Tashkent was conquered by the Russians in 1863, and it is only since then that the Russian town has grown up at a short distance from the old city; it boasts over 50,000 inhabitants, and has a considerable trade. At this time of year the climate is delicious, but in the summer it is said to be intensely hot, and in the rainy season the mud is so deep that the streets become almost impassable, and the men have to go about in what we should call wading boots. It is on this account that the natives have such peculiar carts, with spidery wheels about eight or ten feet in diameter. The driver sits on a saddle on the horse, with a foot resting on each shaft. Many of the tall, lean beasts, have handsomely embroidered horse cloths of blue and scarlet; they also wear broad scarlet or orange neck cloths, and beaded trappings hang from their manes and over their hind quarters; altogether they are most attractive. We were delighted with the beautiful oriental colours of the clothing of the natives, as they rode about on handsome Arab steeds, looking the embodiment of pride amongst their prosaic conquerors. Turbaned servants might be seen holding the horses outside houses while their masters were within, or the horses might be attached to rings in beams fastened in the roadway outside shops and offices for the purpose. Ladies, fashionably dressed, were driving about in troïkas, with three horses harnessed abreast. The centre horse has to trot, and the side ones canter with their heads turned away, so that they look all the time as if they were trying to pull away from the horse in the middle. It my opinion it has a most unnatural and unpleasant appearance to have one horse trotting while the others canter, and I cannot understand how they manage to drive so swiftly under such adverse circumstances. The Siberian horses are capable of doing twenty versts (about thirteen miles) an hour, says Capus. Travellers going any distance by carriage continue day and night without stopping longer than for meals and to change horses, but it must require an iron constitution to do this. Nearly every one at Tashkent seemed to ride or drive; in fact we learnt that it was considered quite _infra dig_ to go on foot anywhere in Turkestan.