Some Heroes of Travel, or, Chapters from the History of Geographical Discovery and Enterprise

While the Major and his followers were enjoying a meal of rice and mutton, and a glass of hot tea, three Khivans rode up to them – a merchant and his two servants. The Khivan merchant was strongly built, and about five feet ten inches in height. He wore a tall, conical black Astrakhan hat; an orange-coloured dressing-gown, thickly quilted, and girt about the loins with a long, red sash; and over all, enveloping him from hand to foot, a heavy sheepskin mantle. His weapons consisted of a long, single-barrelled gun, and a short, richly mounted sabre. An exchange of civilities followed, and then both parties retired to rest. At about three o’clock in the morning, after some difficulty with his guide and camel-driver, the Major resumed his march, and for six hours the weary tramp and toil over the frost-bound plain continued. At nine a halt was called, soup was made, and the party breakfasted. By the time they were ready to set out again, the Khivan merchant’s caravan had come up, and all went on together.

In advance rode the guide, singing a song in praise of mutton, and descriptive of his partiality for that succulent meat. The Kirghiz poets make the sheep the special subject of their metrical eulogium; in truth, it fills in their poetry as conspicuous a place as the dove in the love-songs of the Latin bards. Nor is to be wondered at. The sheep represents the wealth, the property of the nomads. During the summer and autumn they live upon their milk, and never think of killing them except to do honour to a guest by serving up before him a leg of mutton. In the winter they are, of course, obliged very frequently to sacrifice the highly esteemed animal, but they live upon horseflesh and camel’s flesh as much as they can. Their clothing is furnished by the sheep, being made entirely of sheep’s wool wrought into a coarse homespun. Finally, if they want to buy a horse, a camel, or a wife, they pay in sheep; and a man’s worth in the world is reckoned by the numbers of his flock.

On the following day, in the course of their march, the travellers came upon a Kirghiz encampment, the members of which were considerably excited by Major Burnaby’s announcement of his desire to purchase a whole sheep. The head of the principal kibitka, accompanied by a pretty Kirghiz girl, hastened to conduct him to the sheepfold, that he might select an animal, and the fattest of the flock became his for the small sum of four roubles. The pretty young girl acted as butcher, receiving the skin and head in acknowledgment of her trouble, and the carcase was conveyed to the Major’s tent, where it was duly cooked, and devoured by his followers, who showed the most intense appreciation of his liberality.

The march being resumed, Major Burnaby made for a place called Kalenderhana, instead of the Russian settlement of Petro-Alexandrovsky, having a shrewd suspicion that if he went thither, as the governor of Kasala had desired, he would, in some way or other, be prevented from reaching Khiva. Pushing forward steadily, he left his Khivan merchant far behind, and strode across an undulating country in the direction of south-south-west. Next he came into a salt district, barren and dreary; and afterwards reached the desert of Jana-Daria, the dried-up bed of a river, which is lost in the sand. Still continuing his march, he came upon an unbounded ocean of sand, which, in the glaring sunshine, glittered like a sea of molten gold. When this was traversed, the country grew pleasanter and more fertile. Traces of game appeared. Sometimes a brown hare darted through the herbage; while in the distance herds of saigak, or antelopes, bounded with elastic tread across the sward. A chain of mountains running east and west rose up before the wanderer’s path, and presented a picturesque spectacle, with their broken crests, sharp pinnacles, and masses of shining quartz. Upon their rugged sides could be traced the furrows ploughed by the torrents which the spring lets loose and feeds with its abundant rains. Through a dark and deep defile, about seven miles long, the little company penetrated the mountain barrier of the Kazan-Tor, and descended into a broad plain, overspread by a network of canals for irrigation, where a striking indication of the desultory but ceaseless hostilities waged between the Kirghiz and the Turcomans was presented in the rude fortifications, a high ditch and a wattled palisade, that encircled every little village. Kalenderhana was fortified in this manner. Here Major Burnaby was warmly welcomed, and in great state escorted to his Kirghiz guide’s house, or kibitka, where a curious throng quickly surrounded him, and proceeded to examine, and comment unreservedly upon, every part of his attire. Major Burnaby, if less outspoken, was not less curious, and carefully noted that the hostess was a good-looking woman, clad in a flowing white dressing-gown, with a whiter turban, folded many times around her small head. The brother-in-law, a short hump-backed fellow, had a horse to sell, which Major Burnaby expressed his willingness to purchase, if he went to Khiva. The guide had been ordered by the Russian governor of Kasala to conduct the Englishman to Petro-Alexandrovsky, and at first he was reluctant to run the risk of punishment; but the domestic pressure put upon him could not be resisted, and he agreed to go to Khiva, on condition that the Major completed his bargain with the horse-dealer. This was at last arranged, and a Tartar being sent forward with a letter to the Khan, requesting permission to visit his capital, the traveller resumed his journey, with Nazar proudly seated astride the new purchase.

