Bokhārā, A Protected Native State

The 141 miles which separate Merv from the Bokhāran frontier were the costliest and the most depressing section of the Transcaspian Railway. It includes that terror of Russian engineers known as the Sandy Tract, ¹ and no trace of cultivation is met with until the weary eye finds solace in the restful green which marks the course of the mighty Oxus. The border stronghold, Charjūy, crowns a hill to the south of the railway line, and bears in its rugged outlines a faint resemblance to Edinburgh Castle. The little town which nestles at its foot is garrisoned by a Russian force consisting of a battalion of Turkestān Rifles and a squadron of Cossacks. At Kerki, 110 miles up stream, three more rifle battalions and a regiment of Cossacks serve as a reminder of the power of Russia. The source of the Amū Daryā is Lake Victoria, a beautiful sheet of water embosomed in the Pamirs 15,600 feet above sea-level, which was visited by Marco Polo, and rediscovered in 1838 by Captain Wood of the Indian Marine. ² The bed of the great river is 350 yards wide at the point where it leaves the hills at Khwāja Sālih, 90 miles north-west of Balkh ; and 200 miles down stream it swells to 650 yards. The mean velocity is https://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> 3 1 2 https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203641705/a1bea995-d2ca-4507-82f4-7e6333957ed9/content/inline-math_5_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> miles an hour, the average depth 9 feet, increasing to a maximum of 29 in August after the annual rains. The course of the Oxus in our day is north-westerly, and it discharges into the Sea of Aral above Khiva. The stream once before bifurcated at Kohna Urganj, 70 miles south of the great inland lake ; and one branch flowed south-westwards, entering the Caspian by the Balkhan Bay. At some period in the fifteenth or sixteenth century the Khivans attempted to restrain the course by a dam, and so caused a diversion of the western channel, which can still be traced through the Turkoman Desert. ¹ To restore it has been the dream of the Russians since the days of Peter the Great. Elaborate surveys have demonstrated that the operation is perfectly practicable; and those who advocated it urged with truth that the canalisation of the river would turn many thousands of square miles of desert into a garden. The railway has, however, won the day ; and the only use made of the Amū Daryā by the Russian authorities is to support a steam flotilla. This service was inaugurated in 1887, ² and is now carried on by steel-built steamers drawing 2 feet of water, and carrying 200 tons of cargo. Its chief value lies in the means it gives for the transport of troops and munitions of war, for the river is navigable up to the Afghan frontier, 700 miles from its mouth. The Amū Daryā, however, cannot be made to serve the needs. of commerce, for the channel is constantly shifting, sand-banks are thrown up and disappear in a few hours, and the navigating officers are in the hands of native pilots, who divine obstructions by observing the colour of the water. We have already described the great viaduct which spans the Amū Daryā near Charjūy. It is admittedly but a make-shift, and will soon be replaced by a girder bridge. The traveller glances uneasily at the current swirling round the slender piers, and feels inwardly relieved when his train has crept safely to the opposite bank. On either side of the line there now stretches a dead level of parched-up loam, broken here and there by hillocks covered with the outlines of some ancient citadel. There are many of these Central Asian Pompeiis, deserted owing to the failure of the water- supply, or overwhelmed by the ever-encroaching sand. Mosques, market-places, and palaces stand as they did centuries back, but the narrow streets show no signs of human life. But the desert yields again to cultivation, and the train speeds through fields of cotton and millet, overshadowed by splendid trees. The fair domains irrigated from the river Zarafshān have been reached, and its centre, Bokhārā the Noble, comes into view. A canon of Russian policy ordains that the European quarters shall be placed at a considerable distance from the great cities. Thus the effect of sudden waves of fanaticism, which are always to be feared in Mohammedan countries, is lessened, and time is given to organise defence. The railway station is eight miles by road from the capital, and is the centre of a Russian town called New Bokhārā. Its broad thoroughfares are destitute of trees and flowers, for nothing will grow in this ill-chosen site. Among many mean buildings of the bungalow type are some with architectural pretensions— a handsome residency, built by M. P. Lessar during his term of office as representative at the Bokhāran Court, a palace in a hybrid Byzantine style lately erected for the Amīr, the new buildings of the Imperial Bank, and the offices of the 3rd Railway Battalion. The Russian quarter already numbers 6000 inhabitants, and is daily growing in importance at the expense of its older rival. The highway leading to