Turkistan
Notes of a Journey in Russian Turkistan, Khokand, Bukhara, and Kuldja
by Eugene Schuyler, Phil. Dr.
Member of the American Geographical Society and of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, etc.
In Two Volumes
Vol. I.
Fourth Edition
London
Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington
Crown Buildings, 188 Fleet Street
1876
Väriä koskevia osioita. Kappaleita lisätty lukemisen helpottamiseksi.
Chapter I
The Steppe.
s. 32
In 1824 the Khanate was abolished, and the whole country was divided into three districts, which were governed by three Sultans Regent. These divisions were, however, carelessly made, tribal distinctions and rights of land not having been recognised, and the difficulties of the situation were not removed. The Kirghiz had great respect for their aristocracy, and the common people, 'or black bone,' were led by the 'white bone' (the Kirghiz for blue blood), or the descendants of the old Khans and ruling families.
Chapter IV.
Mussulman Life in Tashkent.
s.123-124 Forty Turns
[...] I have said that the majority of turbans are white, and this is true in Tashkent, though white is especially the colour of the Mullahs and religious people, whose learning is judged by the size of their urbans. In general merchants prefer blue, striped, or chequered naterial. At home the men usually go barefooted, but on going out wear either a sort of slippers with pointed toes and very small high heels, or long soft boots, the sole and upper being made of the same material. In the street one must in addition put on either a slipper or galosh, or wear riding-boots, made of bright green horse-hide, with turned-up pointed toes, and very small high heels.
The dress of the women in shape and fashion differs but little from that of the men, as they wear similar trousers and shirts, though in addition they have long gowns, usually of bright-coloured silk, which extends from the neck to the ground. They wear an innumerable quantity of necklaces and little amulets, pendents in their hair, and earrings, and occasionally even a nose-ring. This is by no means so ugly as is supposed: a pretty girl with a turquoise ring in one nostril is not at all unsightly; on the contrary, there is something piquant in it. Usually when outside of the houses all respectable women wear a heavy black veil, reaching to their waists, made of woven horsehair, and over that is thrown a dark blue or green khalat, the sleeves of which, tied together at the ends, dangle behind. The theory of this dull dress is, that the women desire to escape observation, and certainly for that purpose they have devised the most ugly and unseemly costume that could be imagined. They are, however, very inquisitive, and occasionally in by-streets one is able to get a good glance at them before they pull down their veils. The look of an infidel, or Kaffir, is not supposed to be so injurious to them as that of a Mussulman.
Chapter V.
The Bazaars and Trade.
s. 180-181 Cosmetics
The little drawers, the round boxes with coloured labels, and the bunches of dried herbs, leave no doubt as to which that is. Here you can find all the drugs known to the Asiatic pharmacopoeia. You can get, too, Persian dried lemons of the size of a nutmeg, but which when broken and soaked in your tea leave a decided flavour, small mirrors, and Russian paper; and here, also as the very name of the shop, attar-khana, would indicate -you can find all the cosmetics used by the women, although these have but a small sale, as any garden will furnish the articles commonly used.
The most necessary is, perhaps, usma, a species of woad (Isatis) which furnishes a black colour for painting the eyebrows. The juice of the fresh leaves is squeezed into a tea-cup, and is applied with a small piece of reed instead of a brush, or with the finger. Fashion demands that not only the eyebrows, but also the space between them, shall be painted so as to make one long line. The colour is at first a dirty green, but in a few moments it becomes a bluish black, though it soon disappears, and has to be renewed every two or three days. This custom is so prevalent that even children of less than a year old are thus decorated.
Surma, a black powder of antimony, is used for painting the eyelashes, even by men, and is thought to relieve the inflammation of the eyes caused by dust and wind.
Upa, or white lead, brought from Russia, and rice-powder are the most common preparations for whitening the face, but they are used only by women whose complexion is very yellow. The clear olive complexion, which is sometimes seen among the pure Tadjiks of Samarkand, is not defiled with powder, as it is thought very beautiful of itself.
Rouge (iglyk) is prepared by soaking cotton wool in an infusion of the root of some boraginous plant.
Henna, for colouring the nails, is replaced by the common garden balsam. The leaves and flowers are bruised, mixed with a little alum, and at night bound about the nails of the fingers and toes, which in the morning will have a yellowish red colour.
It was formerly the custom for the women, especially the old ones, to paint their teeth black with a powder composed of the gall of the pistachio tree mixed with the scales from a blacksmith's forge, but this has in great measure gone out of fashion.
s. 182-183 Dyeing, Tanning
*This plant would be very pretty for gardens, and might be of use in commerce. Unfortunately the seeds I brought did not germinate.In similar small shops are sold the dye-stuffs in use. Besides indigo imported from India and Brazil, and other dyewoods coming from Russia, and madder, which grows wild and is also much cultivated in the gardens, there are some dyes, the use of which is perhaps peculiar to the country.
Todennäköisesti Delphinium semibarbatum, KeltaritarinkannusOne of these, isparuk, is a sulphur-yellow larkspur (Delphinium sulphureum) which grows in great abundance on the Steppes.* An infusion of its flowers gives a beautiful and permanent bright yellow dye.