A brief ride carried them to the bank of the great Amu-Daria, the Oxus of Alexander the Great, which at this time was frozen over, presenting a solid highway of ice, half a mile in breadth. There they met with some Khivan merchants – stalwart men, with dark complexions and large eyes, dressed in long red thickly wadded dressing-gowns and cone-shaped black lambskin hats. A caravan of camels was crossing the river, and numerous arbas, or two-wheeled carts, each drawn by one horse, passed to and fro. Every man whom they encountered saluted them with the customary Arab greeting, “Salam aaleikom!” to which the response was always given, “Aaleikom salam!” Soon after crossing the frozen river, Major Burnaby determined to halt for the night; and the guide began to look about for suitable quarters. He pulled up at last by the side of a large, substantial-looking square building, built of clay. A rap at the high wooden gates brought out an old man bent nearly double with age, who, on hearing that the travellers wanted a night’s hospitality, immediately called to his servants to take charge of the horses and camels, and across the square-walled courtyard ushered Major Burnaby into his house. The guest-room was spacious and lofty. One end of it was covered with thick carpets; this was the place of honour for visitors. In the centre a small square hearth was filled with charcoal embers, confined within a coping about three inches high. On the coping stood a richly chased copper ewer – which might have been dug out of the ruins of the buried Pompeii, so classic was it in shape and appearance – with a long swan-like neck, constructed so as to assist the attendant in pouring water over the hands of his master’s guests before they began their repast. On one side of the hearth was a square hole about three feet deep, filled with water, and reached by a couple of steps. It was the place of ablution – something like the impluvium in a Roman villa – and its sides were lined with ornamental tiles. The windows were represented by two narrow slits, each about two feet long by six inches wide, while some open wooden trellis-work supplied the place of glass.

After a brief absence the host reappeared, carrying in his hand a large earthenware dish full of rice and mutton, while his servants followed, with baskets of bread and hard-boiled eggs. A pitcher of milk was also produced, and an enormous melon, weighing quite twenty-five pounds. When the host and his visitor had completed their repast, they began to converse, the Khivan asking many questions about the countries which the Englishman had travelled. To his inquiry whether there were camels in England, Major Burnaby replied with an amusing description of our railways and locomotives.

“We have trains,” he said, “composed of arbas with iron wheels; they run upon long strips of iron, which are laid upon the ground for the wheels to roll over.”

“Do the horses drag them very fast?” asked the Khivan.

“We do not use live horses, but we make a horse of iron and fill him with water, and put fire under the water. The water boils and turns into steam. The steam is very powerful; it rushes out of the horse’s stomach, and turns large wheels which we give him instead of legs. The wheels revolve over the iron lines which we have previously laid down, and the horse, which we call an engine, moves very quickly, dragging the arbas behind him; they are made of wood and iron, and have four wheels, not two, like your arbas in Khiva. The pace is so great that if your Khan had an iron horse and a railway, he could go to Kasala in one day.”

Next morning, after remunerating his host for his hospitality, Major Burnaby proceeded towards the goal of his daring enterprise. He passed through the busy trading town of Oogentel, the first in Khivan territory on the road from Kalenderhana, and, as an Englishman, attracted the attention of the population. This attention grew into wild excitement, when he found his way to a barber, intent upon getting rid of a beard of thirteen weeks’ growth. In Oogentel the people shave their heads and not their chins; so that the traveller’s desire to have his chin shaved, instead of his head, begat an extraordinary sensation. An increasing crowd gathered round the barber’s shop; moullahs (or priests), camel-drivers, and merchants jostling one another in their anxiety to obtain good points of view, like the London populace on the Lord Mayor’s Show day. The thought occurred to Major Burnaby that this fanatical Moslem multitude might not be displeased if the barber cut an unbeliever’s throat, and it was not without a qualm he resigned himself to his hands. No such catastrophe happened, however; but the barber, rendered nervous by the accumulated gaze of hundreds of eyes, let slip the thin strip of steel which did duty for a razor, and inflicted a slight wound on his customer’s cheek. As no soap was used, and the substitute for a razor was innocent of “edge,” the operation was sufficiently disagreeable; and if the crowd were sorry, Major Burnaby was heartily rejoiced when it came to an end and he was free to continue his journey.

