But my purchases are not ended yet. I know by sad experience that any man travelling in Central Asia during the Khivan war, will be expected to bring back a souvenir of it for every acquaintance he has got; and it is as well to get it over at once. I look about for something "cheap and durable," and pitch at length upon a heap of Kirghiz spoons and bowls of curiously painted wood, thrown pell-mell into a huge chest in front of one of the larger cells. At first I look in vain for any trace of a shopman; but after a time, in the very inmost nook of the recess, I dimly descry a magnificent-looking old Bokhariote in a green caftan, sitting, crosslegged upon a little square carpet-awake, but motionless as a statue-surveying me and my proceedings with a grand and tranquil contempt, which says, more plainly than any words, that it is all one to him whether I buy anything or not.

I dive into the chest, and turn out its contents one by one. To all appearance I might walk off with the entire lot, without making the slightest impression upon their impassible owner. At length, having fixed upon three spoons a little less dirty than the rest, and a bowl which, by some miracle, has only one crack in it, I present myself at the mouth of the cell.

"How much for the bowl?"

The automaton slowly extends the fingers of both hands, without speaking.

"Ten kopecks,* eh? And the spoons?"

Out come two fingers.

* About 3d. English.

"Two kopecks a piece? Very good."

I put down sixteen kopecks, and move off with an uncomfortable feeling of having just offered sacrifice to some unknown Eastern idol, When I look back on reaching the other side of the square, he has not yet stirred to take up his money.

But at this point my attention is attracted by a great shouting and laughter proceeding from a crowd. gathered near the entrance. I approach, and find a ring formed around two men wrestling, one of whoma long, weedy fellow in a white jacket, is evidently a Cossack soldier, while the other a short, brawny, Friar-Tuck-like man with a thick black beard, is as unmistakably a Bashkir. The sympathies of the spectators appear to be pretty equally divided; but I, at the first glance, pronounce for the Bashkir. They close again, and at first the Cossack appears to have the best of it; but he has put forth his whole strength too soon, and speedily begins to give way before the superior weight and muscle of his antagonist. Feeling his danger, the soldier makes a desperate effort, and succeeds in tripping-up his opponent; but the latter cleverly recovers himself, and, with a mighty heave, hoists White-jacket fairly off his legs, and brings him to the ground with a dull crash, falling heavily upon him. The native bystanders applaud lustily; and I reward the conqueror with a few kopecks, which he instantly lays out upon a thick round cake like a rolled-up copybook, sufficient to knock any civilised digestion out of time altogether.

The sound of a child's voice at my elbow makes me turn round, and I see in front of the nearest booth a little round-faced, black-eyed urchin of five sitting doubled up over a huge greasy copybook, filled with crabbed Tartar characters, which a brown, dried-up old greybeard in a villainously dirty shirt is laboriously teaching him to pronounce. Fancy copybooks and reading-lessons on the steppes of the Syr-Daria! The schoolmaster is abroad, with a vengeance!

Turning to leave the place (for my appetite tells me that it is already past one o'clock) I am stopped at the very gate by an old acquaintance-a big, burly man with a huge brown beard, the proprietor of a shop about a stone's throw beyond the bazaar. He is leaning lazily against the wall, bareheaded in the full blaze of the sunlight, and, as if that were not enough, with his head shaved into the bargain—confiding, no doubt, in that skull of proof which is the birthright of every true Russian. At my approach, however, he rears himself upright, and extends a hand as broad and hard as a trencher.

"God be with you, David Stepanovitch; how goes it?" "May you be prosperous, Ivan Nikolaievitch" (John the son of Nicholas.) "You see I'm still waiting for my 'permit' to go on to Khiva."

might have gone with our caravan, which is to start as soon as the road's clear."

Why, isn't it clear now? Khiva's taken-what more do you want?"

"Khiva's taken, but the Khan's not; he's run away somewhere into the steppes east of the Aral Sea, with a lot of his rascals; and a caravan would be a nice morsel for them, if they happened to meet it."

"O, if that's all that troubles you, be easy. I've just been to the Commandant, and he tells me that the Khan has come back again, and given himself up to the Russians ;* and what's more, they've put him back on his throne again, only cautioning him to be a good boy for the future, and not pick any more pockets."

"You don't say so? But surely they'll leave a garrison there? trusting a Khivan's word is like standing on thawed ice!"

"Yes, they're going to leave six companies in Kungrad, near the mouth of the Oxus, and possibly two or three more at Shourakhan, some forty miles east of Khiva; so that if our friend the Khan misbehaves himself, he'll be caught like a snake in a forked stick."

"Bravo! then the caravan can go off to-morrow. Thanks for your good news, David Stepanovitch; but where are you off to in such a hurry?"

"Home to my dinner-and I shall be ready for it, after knocking about in the sun all morning. Goodbye!"

* The Khan's detention lasted only five days altogether-" just to let him feel our gripe," as a Russian officer of my acquaintance expressed it.

CHAPTER XVII.

ACROSS THE SYR-DARIA WITH A CARAVAN.

MORNING on the Syr-Daria-a bright, glorious July morning, with a cloudless sky that betokens all too plainly the destroying heat to come. In the splendour of the early sunlight, the wide, smooth, glittering sweep of the river between its grassy banks, the broad belt of vegetation that girdles it, and the grey unending level of the mighty desert beyond, stand out sharp and clear as in a photograph. Upon most days of the year you might look in vain for any trace of man's presence in this strange panorama, save a stray tent dotted here and there upon the great waste; but this morning it is otherwise. Around the "crossing" of Kara-Toubeh, where a huge, clumsy, iron-bound raft, towed by a rope slung across the stream, does duty as a ferry-boat, there are signs of unwonted bustle. Flat caps and white turbans, red shirts and flowing "khalats," high boots and broad-toed sandals, crowd the bank; while the big, roomy tents dotted over the grass, and the charred circles of extinct camp-fires, show that the sojourn has been a long one. Evidently some great event is at hand, sufficing to stir even the sluggish Asiatic blood into temporary action. In the East there is but one occurrence capable of working such a miracle; and