The city of Bokhara is surrounded by massive walls which were built in the ninth century, 28 feet in height, 14 feet in thickness at the base, with 131 towers and pierced at irregular intervals by eleven gates. These ramparts contain, within a circuit of 7½ miles, an area of 1760 acres. The population numbers some hundred thousand and the variety of types included in this estimate is immense. The Tajiks, who predominate, are well favoured in their appearance; they have clear, olive complexions with black eyes and hair. Polite, hard-working and intelligent, they possess considerable aptitude for business. Against these excellent traits, however, must be noted the fact that they are inclined to cowardice and dishonesty. On this account they are regarded with contempt by the Uzbegs, a race whose physical characteristics cause them to resemble the rude warriors of the Osmanlis who supplanted the Cross by the Crescent in the fifteenth century. Independent in their bearing, the Uzbegs possess high courage together with something of the inborn dignity of the Turk; but they are distinguished from that nation by a greater grossness of manner and less individuality. Equally with the Kirghiz and the Turcomans, the Uzbegs are divided in their classes between sedentary people and nomads. Then, also, in this dædalus there is the Jewish community, which is traditionally believed to have migrated hither from Baghdad. The Jews in Bokhara are forbidden to ride in the streets; while they must wear a distinctive costume, the main features of which include a small black cap, a dressing-gown of camel’s hair and a rope girdle. They are relegated to a filthy ghetto; and, although they may not be killed with impunity by a good believer, they are subjected to such grinding persecution that their numbers have been reduced in the course of half a century to something less than 75 per cent. of the 10,000 who originally composed the colony. The Jew in Bokhara shares with the Hindu settler there the profits of money-lending and the two classes are keen hands at a bargain. In addition to the Hindus there are a few Mahommedan merchants from Peshawar who are concerned in the tea trade. Other races among the moving mass comprise Afghans, Persians and Arabs, the variety of features shown by a Bokharan crowd suggesting so many different quarters as their place of origin that one would need to recite the map of High Asia to describe them.