At nine versts from Oogentel he and his party crossed the canal of the Shabbalat, and rode through a barren tract of sand until they arrived at a cemetery. The tombs were made of dried clay, and fashioned into the strangest shapes; while over several of the larger floated banners or white flags, from poles ten or twelve feet high, indicating the last resting-place of some unknown and unchronicled hero. Multi fortes vixerunt ante Agamemnona; but they have found no bard to record their deeds of prowess in immortal verse. The Khivan warriors who fell in defence of their wild father-land must sleep for ever in nameless graves.

At a village called Shamahoolhur, the traveller was received with true Khivan hospitality. His entertainer was a fair-looking man, with a genial address and a hearty glance in his dark eyes, and appeared, from his surroundings, to be possessed of considerable wealth. He was a sportsman, and kept several hawks; these birds being used in Khiva to fly at the saigahs and hares. The bird strikes his victim between its eyes with a force which stuns or confuses it, so that it can make no resistance or attempt at escape when the hounds seize it.

“Do you not hunt in this way in your country?” said the Khivan.

“No; we hunt foxes, but only with hounds, and we ourselves follow on horseback.”

“Are your horses like our own?” he asked.

“No; they are most of them stouter built, have stronger shoulders, and are better animals; but though they can gallop faster than your horses for a short distance, I do not think they can last so long.”

“Which do you like best, your horse or your wife?” inquired the man.

“That depends upon the woman,” I replied; and the guide, here joining in the conversation, said that in England they did not buy or sell their wives, and that I was not a married man.

“What! you have not got a wife?”

“No; how could I travel if I had one?”

“Why, you might leave her behind, and lock her up, as our merchants do with their wives when they go on a journey!”

The next morning Major Burnaby encountered on the road the messenger he had despatched to Khiva. He was accompanied by two Khivan noblemen, one of whom courteously saluted the English traveller, and explained that the Khan had sent him to escort him into the city, and bid him welcome.

They rapidly approached the capital, and above its belt of trees could see its glittering crown of minarets and domes. The landscape round about it was very pleasant to see, with its leafy groves, its walled orchards, and its avenues of mulberry trees; and recalled to the traveller’s mind the descriptions which figure in the pages of Oriental story-tellers. A swift ride brought the party to the gates of Khiva. The city is built in an oblong form, and surrounded by two walls; of which the outer is not less than fifty feet in height, and constructed of baked bricks, with the upper part of dried clay. This forms the first line of defence. At a quarter of a mile within it rises the second wall, somewhat lower than the first, and protected by a dry ditch. It immediately surrounds the tower. The space between the two walls is used as a market, and high above the throng of vendors and buyers, and the press of cattle, horses, sheep, and camels, rises the cross-beam of the ghastly gallows, on which all people convicted of theft are executed.

But as we have already spoken of this now famous city, we must confine ourselves in these pages to Major Burnaby’s individual adventures. Lodging was provided for him in the house of his escort, and directly on his entry he was served with refreshments. Afterwards he was conducted to the bath. In the evening a succession of visitors arrived; and it was late when the Major was at liberty to seek repose.

II

In the afternoon of the following day two officials arrived from the Khan, with an escort of six men on horseback and four on foot, to conduct the English officer to the palace. Mounting his horse, he rode forth, preceded by the six horsemen, and with an official on either side; the rear being brought up by Nazar, with some attendants on foot, who lashed out freely with their long whips when the staring crowd drew inconveniently near the cortége. Fresh sightseers arrived every moment, for the name of England exercises a charm and a power in Khiva, where people are never weary of talking of the nation which holds in fee the gorgeous Indian empire, and is regarded as the rival and inevitable foe of the White Czar. The very housetops were lined with curious eyes. Through the hum and din of voices the Englishman proceeded to the Khan’s residence; a large building, with pillars and domes reflecting the sun’s rays from their bright glazed tiles. At the gates stood a guard of thirty or forty men with flashing scimitars. The company passed into a small courtyard, from which a door opened into a low passage, and this led to some squalid corridors, terminating in a large square room, where was seated the treasurer, with three moullahs, busily engaged in counting up his money. He made a sign to the attendants, and a large wooden box was at once pushed forward, and offered to Major Burnaby as a seat. An interval of fifteen minutes, as the playwrights say, followed. Then a messenger entered the room, and announced that the Khan was at liberty to receive the stranger. Away through a long corridor, and across an inner courtyard, to the reception-hall – a large dome-shaped tent or kibitka. A curtain was drawn aside, and the Englishman found himself face to face with the celebrated Khan.

