Travels in Central Asia: Being the Account of a Journey from Teheran Across the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara, and SamarcandVámbéry, Ármin
History
Travels in Central Asia: Being the Account of a Journey from Teheran Across the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarcand
Vámbéry, Ármin
Asia, Central -- Description and travel; Vámbéry, Ármin, 1832-1913 -- Travel -- Asia, Central
[Footnote 46: Baha-ed-din,--or according to Bokhariot pronunciation,
Baveddin--is an ascetic and saint renowned throughout all Islam, the
founder of the Nakishbendi order; members of it are to be met with
in India, China, Persia, Arabia, and Turkey. He died in 1388, and
the convent, as well as the mosque, and space walled in for his
grave in the village of Baveddin, were erected by direction of Abdul
Aziz Khan in the year 1490.]
{176}
[Spies set upon Author; Fate of recent Travellers in Bokhara]
But in playing my part it was not so easy to deceive the Government as
the people. Rahmet Bi, whom I before spoke of, not being able to come
at me openly, set spies incessantly at work. These, in conversing with
me, took care to embrace a variety of subjects, but always came to the
subject of Frenghistan, hoping, probably, that I should betray myself
by some unguarded expression or other. Perceiving that the twig which
they had so limed did not catch its bird, they began to speak of the
great pleasure which the Frenghis experience in the 'noble' Bokhara,
and how already many of their spies, but particularly the Englishmen,
Conolly and Stoddart, had been punished. [Footnote 47] Or they
recounted to me the story of the Frenghis who had arrived only a few
days before, and had been imprisoned (referring to the unfortunate
Italians); how they had brought with them several chests of tea
sprinkled with diamond dust, to poison all the inhabitants of the holy
city; how they converted day into night, and brought about other
infernal strokes of art. [Footnote 48]
[Footnote 47: The sad fate of these two martyrs has continued to
remain, as I remarked, a secret even in Bokhara; the most
contradictory reports are up to the present day in circulation upon
this subject. The reader will readily understand that without
betraying my real identity it was impossible for me to put the
necessary questions to elicit any fresh information; and the sad
event having been so frequently and so fully entered into by Wolff,
Ferrier, T. W. Kaye, and others who have written officially and
unofficially upon the subject, any notices collected by myself in my
journey through Bokhara seem entirely useless and uncalled for.]
[Footnote 48: They, it appears, have recently been liberated.]
{177}
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