For a period of eight days after this butchery Khiva remained without a sovereign. The crown was tendered to the formerly capable Seid Mahmoud Töre; but his passionate fondness for the indulgence of the intoxicating opium was an obstacle, and he abdicated his rights in favour of his younger brother, 9. _Seid Mehemmed Khan_ (1856--still reigning). The incapacity of this prince is well known, and the reader has seen many instances of it. During this reign Khiva has been much devastated by the civil war with the Yomuts, and colonies founded by the previous Khans have been ruined and unpeopled. Whilst Yomuts and Özbegs were thus destroying one {361} another, and hurrying off mutually their women and children to slavery, the Djemshidi making their way in, according to the proverb, 'Inter duos litigantes tertius est gaudens,' and assailing the unarmed population, plundered the whole of Khiva, from Kitsdj baj to Fitnek, and richly laden with spoil, and accompanied by 2,000 Persian slaves, who had freed themselves in the confusion, returned to the banks of the Murgab. Poverty, cholera, pestilence, and depopulation led necessarily to a peace; then a pretender to the throne, supported by Russian influence, named Mehemmed Penah, unfurled the banner of revolution, and despatched an embassy by Manghishlak to Astrakhan to implore the protection of the Russian Padishah. The intrigue took wind, and the envoys were put to death on their way. Later, however, when the Russian Imperials (gold pieces) had been expended, Mehemmed Penah was murdered by his own partisans, and the ringleaders were formed into parcels (that is to say, they had their hands bound to their body with wetted leather), and were so forwarded to Khiva, where a cruel end awaited them. {362} CHAPTER XVIII. THE CITY OF BOKHARA. CITY OF BOKHARA, ITS GATES, QUARTERS, MOSQUES, COLLEGES ONE FOUNDED BY CZARINA CATHERINE FOUNDED AS SEMINARIES NOT OF LEARNING BUT FANATICISM BAZAARS POLICE SYSTEM SEVERER THAN ELSEWHERE IN ASIA THE KHANAT OF BOKHARA INHABITANTS: ÖZBEGS, TADJIKS, KIRGHIS, ARABS, MERVI, PERSIANS, HINDOOS, JEWS GOVERNMENT DIFFERENT OFFICIALS POLITICAL DIVISIONS ARMY SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OF BOKHARA. _. . . regnata Cyro Bactra . . . Tanaisque discors._ Horace, _Ode_ iii. 29, 27-8. ------ The circumference of Bokhara, represented to me as a day's journey, I found actually not more than four miles. The environs, though tolerably well cultivated, are in this respect far inferior to the country around Khiva. Bokhara has eleven gates, [Footnote 125] and is divided into two principal parts, Deruni Shehr (inner city), and Beruni Shehr (outer city); and into several quarters, the chief of which are Mahallei Djuybar, Khiaban, Mïrekan, Malkushan, Sabungiran. Although we have given {363} the reader, in a preceding chapter, some idea of the great buildings and public places, we will here condense in a short account our particular observations.