Khokand, or Fergana as the ancients style it, is bounded on the east by Chinese Tartary, on the west by Bokhara and the Jaxartes, on the north by the great horde of Nomads, and on the south by Karateghin and Bedakhshan. Its superficial extent we cannot positively affirm; but it is certainly larger than the territory of either Bokhara or Khiva. It is also better peopled than the latter Khanat. Judging by the number of cities and other circumstances, Khokand, at the present day, may be said to contain more than three millions of inhabitants, consisting of the following races:--(1) Özbegs form that part of the population having fixed habitations; and, as I remarked when I spoke of Khiva, they have a type quite distinct from the Özbegs either of that Khanat or of Bokhara. As the Özbegs have been for hundreds of years the dominant race in Turkestan, and adopted the institutions of Islam earlier than any other nomad people of these parts, the name itself has become invested with a certain prestige of {381} breeding and _bon ton_, so that the Kirghis, Kiptchak, and Kalmuk, from the moment that they settle in cities, generally abandon their several nationalities, and assume the denomination of Özbegs. In Khokand this has been also long the case, and it may be affirmed, without exaggeration, that half of those who so style themselves are to be regarded merely as a mixture of the nomad races just referred to. Judging from his outside appearance, as he presents himself in his clumsy loose clothes, the Özbeg of Khokand seems a very helpless person. We had many opportunities of witnessing his unexampled cowardice, and had it not been for the protection of the nomads, his cities would have long fallen under the dominion of China, Russia, or Bokhara. (2) Next to the Özbegs come the Tadjiks, who, although they may not constitute a more numerous, still form a more compact population here than in the Khanat of Bokhara, and, as is nowhere else the case, people entire villages and towns. Accordingly, the city of Khodjend, the villages Velekendaz and Kisakuz (near Khodjend) are exclusively inhabited by this primitive Persian race, and the important cities of Namengan, [Footnote 132] Endigan, and Mergolan, are said to have belonged to them more than four hundred years ago. [Footnote 132: These three words respectively signify (1)Nemengan (originally Nemek kohn), salt mine; (2) Endekgan, from Endek, small; and (3) Murghinan, hen and bread. These etymologies I learnt from my friends; perhaps they are not to be received as absolutely correct, but their Persian origin is unquestionable.] {382}