Styphnolobium japonicum, JapaninpagodipuuAnother yellow dye is tukhmak, the flowers of Sophora Japonica.
Trametes hirsuta, Karvavyökääpä?Pugak, a fungus growing on the mulberry tree, especially in Khokand, is used for dying skins a greenish yellow colour.
Pomegranate peel is greatly employed for dying black.
Todennäköisesti lajin Pistacia chinensis subsp. integerrima lehdissä kasvavat äkämät.Another and the most common black dye is buzguntch, which is not a fruit, as some have supposed, but the gall-nut of the pistachiotree.
Cochineal is frequently used for dying silk red. It is chiefly brought from Bukhara, although the insect is found in abundance in the spring in Tashkent and the neighbourhood, on the young leaves of the ash, mulberry and other trees.
Since the introduction of fuchsine from Russia the use of cochineal and of other native dyes have fallen off. For that reason in Khokand the Khan prohibited the importation of fuchsine, as being an inferior dye-stuff.
A kind of Indian ink is prepared for painting as well as for writing, by boiling together with rice and water the soot obtained by burning linseed oil. When it has reached a sufficient thickness it is allowed to dry in cakes.
One whole street is taken up with the shoemakers, some giving their whole work to galoshes, some to the soft morocco boots so much in vogue, others to riding-boots with their soles studded with nails and with small sharp heels, each shop being devoted to a specialty, if it be only cutting out the leather for the soles. The methods of the tanner are very primitive, his vats being merely large holes or pits in the ground, although he has four different ways of preparing leather. In the first method the skins are soaked in a mixture of alum and soda, then well cleaned from the hair and washed, covered with a mixture of barley meal, and then dried and rubbed with tallow. Calf, goat and sheep skins are prepared in the same way, but instead of being rubbed with tallow they are tanned with the bark of the sumach (Rheum Emodi. They are coloured black with pistachio galls mixed with green vitriol. Yak and buffalo hides, after being subjected to the mixture of alum and soda, are salted and finally smoked. A kind of chamois - leather, chiefly used for riding-trousers, is made of goat and sheep skins in the same way and coloured red with madder, and yellow with isparuk. Saura, a sort of shagreen, which is especially used for boots and galoshes, is made from horse and ass hides in much the same way; but, instead of smoking the skins, the tanners cut cross-lines in them by means of a sharp instrument, and after scattering over them millet seeds, spread felt over them and then trample on, or beat them. When the surface is well indented the skins are dried; the seeds are then removed from them and copper-filings mixed with a little arsenic and some substance, the composition of which is not known, are placed on them, by which they obtain a bright green colour.
s. 186-188, Porcelain and Pottery
The shops of the dealers in china and earthenware cannot fail to attract the attention of anyone fond of pottery. The ware is coarse and is always rudely, and often carelessly made, but the freeness and spirit in design, and the harmony in colour, are very pleasing, and render the better-made plates worthy of being used for decorative purposes. The designs are usually in blue and white, though occasionally a faint bluish green tinge is given to the ground, and sometimes yellow or dark violet is sparingly used.
Chinese porcelain is greatly esteemed by the Tashkentians, and brings absurdly high prices. The best class of native ware is therefore called tchini (Chinese), and bears a clumsy imitation of a Chinese mark. The productions of Mohammed Shakyr of Hodjent are considered the best, and good things are also made at Samarkand, and especially at Andijan.
The villages are supplied with the ordinary kinds of glazed and unglazed ware by potters from the large towns, who, during the summer, make a tour through the country, and work from the clay found on the spot-an easy matter, as the tools and belongings of the trade are few and simple. Common pottery and glazed tiles have long been known, but it is believed that the manufacture of tchini was very recently introduced into the country by a certain Usta-Kasim of Samarkand, who had learned it at. Mashad, from which place he returned about 1857.
The ingredients used for tchini are a felspathic white clay (gil-buta) found in the Karnan mountains, south of Kermineh, and near Ablyk, between Tashkent and Khokand quartz (ak-tash, white stone, tash-kum, stone sand ) obtained from the mountains on the upper Zarafshan, or in the shape of pebbles from the gravelly bank of that river near Samarkand, and lime and soda ( ishkar ) derived from the ashes of a species of Salicornia. The glaze is made from a mixture of ishkar and oxide of lead, with occasionally an admixture of tin, which gives the iridescence so much admired in Moorish ware. If a greenish glaze is desired, a little verdigris is added.
* Lui Yu, a Chinese envoy sent to Hulagu in 1259, says: 'The doors and windows are provided with glass.' Tch'ang Tch'un, writing a few years earlier, tells us that the vessels for wine were made only of glass. Curiously enough, this passage is omitted by Dr. Bretschneider in his translation.In case the vessel is to be ornamented, the colours, which are mixed with water and a little cherry or apricot gum, are applied with a goat's-hair brush on the dry surface of the glaze before firing. Blue is produced by lapis-lazuli, violet by mag'l (manganese ? ), yellow by ochre, and green by verdigris. Recent excavations at Samarkand show that glass was once made there,* but its manufacture had been forgotten for ages until a Russian company started some works, which proved a failure from the defective construction of the ovens.