The portrait he draws of the Khivan potentate differs in some particulars from that drawn by Mr. MacGahan (see p. 283): – “He is taller than the average of his subjects, being quite five feet ten in height, and is strongly built. His face is of a broad massive type; he has a low square forehead, large dark eyes, a short straight nose, with dilated nostrils, and a coal-black beard and moustache. An enormous mouth, with irregular but white teeth, and a chin somewhat concealed by his beard, and not at all in character with the otherwise determined appearance of his face, must complete the picture. He did not look more than eight and twenty, and had a pleasant genial smile, and a merry twinkle in his eye, very unusual amongst Orientals; in fact, a Spanish expression would describe him better than any English one I can think of. He is muy simpatico… The Khan was dressed in a similar sort of costume to that generally worn by his subjects, but it was made of much richer materials, and a jewelled sword was lying by his feet. His head was covered by a tall black Astrakhan hat, of a sugar-loaf shape.”

Tea having been served in a small porcelain cup, the Khan entered into conversation with his visitor, through the medium of Nazar, a Kirghiz interpreter, and a moullah. At first it turned upon the relations existing between England and Russia, the Crimean War, the Indian Government, and other branches of la haute politique; the Khan displaying a quick and clear intelligence. At last he said —

“You do not have a Khan at the head of affairs?”

“No,” replied Burnaby, “a Queen; and her Majesty is advised as to her policy by her ministers, who for the time being are supposed to represent the opinion of the country.”

“And does that opinion change?”

“Very frequently; and since your country was conquered we have had a fresh Government, whose policy is diametrically opposite to that held by the previous one; and in a few years’ time we shall have another change, for in our country, as the people advance in knowledge and wealth, they require fresh laws and privileges. The result of this is, they choose a different set of people to represent them;” and the Major entered on a brief exposition of constitutional principles, which to the Khan must surely have been unintelligible.

“Can your Queen have a subject’s head cut off?”

“No, not without a trial before our judges.”

“Then she never has their throats cut?” [the Khivan punishment for murder].

“No.”

“Hindostan is a very wonderful country,” continued the Khan; “the envoy I sent there a few years ago 18 has told me of your railroads and telegraphs; but the Russians have railroads, too.”

“Yes,” replied Burnaby; “we lent them money, and our engineers have helped to make them.”

“Do the Russians pay you for this?” he inquired.

“Yes; so far they have behaved very honourably.”

“Are there not Jews in your country like some of the Jews at Bokhara?”

“One of the richest men in England is a Jew.”

“The Russians do not take away the money from the Jews?”

“No.”

Here the Khan said a few words to his treasurer, and then remarked, in allusion to the tribute he pays to Russia annually: – “Why do they take money from me, then? The Russians love money very much.” As he said this, he shook his head sorrowfully at the treasurer; and the latter, assuming a dolorous expression, poured out with a pitiful accent the monosyllable “Hum!” which, in Khivan language, seems to convey as pregnant a meaning as Lord Burleigh’s shake of the head in “The Critic.”

With a low bow from the Khan, the interview terminated.

On the following day Major Burnaby visited the Khan’s gardens, which lie about three-quarters of a mile from the town. They are five in number, surrounded by high walls of sun-dried clay, and each from four to five acres in extent. Entering one of them, our traveller discovered that it was neatly laid out and trimly kept. The fruit trees, arranged in long avenues, were carefully cut and pruned; apple, pear, and cherry trees abounded. In the spring melons are grown on a large scale; and in the summer trellis-work arbours of vines, loaded with grapes, afford a delightful shelter from the sun’s fierce glare. In a small summer-palace here, the Khan holds his court in June and July, and on a raised stone daïs outside sits to administer justice.

