From the mosques we pass to the bazár, which is simply a street covered in, like the arcades so popular in some English towns. The roof consists of beams laid from wall to wall across the narrow thoroughfare, supporting planks laid close together, and covered with earth. On entering, you are greeted by a pleasant compound scent of spices, by all kinds of agreeable odours, and by the confused sounds of men and animals. As soon as your eyes grow accustomed to the shade, they rest with delight on the rich ripe fruit spread everywhere around you in tempting masses. Khiva would seem to be the paradise of fruit epicures. There are apricots, and grapes, and plums, and peaches, and melons of the finest quality and indescribable lusciousness. But if you want more solid fare, you can enjoy a pilaoff with hot wheaten cakes, and wash down the repast with stimulating green tea. After which, refreshed and thankful, you may sally forth to make your purchases of boots or tobacco or khalats, cotton stuffs or silk stuffs, calico from Manchester, muslin from Glasgow, robes from Bokhara, or Russian sugar. This done, you are at leisure to survey for a while the motley crowd that surges to and fro. The Uzbeg, with his high black sheepskin hat and long khalat, tall, well-formed, swarthy, with straight nose and regular features; the Kirghiz, in coarse dirty-brown khalat, with broad, flat, stolid countenance; the Bokhariot merchant, with turban of white and robe of many colours; the Persian, with quick, ferret-like eyes, and nimble, cat-like motions; and the Yomud Turcoman, with almost black complexion, heavy brows, fierce black eyes, short upturned nose, and thick lips. These pass before you like figures in a phantasmagoria. Weary with the noise and shifting sights, you gladly accept an invitation to dine with a wealthy Uzbeg, and accompany him to his residence. The day is very warm; in a cloudless sky reigns supreme the sun; and you rejoice when you find that your host has ordered the banquet to be spread in the pleasant garden, amid the shade of green elms and the sparkle of running waters. Your first duty is to remove your heavy riding-boots, and put on the slippers which an attendant hands to you; your second is to make a Russian cigarette, and drink a glass of nalivka, or Russian gooseberry wine, as a preparation for the serious work that awaits you. Then a cloth is spread, and the dinner served. Fruits, of course—apricots, melons, and the most delicious white mulberries; next, three or four kinds of dainty sweetmeats, which seem to consist of the kernels of different nuts embedded in a kind of many-coloured toffee. Into a frothy compound, not unlike ice-cream with the ice left out, you dip your thin wheaten cakes, instead of spoons. Various kinds of nuts, and another glass of nalivka, precede the principal dish, which is an appetizing pilaoff, made of large quantities of rice and succulent pieces of mutton, roasted together.