Chapter VI.
Samarkand
s. 254, Kok-tash
In the citadel is also the former palace of the Amir, containing the famous kok-tash, now used as a Russian military hospital, an insignificant building of unburnt bricks covered with clay.
[...]
The kok-tash, which is placed on the verandah opposite the entrance, is an oblong block of whitish-grey marble, polished at the top, carved in arabesques on the sides, and with small pilasters at the corners. It is ten feet four inches long, four feet nine inches wide, and two feet high, without the base of brick and plaster nine inches high, on which it stands. It has been common to speak of this stone as a blue or green stone, the word kok usually meaning one of those colours, and Lehmann (if it be not a remark of the editor ) in his travels speaks of the stone as being of lapis lazuli, evidently from hearsay. Kok however is an indeterminate word for colour and even means grey, as in the sport of kok-büra, 'grey wolf.' The term might thus be applicable to marble. It is probable that the name of this stone had another origin. Baber speaks of the palace which Timur constructed in the citadel of Samarkand as being stately, and four stories high, and famous by the name of kok-sarai, just as the palace of Timur in Kesh was called ak-sarai, or white palace.'
s. 265, The Camp
The warm climate demands a suitable uniform: and the soldiers here wear white cotton or linen blouses, and loose trousers of sheepskin, dyed crimson with cochineal or pomegranate juice, and tucked into their high boots. It is not only a picturesque uniform, but one well suited to the soldier; for his movements are entirely free, and he looks far more robust and manly than when he gets on his ill-fitting winter uniform, badly made of coarse dark cloth.
Chapter VII
The Zarafshan Valley.
s. 274
*It is impossible to rely upon the native nomenclature of mountains, lakes, or rivers, in Central Asia, as frequently they have no names, or are known to different villages by different appellations. Those ranges of mountains on which the snow lies for a long time are called Ak-tau, 'white mountains,' while others are called Kara-tau, or 'black mountains,' and if there be any diversity of colour they are Ala-tau, striped or mottled mountains.' This accounts for the constant reappearance of these names. In the same way lakes are frequently called Kara-kol or Kara-kul, 'black lake,' with no idea of referring to the colour of the water, but merely because any considerable body of standing water receives the epithet of black; while streams, especially rapid, clear streams, are named Ak-su, or 'white water.' In fact Ak-su is a common term for water in general, and a Kirghiz, in apologising for his hospitality, will frequently say that he has nothing to offer you but Ak-su, white water. Both Kara-kol and Ak-su are indefinite names for lake or river, and therefore their frequent appearance should be no puzzle to geographers.The Turkistan range, which forms the northern side of the Zarafshan valley, extends from Kok-su nearly due west, until a little above Urmitan it separates into two branches, one following the river to a little below Penjakent, although continuing somewhat further as a slight elevation of ground, and finally reappearing as the Godun-tau or Ak-tau mountains some distance beyond Katta Kurgan. The other branch goes more to the north-west, and, cut at Jizakh by the defile of Jalan-uta, continues in the Kara-tau or Nurata mountains in little ridges on the south-western boundary of the Kyzyl-Kum, until it disappears in the Bukan-tau, about long. 63° East.*
[s.287-288]
[...] Ak, white, and kok, green, are also used for autumn- and spring-sown crops, ak being also a general germ for early crops, those which have become white and ripe while others are still green.As for certain crops the seed must be sown in the spring, (bogari), and for others in the autumn (teremai), it is necessary to have water on the lands at several different times in the year, especially during the months of March, June, July, August, and September.*
s. 294
In the district of Katta Kurgan, and in some parts of Shahrisabs, much madder is cultivated, it being found a productive and lucrative crop.
Chapter VIII.
Hodjent and Kurama
s. 321- 322
The richest mineral is lead ore; and in the Kara-tau mountains, on the Kon-kia river near Turkistan, there are lead mines which have long been worked by the natives. The most flourishing period was during the Russian advance in Central Asia, when it became necessary for the Khokandian Government to strain every nerve for defence. The work was conducted with great waste. Surface ore was taken and then only the softest and richest, and this was smelted in such a way as to leave fully thirty-one per cent. of metal in the slag. After the Russian occupation the natives found it unprofitable longer to work these mines, and sold them to the merchant Pervushin. From this ore, which is very rich, being a mixture of galena with white lead ore, Mr. Pervushin in 1869 smelted out about 11,000 lbs. while the Kirghiz by their primitive method smelted but 3,200 lbs. The work at these mines, which was somewhat difficult, has now stopped. At Karamazar, in the district of Kurama, twenty miles north-east of Hodjent, there are several parallel veins of very pure galena. [...] Red and brown iron ores and iron ochre are often found, as well as traces of copper ore in the form of green copper in mountainous localities. It is impossible, however, to work them, in consequence of the difficulty of access to the places where the ore is found, and to the absence of any suitable fuel.
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