. The Khan is the supreme head of state, army, and church, and his will is absolute law. The strbt observance of the precepts of the Koran is enforced by a severe system of espionage and surveillance. Adultery and all'offences against religion are-pun-ished with death by a sovereign voluptuary of unbridled passions, of whom M. Vambery says that he had violated the honor of almost every family in his dominions. But the monarch's piety and zeal for religion are unbounded ! and the people suffer under a religious tyranny similar to that which the Presbyterian clergy _ established in Scotland in the sixteenth century, and which has driven gladness and cheerfulness from the homes of a people naturally merry and lighthearted. Under this system great profligacy-is- found to exist side by side with much genuine piety and benevolence; and unlimited indulgence in opium and bhang is the favorite vice of a people among whom the drinking of wine is punished with death.. The Uzbegs, though active and capable of great exertion, despise all labor as degrading, and leave it to slaves; though brave and generous, they treat prisoners and slaves with great cruelty; though jealous of female honor, they exact from their women the performance of all domestic drudgery. The second portion of Khiva consists of the enormous deserts of Kharism, which surround the Oasis of Khiva Proper on all sides, except on the northwest,, where the Oxus flows into the Sea of Ard. These pathless steppes are estimated to cover about 150,000 square miles, and are inhabited by six hordes of wandering Turkomans, numbering about half a million souls. The Techanclors in the extreme north-west roam over the Ust-Urt, or high plateau, between the Aral and Caspian. To their south, along the shores of the Caspian, are found the 40,000 tents of the Yomuts. On eastwards Of them the Black Sands or central desert, between the Caspian and the Oxus. are occupied by the 6'oJooo'tents of the Tekkes. In the south-east of Kharism the three small hordes of the Sariks, Salors, and Karas wander as far as the frontiers of Afghanistan. Among all these tribes the virtues and vices of their cousins the Uzbegs, are found in an exaggerated form; more brave they despise the Uzbegs as effeminate dwellers in citi-s, more cruel, they compel their wretched slaves to work in chains, with the clanking of which, says M. Yambery, every Turkoman encampment resoimds. They are the most inveterate robbers and menstealers. The prophet has declared that " all Mussulmans ai'e free." The elastic piety Of the Turkoman assumes that the heretic Shceahs of Persia cannot be true believers, and may be lawfully enslaved. But neither does : the orthodoxy of tlie Afghan Sooneesprotect them; and if slaves are not elsewhere precurable, one tribe- of Turkomans will unhesitatingly attack another, and carry off the captives to the slave markets of Khiva and Bokhara. Among these' rapacious freebooters the suspicion of wealth soon converts a friend into a foe, and the Turkom would sell the Prophet himself for a musket for his son or a necklace for his wife. Their religion is merely external, and they still indulge in practices forbidden by Islam, and derived from their sun-worshipping and fire-adoring ancestors. They are absolately independent, and will acknowledge the authority of no leaders, lay or spiritual. Their proverb says that "Among, the Turkomans every man is a king." Their nominal allegiance to the Khan' of Khiva is easily satisfied by the payment of a tribute of slaves and horses.. But this suzeranity. cannot iDrotect the caravans of traders to or from his capital from plunder by the nomads. The deserts of Khiva are the most terrible in the whole world. Vast seas of sand lasliecl into hillocks by the blasts of wind which burn like the breath of a furnace, extend as far as the eye can reach. The interminable silence is broken neither by the wing of bird nor footfall of beast. The. track of the caravan is marked by the bleaching bones of dead men and animals.: The sun rises and sets with a yellowish red glare. Here and there the sands merge into a treacherous salt morass, covered with a thick white crusty hardly .distinguishable from the firm ground in its vicinity. For distances of 100 miles no well gives water to the thirsty traveller, and caravans must sometimes fake a supply of the precious liquid enough for five or six days. Such scanty water as the wells afford is salt and brackish. Only an occasional oasis gives pasture to herds of wild asses and gazelles. To the extreme south-east, however, the : Murgab river flows into the de,sert from the mountain of Herat, and the fertile and beautiful valley of Mero forms a large oasi3, till recently peopled and cultivated. But the Tekke Turko-

man carried off the people into captivity, and Mero now, lies in ruins, and its fields are untilled. The mountains that skirt the Caspian are supposed, to be rich in mineral wealth, but the.Khan is pre.vented from working the mines by the dangerous proximity of rapacious robbers. One most interesting feature of the groat.central desert, the Black Sand, is the how dry and abandoned bed of the river Oxus between' 300 and 400 -miles in length, Geographers long known that in ancient times the mighty river flowed not into the Aral bv-t into the Caspian. When, or why, it left its'old course, and .formed, for itself a new way northwards into the Aral, is not known. Turkoman tradition ascribes the event, which has turned into a barren wilderness what was once a smiling and fertile plain, to the anger of the gods at the sins of man. The true course of the river has never been traced, but it is believed to have watered a larger and richer .delta than that to" Khiva, and to have flowed in more than one lordly stream into the Caspian. There are spots in the desert where graceful Corinthian: columns ' raise their capitols aloft, and mark 'the spot where Alexander the Great left some Grecian colony on the banks of the mighty river, and where the.plays of Euripides were once recited to applauding theatres, while the crowded markets resounded with the hum of busy traders. There the eternal solitude is only broken now by the bray of the wild ass and the scream of the night-owl.