This setting of brilliant vegetation adds dignity to the crumbling ramparts of Bokhārā. The town-wall, 28 feet high and 7½ miles in circuit, encloses an area of 1760 acres, which seems disproportionate to the dwindling population, now amounting to no more than 65,000 souls.[693] Entering one of the eleven gates,[694] unchallenged by the slouching sentry, the traveller finds himself in a dædalus of narrow lanes, swarming with human beings more suggestive of the unadulterated East than any other city in Asia can show. Sart is the Russian term for the sedentary population throughout Central Asia; but the variety of types which it includes is immense. The Tājiks are a tall well-favoured race, with clear olive complexions and black eyes and hair.[695] Their origin is the subject of much controversy; but, according to a tradition among them, they migrated to Bokhārā from the west, and reclaimed a reedy swamp which became the city’s site.[696] They were subdued by the fierce Arabs in the eighth century, and adopted the Mohammedan religion. As each tide of conquest swept the country the Tājiks bent their necks, and acquired all the vices of a race inured to foreign dominion. They are polished, laborious, and intelligent, with a genius for commerce, but their greed and faithlessness are as notorious as their cowardice.[697] Thus the Tājik is regarded with supreme contempt by the Uzbegs, who for three centuries have been the dominant race.[698] They are a stem of the great Turkish family which, starting from the steppes north of the Gobi Desert, brought half the world under their sway. They are middle-sized but sturdy, with high cheek-bones, ruddy complexions, and dark auburn hair. In character they resemble the Osmānlīs--not the scum of the Levant now encountered at Constantinople, but the rude warriors who supplanted the Cross by the Crescent there in the fifteenth century. They are brave and independent, with the grossness of manners and something of the inborn dignity of the unadulterated Turk. Like the Kirghiz, who are also met with in Bokhārā,[699] and the Turkomans, Uzbegs are either sedentary or nomads. The first class resemble the Tājiks in their greed for gain, but they are not so civilised; the second tend their flocks and herds, dwelling in tents of dark grey felt hung with bright carpets. The reigning dynasty is of this race, and belongs to a division of the Mangit, the chief of the 97 clans[700] into which Uzbegs are divided. At the opposite pole stand the Jewish community, which is traditionally believed to have migrated hither from Baghdād. Half a century ago they numbered 10,000,[701] but they have dwindled to perhaps half as many under the grinding persecution to which they have been subjected. Bokhārā is not a whit in advance of mediæval Europe in its treatment of this forlorn colony. The time, indeed, has gone by when Jews might be savagely assaulted by a true believer, and even killed with impunity.