. All the Russias; travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, & Central Asia. had been murdered three months before he started,and also that a third British officer, Lieutenant Wyburd, hadbeen killed by the Amir. For the quietude of soul of thefriends of those murdered officers, Colonel Stoddart and Cap-tain Conolly, wroteDr. Wolff, I haveto observe that theywere both of themcruelly slaughteredat Bokhara, after suf-fering agonies fromconfinement in prisonof the most fearfulcharacter—masses oftheir flesh havingbeen gnawed offtheir bones by ver-min—in 18
. All the Russias; travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, & Central Asia. had been murdered three months before he started,and also that a third British officer, Lieutenant Wyburd, hadbeen killed by the Amir. For the quietude of soul of thefriends of those murdered officers, Colonel Stoddart and Cap-tain Conolly, wroteDr. Wolff, I haveto observe that theywere both of themcruelly slaughteredat Bokhara, after suf-fering agonies fromconfinement in prisonof the most fearfulcharacter—masses oftheir flesh havingbeen gnawed offtheir bones by ver-min—in 1843. Thefate of the unhappyenvoys had indeedbeen almost thecruellest had been keptlong in prison, sub-ject to every privation, their hopes being constantly raisedby sham negotiations with the Amir, and several times theyhad been led to execution and taken back to prison. Onone of these occasions they had been offered their lives if theywould embrace Islam. The younger man boldly professed * By a curious slip his own narrative gives the date of his start wrongly asOctober 1844, instead of GATE AND THK GAULEK, KUKHAKA OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 313 his faith in the eye of death, but in a moment of weak-ness, for which he needs no forgiveness, the elder aposta-tised. That they were confined in a dungeon-pit infestedwith sheep-ticks—the reader who has ever seen a sheep-tick maysupply the adjectives—seems certain, though it may be a fablethat these insects were fed with meat in readiness for the humanprey supplied to them from time to time. At last they weretaken out and their heads cut off in public, but not beforeStoddart had denounced Islam and declared that he died, as hehad lived, in the faith of his fathers. Of Conollys end finely wrote : His firm conduct at his dying hour re-minds us forcibly of the bearing of those brave soldiers whodied in the persecutions of Decius and Diocletian. I hope tosee my Conolly among them at the hour of Ch
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