Amongst the letters of recommendation with which my friends had furnished me to different Khans and Mollahs on my way, one was addressed to a certain Ishan Hasan, who stood in high repute in Karshi. When I visited him he received me in a friendly manner, and advised me, as all cattle, and particularly asses, were cheap, to purchase one of these long-eared coursers, nor did he omit to tell me also to do like all other Hadjis, and employ what little money I had left in procuring knives, needles, thread, glass beads, {226} Bokhariot sacking, but, most of all, cornelians imported from Bedakhshan, and which are also cheap there; for he said that, as we were going amongst tribes of nomads, we should, by means of such merchandise, be able to gain something, and besides maintain ourselves better, for that for a single needle or a few glass beads (Mondjuck), one might often obtain bread and melons to support one a whole day. I saw at once that the good man was right, and proceeded the very same day, in company with the Mollah from Kungrat, to purchase some of the articles specified, so that, whilst one side of my Khurdjin knapsack was filled with my manuscripts, the other was occupied by a stock of cutlery. Thus I became simultaneously antiquary, haberdasher, Hadji, and Mollah, besides filling the accessorial functions of dispenser of blessings, Nefes, amulets, and other wonders. Singular contrast! It is just a year ago that I exercised all those offices, and now I sit in the English metropolis confined within four walls, writing from eight to ten hours a day. There I had to do with nomads picking out from my glass beads those of lightest colour, and from my amulets those having the broadest red edgings; here I have to do with publishers, and stand with embarrassment before a critical and fastidious public, whose various and discordant requisitions are certainly more difficult to satisfy than the fashionable taste of a young Turkoman, or of a young brunette daughter of the Djemshidi! [Karshi, the Ancient Nakhseb; Trade and Manufacture; Kerki] It was quite a surprise for me to see in Karshi a public place of recreation not to be found upon the same scale either in Bokhara or Samarcand, or even in Persia itself. It is a large garden bearing the modest title Kalenterkhane (beggar's house), {227} extending along the bank of the river, and containing several walks and beds of flowers. Here the _beau monde_ of Karshi are in motion from two o'clock in the afternoon until an hour after sunset. In different places the steaming Samovars (giant Russian teakettles) are in requisition, surrounded constantly by circles of customers, two or three deep; the sight of the gay crowd is, for the traveller in Central Asia, really something uncommon. The inhabitants of Karshi are in other respects distinguished by their cheerfulness and light-heartedness; they are, in fact, regarded as the Shirazi of the Khanat of Bokhara.