In the country, women are allowed to move with less restraint. Married women are seldom veiled, young girls never. The overcoat is shorter, and is merely thrown across the shoulder, and the broad shawl girded round the waist, with long ends fluttering to the breeze, gives a certain picturesqueness to their appearance. This indulgence, however, is only enjoyed in Khiva and Khokand; in Bokhara, even in the country, the tyrannical laws of Islamitic civilisation are executed with great severity, and it is rare to meet with an exception. Among the men, various objects of ornament are seen, those which hang from the _Koshbag_, such as good knives with silver or other ornamented handles, gold-embroidered bags for tea, pepper and salt; further, rings for the fingers, tesbih (rosaries,) seals sometimes, but rarely, bracelets, gold and silver sheaths for amulets and watches, which latter are especial articles of luxury, and only to be found among the great. The objects of ornament among women I have already mentioned when speaking of the customs at weddings. It is useless to look for comfort or luxury either in the dwellings, food, or clothing of the natives of Central Asia, every thing here bears the impress of very ancient manners and customs, and every one conforms to them willingly, not wishing for anything better. The government, supported by the Mollahs, labours to keep up this status quo of things, by declaring all foreign productions contraband, and endeavouring to supplant them in the market, for fear the inhabitants of Turkestan might become aware of their poverty, and attribute it, not to the natural, but to the social circumstances of their country. And yet such an endeavour is fruitless, railroads and steam vessels bring their powerful veto, even in these rude countries, to bear upon a whole nation's backwardness. The ships which plough the Indian Ocean, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Lake of Aral, the Volga, and, at the present time, the Yaxartes likewise, have considerably lessened the distance between Central Asia and the west of Europe. The locomotives, which on the south run as far as Lahore, on the north to Nishnei-Novgorod, and astonish and perplex the eastern nations, are still, it is true, far from the inland waters of the Oxus and Yaxartes; yet, nevertheless, they exercise a considerable influence upon the communication of these countries. The Œzbeg trader need only go as far as Orenburg on the one, and Peshawur on the other side, and he has St. Petersburg, Bombay, and the whole of Europe before him. Inaccessible as Central Asia still is to all scientific, as well as commercial travellers, yet within the last twenty-five years an essential material advancement is apparent. We need only look over the custom-house list of the English and Russian frontier towns, and we should be surprised at the enormous increase of articles imported from Europe. From 1840 to 1850 goods were transported across the Russian frontier