But they are still relegated to a filthy and crowded Ghetto. They are forbidden to ride in the streets, and must wear a distinctive costume, a small black cap edged with two fingers’ breadth of sheep-skin, a dark dressing-gown of camels’ hair, and a rope girdle, a survival of a time when it might at any moment be required for its wearer’s execution. This tyranny, tenfold worse than that endured by the Tājiks, has ranged the Jew on the side of the white man. [Illustration: HINDUS OF BOKHĀRĀ] In the earlier days of their empire in Central Asia the Russians received a good deal of valuable information as to popular feeling from these despised auxiliaries. The blind hatred which superiority excites in minds of the lower type is universal in Bokhārā, and the Jews of the Khānate still groan under disabilities which are more degrading to their oppressors than to themselves. The Persian element is a strong one, and the slim figures, dark eyes, and regular features of the children of poor worn-out Irān are conspicuous in the motley crowd that fills the streets. They are descended from slaves sold by Turkoman raiders, or from 40,000 Persian families transplanted from Merv by Amīr Murād in 1784. Being Shī`as, they cordially detest the Uzbegs and Tājiks, who belong to the rival Sunni sect.[702] Under former Amīrs, notably the treacherous Nasrullah, who murdered our countrymen Stoddart and Conolly, the Persians gained commanding influence.[703] They are now peaceable traders, whose patriotism stops at day-dreams of reviving the glories of the greatest and most ruthless of their royal line, Nādir Shāh. Broad-shouldered Afghans, lithe bright-eyed Arabs, who have the secret of dressing the real Astrakhan lamb-skin, and Indian subjects of Her Majesty, are common in Bokhārā. The latter are styled by the natives Multānis, though most of them hail from Haydarābād in Sindh. They are betrayed by their dark complexion and the flame-shaped caste-marks on their swarthy brows. The Hindu shares with the Jew the immense profits derived from money-lending, which is forbidden to true believers, and they are eager and rapacious traders. The large commerce in tea is in the hands of some wealthy Peshawar Mohammedans. The Indian colony devote a few years to money-grabbing, living the while in serais of their own, consisting of a courtyard surrounded with unfurnished cells, in which the traveller spreads his bedding, while his goods and camels occupy the centre of the square. They profess to be well satisfied with the existing order of things at Bokhārā, but have some reason to complain of the absence of any British consular agency.[704]