rather more than one acre during the cool hours between midnight and 9 a.m.[690] The soil is then manured and drenched with water. Spots which show effervescence, that curse of irrigated soil,[691] are dug up by hand and dressed with lime picked out of the ruins which abound in these ancient seats of population. The harrow, a plank two feet wide studded with iron nails, is next passed over the sodden soil in two directions. The enumeration of the crops thus raised would be as tedious as Homer’s catalogue of men of war. The stand-by of the poor is juwārī (_holcus sorghum vel saccharatum_), a species of millet which yields two hundredfold of coarse grain. Cotton is amongst the most lucrative; and a vast impetus has been given to its growth by the railway, which carries the raw material to Russian mills. Wheat, barley, and pulse are also staples, and the vine is made to produce a heady fluid, like immature sherry, by Armenians and Jews, who have the monopoly of a manufacture forbidden to true believers. The entire cultivated area of Bokhārā is not much in excess of 8000 square miles, and the population which it maintains is at least 2½ millions. Thus the price of land is high, and it is much subdivided.[692] When viewed from a height the country resembles a huge shawl of a specially intricate pattern. The eight miles of dusty road which separate the capital from the Russian quarter run through fields which are exact replicas of those of Upper India, and the parallel extends to the villages of flat-roofed houses with wooden verandahs, and the shops displaying piles of sticky sweetmeats. The traveller’s progress is impeded by rows of ponies tethered in the narrow streets. In Bokhārā everyone rides. The poorest can afford the hire of a moiety of a donkey, and beggars on horseback excite no remark. The approach to the city is lined with the gardens in which Bokhāran citizens delight. They are walled in or sheltered from the wintry blast by rows of silver poplars. A quadrangular pond marks the centre of four paths at right angles connected by smaller ones, and overshadowed by fruit trees which are a mass of tender hues when spring showers bring out the blossom. Flowers are few: the rose, the blue iris, sunflower, and poppy well-nigh exhaust the list. The cultivation of fruit is well understood. The melons have a more delicate aroma than those of any Eastern country. Dried apricots are known in India as the “Ālū-i-Bokhārā”; and every variety of fruit familiar to the European palate is to be had in a perfection and at prices which would excite wonder in Covent Garden.