_Inhabitants._ The actual frontiers of the Khanat are: on the east, the Khanat of Khokand, and the mountains of Bedakhshan; on the south, the Oxus, with the districts on the further side, Kerki and Chardjuy; on the west and north, the Great Desert. The positive line of demarcation cannot be defined, and it is equally impossible to fix the number of inhabitants. Without going too far, they may, perhaps, be set down at two millions and a half, consisting generally {367} of those having fixed habitations and those leading a nomad life, or, if we take the principle of nationality, of Özbegs, Tadjiks, Kirghis, Arabs, Mervi, Persians, Hindoos, and Jews. _Özbegs_. The Özbegs, part of the thirty-two tribes, are already particularised in our account of Khiva, but they are sensibly distinguishable from the kindred race in Kharezm, both by the conformation of the face and by the character. The Özbeg Bokhariots have dwelt in closer connection with the Tadjiks than the Khivites have done with the Sarts, and have consequently paid the penalty by losing much of their national type, and of their Özbeg straightforwardness and honesty. As the dominant population in the Khanat (for the Emir himself is also an Özbeg of the tribe Manghit), the Özbegs form the nerve of the army, but the superior officers are rarely taken out of their ranks. _Tadjiks._ The Tadjiks, the aboriginal inhabitants of all the cities of Central Asia, are represented still in the greatest number here; hence Bokhara is the only place where the Tadjik can point to his origin with pride, assigning as he does, for frontiers to his primitive fatherland, Khorasan, [Footnote 128] Khoten (in China) to the east, the Caspian to the west, Khodjend to the north, and India to the south. It is a pity that this people, in spite of the high antiquity of their origin, and their {368} grandeur in time gone by, should have attained the very highest stage of vice and profligacy: if they are to be taken as a specimen of antique Asia, the cradle of our race, it must, indeed, have presented in those early ages a sorry appearance. [Footnote 128: Khor means 'sun,' and son 'district;' hence the whole word signifies 'district of the sun.'] _Kirghis._ Kirghis [Footnote 129] or Kasaks, as they style themselves, are not numerous in the Khanat of Bokhara, but we will, nevertheless, record here a few notes which we have made respecting this people, numerically the greatest, and by the peculiarity of its nomad life the most original, in Central Asia. [Footnote 129: Kir means field, gis or gez is the root of the word gizmelt (wander). The word Kirghiz signifies, in Turkish, a man that wanders about the fields, a nomad, and is used to denote all nations leading the pastoral life. It is also employed to designate a tribe; but they are only a subdivision of the Kazaks, to be met with in Khokand in the vicinity of Hazneti in Turkestan.]