Ma´sūm had designated his son Sayyid Haydar Tūra as his successor; but the new sovereign had to reckon with three paternal uncles, `Omar Bi, Fāzil Bi, and Mahmūd Bi, who raised the standard of revolt in the northern provinces. Amīr Haydar[481] marched against them at the head of an army so powerful as to render resistance impossible. The rebels threw themselves into strong places, but were driven from these retreats by concentrated artillery fire. Two of them, `Omar Bi and Fāzil Bi, were tracked to a village by the Amīr’s troops, were captured and put to death; while Mahmūd Bi, the third, sought safety in Kokand.[482] Amīr Haydar’s store of energy was apparently exhausted by this early test. He permitted Iltuzar Khān of Khiva to ravage the suburbs of his capital, and not until the cry of his suffering subjects could no longer be disregarded did he give orders for an expedition to avenge their woes. It consisted of 30,000 Uzbegs under the command of a general of distinction named Mahammad Niyāz Bi. The avenging host followed the course of the Amū Daryā until the confines of Khiva had been reached.[483] In the meantime, Iltuzar, overjoyed at the prospect of victory, crossed the Amū Daryā in the enemy’s rear and established himself in an entrenched camp with 4000 chosen men. The invaders were on the horns of a dilemma. To leave the river was to enter a waterless desert, wherein none would emerge alive; while retreat to Bokhārā was barred by the Khivans’ entrenchments. In desperation they attacked the foe with suddenness and vigour, driving them into the Amū Daryā and securing a decisive victory. Khiva lay open to their attack, but the pusillanimous Haydar was content to rest on his vicariously won laurels, and to pass the rest of his reign in the practice of a pharisaical piety and association with priests, who ruled the people in his name with a rod of iron. As is too frequently the fate of Oriental princes, he was unable to resist the enervating influence of the harem, and lost his power of initiative by wallowing in licensed debauchery.[484] He died in 1826, after an inglorious reign of twenty-seven years. CHAPTER XXIX AMĪR NASRULLAH, A BOKHĀRAN NERO In writing of the monkish Haydar’s successor, Vambéry appositely quotes an old Uïghūr proverb, “The princes of an age are its mirrors.”[485] Nasrullah Khān epitomised the vices which flourished unchecked in Bokhārā. The passion for low intrigue, the lust and cruelty, the self-righteousness and hypocrisy so often associated with the Mohammedan character, were found in him in their highest development.