At Köhne Urgendj the road divides, both branches running at a small distance from each other. The one less frequented runs by Porsu and Yilali, and is taken by people who travel in large parties; the proximity of the marauding tribes of the Tshaudors and Yomut Turkomans, rendering the road, at least as far as Tashhauz, very insecure. The second road, nearer the Oxus, runs with few interruptions along its banks, a tract of country strewn with farmsteads (Havlis), villages and hamlets. This road is generally taken in summer, although it is the longer of the two, and also more troublesome on account of the many ditches and canals for irrigation. Whereas, a caravan must keep together as far as Tashhauz on the former road, travellers on the latter may part company as early as at Kiptchak, and each continue his way separately. CHAPTER X. MY TARTAR. I cannot conceive it possible to imagine a greater contrast than an Asiatic, and more particularly a Central Asiatic, who, as late as two years ago, wrapt in his national garb of ample width, hanging about him in loose folds, was feeding on the simple and primitive fare of a nomadic people, and who, at the present moment, booted and spurred, moves about in the closely-fitting costume of the Hungarians, and is already accustomed to the food and manners of the West; one, who, destined to lead the life of a Mollah, once spent his time in the lonely cell of the Medresse Mehemmed Emin at Khiva, absorbed either in prayer or in the doctrines of Islamism, and who is now seen turning over the large folios in the library of a European academy, acquainted with books on philosophy, or the history of the world and religion, Greek and Latin literature, and numberless authors besides; who scarcely ever had heard the name of Europe, or had heard it mentioned only in terms of the utmost abhorrence; who knew no other institutions, no other phases or aspects of men and things, but those in his own wild Eastern world, and recognised these alone as true and reasonable;--and who now is reading the leading articles of European newspapers, discussing the different politics of Western countries, and unhesitatingly making the boldest comparisons between the Eastern and Western hemispheres.