the latter passes through a country which is evidently much subdivided, and cultivated with extreme care. The fertile belt is watered by distributories from the Zarafshān, ¹ which passes Samarkand and pours a flood of wealth into Bokhārā’s lap. These canals are popularly attributed to Alexander the Great and Tīmūr, heroic figures which serve as a spur to the imagination of poets and professional storytellers throughout Central Asia. They are, in point of fact, the inevitable result of the natural conditions encountered. The soil in Bokhārā is either a rich yellow loam or sandy waste, and the latter is ever encroaching. The rainfall is scanty; and, but for the help of irrigation, mankind would long since have given up the incessant struggle for existence. Nowhere in the world are the contrasts between desolation and plenty more startling. A caravan approaching the capital finds itself, after weary months spent in the sands, suddenly surrounded by waving crops, and trees laden with luscious fruit, while its ears are greeted by the ripple of water. The mechanism by which this wondrous change is effected would excite the derision of a European engineer. The surveyor lies prone upon his back in the direction from which he wishes to bring water, looks over his forehead, and notes the point when ground is last seen. This rude substitute for the theodolite in-volves a great deal of misplaced labour, but its results are as marvellous as those of the Egyptian irrigation department. The precious fluid is brought from the mountains in canals, carried round spurs, and crossing ravines in pipes, which, like those of our old London water companies, are often mere hollow trees. When the plain is reached the gradient is very slight; and so tenacious is the soil that streams 30 feet in breadth are restrained by banks https://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> 3 1 2 https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203641705/a1bea995-d2ca-4507-82f4-7e6333957ed9/content/inline-math_6_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> feet high and 3 feet broad at the base. The whole adult village population are the labourers, their only implements being a clumsy hoe, the lap of their long flowing robe, and a hurdle of plaited branches. The administration of the canals is on a popular basis. The superintendents, called “aksakāls,” are elected by the cultivators; and every village has its own “mīrāb,” who watches over the repairs and distributories, and is remunerated by a fixed proportion of the harvests. In years of plenty the task is an easy one ; but it is far otherwise at the critical weeks which precede the spring melting of the snows. Every drop of water is then worth its weight in gold, and it must be so divided that each plot may get its just proportion. Complications, too, occur owing to the privileges which certain villages enjoy by royal grant or immemorial prescription, and by the absence of any satisfactory method of measuring discharges. ¹ The Russians have shown wisdom in leaving the canals in native hands in the territory administered by them. In Bokhārā, of course, there has never been any question of introducing reform. The Bokhāran cultivator manures his fields heavily after harvest, and until they receive the life-giving water. In the city streets, old men and boys may be seen gathering every particle of refuse ; and, in spite of the constant supply, the hungry soil is still unequal to the incessant demands upon it. Then the task of preparation begins. The fields are turned up lengthways and again transversely by a plough clumsily built of wood, its share only being tipped with iron. A pair of oxen can plough rather more than one acre during the cool hours between midnight and 9 a.m. ¹ The soil is then manured and drenched with water. Spots which show effervescence, that curse of irrigated soil, ² are dug up by hand and dressed with lime picked out of the ruins which abound in these ancient seats of population. The harrow, a plank two feet wide studded with iron nails, is next passed over the sodden soil in two directions. The enumeration of the crops thus raised would be as tedious as Homer’s catalogue of men of war. The stand-by of the poor is juwārī (holcus sorghum vel saccharatum), a species of millet which yields two hundredfold of coarse grain. Cotton is amongst the most lucrative ; and a vast impetus has been given to its growth by the railway, which carries the raw material to Russian mills. Wheat, barley, and pulse are also staples, and the vine is made to produce a heady fluid, like immature sherry, by Armenians and Jews, who have the monopoly of a manufacture forbidden to true believers. The entire cultivated area of Bokhārā is not much in excess of 8000 square miles, and the population which it maintains is at least https://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> 2 1 2 https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203641705/a1bea995-d2ca-4507-82f4-7e6333957ed9/content/inline-math_7_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> millions. Thus the price of land is high, and it is much subdivided. ³