in opening my knapsack, and then showed him the few rags and old books which I had collected in Khiva. The disappointed Bokhariot looked round him in astonishment, demanding if I really had nothing more. Whereupon Hadji Salih gave him explanations as to my rank, my character, as well as the object I had in view, in my journey; all of which he noted down carefully, accompanying the act with a look at me and a shake of the head full of meaning. When the collector had finished with us, the functions of the Vakanüvisz (writer of events) began. He first took down the name of each traveller with a detailed description of his person, and then whatever information or news each might have it in his power to give. What a ridiculous proceeding--a long string of questions respecting Khiva, a land of kindred language, origin, and religion with Bokhara; their frontiers having been for centuries and centuries coterminous, and their capitals lying only a few days' journey distant from each other. [First Impression of Bokhara the Noble.] Everything was in order, only some difference of opinion arose as to the quarter in the capital where we should first put up. The collector proposed the custom-house, hoping, at least, there to be able to squeeze something out of us, or to subject me to a stricter examination. Hadji Salih (for the latter, possessing much influence in Bokhara, now took the lead in the {166} karavan) declared, on the contrary, his purpose to put up in the Tekkie; and we started at once from Khakemir, and had only proceeded half-an-hour through a country resplendent with gardens and cultivated fields, when Bokhara Sherif (the noble, as the Central Asiatics designate it) appeared in view, with, amongst some other buildings, its clumsy towers, crowned, almost without exception, by nests of storks. [Footnote 42] [Footnote 42: In Khiva nightingales abound, but there are no storks; the reverse is the case at Bokhara, in which there is not a single tower or other elevated building where we do not see birds of the last-named description, sitting, like single-legged sentinels, upon the roofs. The Khivite mocks the Bokhariot upon this subject, saying, 'Thy nightingale song is the bill-clapping of the stork.'] At the distance of about a league and a half from the city we crossed the Zerefshan. It flows in a southerly direction, and, although its current is tolerably strong, is fordable by camels and horses. On the opposite side was still visible the _tête du pont_ of a once handsomely-built stone bridge. Close to it stood the ruins of a palace, also of stone. I was told that it was the work of the renowned Abdullah Khan Sheibani. Taken altogether, there are, in the immediate environs of the capital of Central Asia, few remains of her former grandeur. {167} CHAPTER X.