. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. studied in-difference or black looks, except from the Jews, and it is easyto see that indiscreet action would provoke instant reprisalsagainst yourself. This is one reason why the Russian authoritiesdo not encourage visitors to Bokhara, and indeed some passportsissued for Central Asia include it with the Murghab branch of the railway as a forbidden place. 297 ^98 ALL THE RUSSIAS When I was there the new branch Hne from the Russiansettlement to the native city was not built,
. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. studied in-difference or black looks, except from the Jews, and it is easyto see that indiscreet action would provoke instant reprisalsagainst yourself. This is one reason why the Russian authoritiesdo not encourage visitors to Bokhara, and indeed some passportsissued for Central Asia include it with the Murghab branch of the railway as a forbidden place. 297 ^98 ALL THE RUSSIAS When I was there the new branch Hne from the Russiansettlement to the native city was not built, so I drove eight milesalong a flat, dull, dusty road, passing to the left the new palacethe Russians are building for the Amir—a handsome heterogene-ous sort of structure, half Oriental, half European—and to theleft an old palace completely hidden behind high mud we stopped at a roadside hovel with a big water-troughin front, and while the horses drank, the owner brought outa great gourd water-pipe, with a red charcoal on top, and passedit to my driver, who drew one deep inhalation and passed it to. City and Citadel, Bokhara. another driver, who handed it to a third, and so on till it hadbeen used by the half-dozen teamsters watering their beasts man even wiped the mouthpiece as it passed from mouth tomouth. I mention this incident because it goes some waytoward justifying the statement of a Russian physician quotedto me, that eighty per cent, of the inhabitants of Bokhara suflferfrom the worst of contagious diseases. The approach to the centre of the city is through a greatgateway in the wall, and then by long, narrow streets, betweenhigh walls. In the true fashion of the East, where domestic- OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 299 ity is of all things most secret, the houses all look inwards,presenting blank backs, broken only by a huge door, to thepassers-by. After a mile or more of these you reach the greatcovered bazaar, with charming corners where mull
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecttolstoy, bookyear1902
