From Samarcand to Karshi there are three ways, first by Shehri Sebz, which may be styled almost a circuitous way, and is the longest; secondly, by Djam, only fifteen miles, but through a stony and mountainous country, and consequently difficult, if not impracticable, for carts; thirdly, through the desert. {223} barely eighteen miles in length. On setting out, we had, anyhow, to take the Bokhara road as far as the hill, whence Samarcand first becomes visible to the traveller approaching it from the former city. Here we turned off to the left. The way then passes through two villages, in the midst of land well cultivated. After proceeding three miles, we halted at the karavanserai, Robati Hauz, where the road divides into two others, that on the left passing by Djam, that on the right traversing a desert. We took the latter. In comparison with those deserts through which I had already made my way, this one, with respect to size, may be styled a moderate-sized field. It is everywhere visited by shepherds, from the convenience of its numerous wells of tolerably good water; in the neighbourhood of these the Ozbegs constantly pitch their tents. The wells are, for the most part, deep, and have each near them a somewhat elevated reservoir of stone or wood, always in the form of a square, into which is thrown the water drawn from the wells, for the use of cattle. As the buckets are small, and the shepherd would be soon tired by repeatedly using them, an ass, or more often a camel, is employed; the rope is attached to the saddle, and the animal draws up the bucket by walking a distance equal to the length of the cord. The appearance of these wells, of the drinking sheep, and the busy shepherd, has, in the stillness of those evening hours, something not unpoetic; and I was very much struck by the resemblance between this part of the desert and our Puszta (heaths) in Hungary. {224} In consequence of the strictness with which the police regulations were enforced everywhere by the Emir of Bokhara, the routes here are so safe, that not merely small karavans, but even single travellers, traverse the desert unmolested. On the second day we met at one of the wells a karavan coming from Karshi. There was amongst the travellers a young woman who had been treacherously sold by her own husband to an aged Tadjik for thirty Tilla. It was not until she reached the desert that she became fully aware of the cruel trick to which she was victim: the wretched creature, shrieking and weeping and tearing her hair, ran up to me like one distracted, and exclaimed, 'Hadjim (my Hadji), thou that hast read books, tell me where it is written that a Musselman can sell his wife who has borne him children! 'I affirmed it to be a sin, but the Tadjik only laughed at me, for he had, probably, already an understanding with the Kazi Kelan (superior judge) of Karshi, and felt sure of his purchase.