Returning to Khiva, Burnaby visited the prison and the principal school – the invariable accompaniments of civilization, however imperfect. But may we not hope that, some day, the school will destroy the gaol, and relieve civilization from the reproach of barbarism that still attaches to it? Meanwhile, Nazar was preparing for the Major’s contemplated expedition to Bokhara, his tour to Merv and Meshed, and his journey from Persia into India, and so back to England. It was the 27th of January, and he had determined to spend only one more day in Khiva. But his plans were upset by an unexpected incident. On the morning of the 28th, just after his return from a ride through the market, he was “interviewed” by two strangers, who presented him with a letter from the commandant of Petro-Alexandrovsky, the Russian fort he had so determinedly avoided. It was to the effect that a telegram, which had been forwarded viâ Tashkent, awaited him at the fort, whither he must be pleased to repair to receive it. How or why any person should consider him of importance enough to despatch a telegram so many thousands of miles, and should go to the expense a sending it from Tashkent where the telegraph ends, to Khiva, a distance of nine hundred miles, by couriers with relays of horses, Burnaby could not understand. But there was no help for it. He must hasten to Petro-Alexandrovsky, where he did not want to go, and abandon his trip to Bokhara and Merv, where he very much wished to go. So he paid a visit to the bazar, and afterwards took leave of the Khan, who bestowed upon him the honourable gift of a khalat, or dressing-gown, and on the 29th bade adieu to Khiva.

He reached Petro-Alexandrovsky on the second day, and found that the important telegram which had travelled so far was one from the Duke of Cambridge, Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, requiring his immediate return to European Russia. He found also that the Russian Government had given orders for his return by the shortest route to Kasala. All hope of further exploration and adventure in Central Asia had to be abandoned. Before leaving Petro-Alexandrovsky, the disappointed traveller had an opportunity of accompanying a coursing party, and sharing in a day’s novel sport. There were horses and men of all kinds and shapes, Russians, Bokharans, Kirghiz, short-legged men on giant steeds, and long-legged men on short-legged horses. A short colonel, said to be well versed in the pastime, acted as master of the hunt. Behind him were led seven or eight greyhounds in couples; while a stalwart Khivan bore on his elbow a hooded falcon, graceful enough to have figured in Mr. Tennyson’s poetical little drama. Amid a storm of cries and shouts and yells, the hunters rode forward at a rattling pace, crossing a flat open country, intersected by a ditch or two; until, after an eight miles’ run, they arrived at the cover, a narrow tract of bush and bramble-covered ground stretching down to the bank of the frozen Oxus. Forming in a line, at a distance of twenty yards from one another, the horsemen rode through bush and bramble. A sharp yell from a Kirghiz, and after a startled hare, which had left its covert, dashed Russians, Bokharans, Englishman, and hounds. On they went, down the slippery river bank, across the shining ice, towards a dense bit of copse, where it looked as if poor puss might find an asylum from her pursuers. But at this moment the falcon was launched into the air. A swift swooping flight, and whir of wings, and in a second it was perched on its victim’s back, while around it gathered the well-trained dogs, with open mouths and lolling tongues, not daring to approach the quarry. The master galloped up, seized the prize, and in a few minutes more the hunt was resumed; nor did the horsemen turn their faces homeward until five hares had rewarded their chivalrous efforts.

In company with two Russian officers, and an escort of ten Cossacks, Major Burnaby, after a pleasant sojourn at Petro-Alexandrovsky, set out on his return to Kasala. As the weather was warmer, and the snow had begun to melt, the three officers travelled in a tarantass, drawn by six Kirghiz horses; the said tarantass closely resembling a hansom cab which, after its wheels have been removed, has been fastened in a brewer’s dray. It has no springs, and it runs upon small but solid wooden wheels. They had gone but a few miles before they came again into a land of snow; the horses had to be taken out, and a couple of camels substituted. At night they bivouacked, resuming their journey before daybreak. It was a picturesque sight: – “First, the Cossacks, the barrels of their carbines gleaming in the moonlight, the vashlik of a conical shape surmounting each man’s low cap, and giving a ghastly appearance to the riders. Their distorted shadows were reflected on the snow beneath, and appeared like a detachment of gigantic phantoms pursuing our little force. Then the tarantass, drawn by two large camels, which slowly ploughed their way through the heavy track, the driver nodding on his box but half awake, the two officers in the arms of Morpheus inside, and the heavy woodwork creaking at each stride of the enormous quadrupeds. In the wake of this vehicle strode the baggage camels. The officers’ servants were fast asleep on the backs of their animals, one man lying with his face to the tail, and snoring hard in spite of the continued movement; another fellow lay stretched across his saddle, apparently a good deal the worse for drink. He shouted out at intervals the strains of a Bacchanalian ditty. Nazar, who was always hungry, could be seen walking in the rear. He had kept back a bone from the evening meal, and was gnawing it like a dog, his strong jaws snapping as they closed on the fibrous mutton. I generally remained by our bivouac fire an hour or so after the rest of the party had marched, and seated by the side of the glowing embers, watched the caravan as it vanished slowly in the distance.”