The expenditure upon the wardrobe is on a footing with the style of each house and its arrangement. Cloth is rarely met with: it serves for presents from the Khan to his officials of high rank. Different qualities of the Aladja (cotton) are employed by all classes, from king to dervish, for winter and summer. Although the Bokhariot over-garment has the form of a night-dress extending down to the ankles, still it is subject from time to time to little innovations as to cut, sleeve, collar, and trimming, in accordance with the fashion of the moment, which is as much respected in Bokhara as in Paris. A dandy in the former city takes especial care to have his turban folded according to the idea in force at the moment, as an evidence of good taste. He sees particularly to his shawl, by which he binds his trousers round the loins, and to his koshbag suspended to that shawl. The koshbag is a piece of leather consisting of several tongues, to which are fastened a knife or two, a small tea-bag, a miswak (toothpick), and a leathern bag for copper money. These articles constitute the indispensables of a Central Asiatic, and by the quality and value of each is a judgment formed of the character and breeding of the man. Whoever may wish to see the _haute volée_, the fashionable world of Bokhara, should post himself on a Friday, between ten and twelve o'clock in the forenoon, in the street leading from Deri Rigistan to the Mesdjidi Kelan, or great mosque. At this time the Ameer, followed by his grandees, in great state, betakes himself to his Friday's devotions. All are in their best attire, upon their best horses; for these, with their splendid housings, serve as substitutes for carriages. The large, stiff, silken garments of staring colours are in striking contrast with the high and spurred boots. But what produces a particularly comic effect is the loose and waddling gait which all pedestrians studiously put on. Reftari khiraman (the waddling or trotting step), which Oriental poets find so graceful, comparing it to the swaying movement of the cypress when agitated by the zephyrs, and whose attainment is the subject of careful study in Persia as well as Bokhara, to us Europeans seems like the gait of a fatted goose floundering on his way home. But this is no subject for me to jest upon, for our stiff, rapid pace is just as displeasing to an Oriental eye, and it would not be very polite to mention the comparison they make use of with respect to us. It does not excite less wonder on our part when we see the men in Bokhara clad in wide garments of brilliant colour, whereas the women wear only a dress that is tight to the shape, and of a dark hue. For in this city, where the civilization has retained with the greatest fidelity its antique stamp of Oriental Islamism, women, ever the martyrs of Eastern legislation, come in for the worst share.