As far as their national character is concerned, the Tadjiks of Khokand are not much better than those of the same race in Bokhara. The sole circumstance I find noticeable is that their language, both in its grammatical forms and its vocabulary, is purer than that of the other Tadjiks. This is particularly the case in Khodjend, the inhabitants of which make use of a dialect that has retained many of the forms of expression observable in the writings of the oldest Persian poet Rudeki, by birth a Bokhariot. In the other cities of Khokand, particularly in those on the Chinese frontiers, Tadjiks are rarely met with. (3) Kasaks form the majority in the Khanat. They lead a nomad life in the mountainous districts between the lake of Tchaganak and Tashkend, and pay to their prince the same amount of tribute as they do in Khiva to the Khan. Amongst the Kirghis of Khokand some are in affluent circumstances, possessing in Hazreti Turkestan, or in other places, houses, which, however, they do not themselves inhabit. In other respects, in spite of their superiority in number, the Kirghis have, owing to their want of bravery, little influence in the Khanat. (4) Kirghis--or the Kirghis properly so called, a tribe of the great Kasak horde--live in the southern part of the Khanat between Khokand and Sarik Köl, and from their warlike qualities are always made use of by the different factions to carry out their revolutionary projects. Their tents are said to be fifty thousand in number, consequently they are about as numerous as the Tekke Turkomans. (5) The Kiptchak are, in my opinion, the primitive original Turkish race. Amongst all the branches of this great family, spread from Komul to as far as the Adriatic Sea, the Kiptchaks have remained most faithful in {383} physiognomy and character, language and customs, to their ancestral type. The name, the etymology of which has been clouded with fables by Rashideddin Tabibi, has little interest for the reader. There is said to have been formerly a mighty nation bearing the same designation, and the Kiptchaks of the present day, although counting only from five to six thousand tents, pretend that Deshti Kiptchak, [Footnote 133] as Turkestan is named in the documents of Oriental history, was conquered, and peopled by their ancestors. Notwithstanding their small numbers, the Kiptchaks continue to exercise, even at the present day, the greatest influence upon political affairs in Khokand. They nominate the Khans, and sometimes even dethrone them; and often five hundred of their horsemen have taken possession of a city, without the Khan daring to resist them. I have not been able to detect, in the Turkish that they speak, a single Persian or Arabic word, and their dialect may be regarded as the best point of transition from the Mongolian language to that of the Djagatai. The same remark may be made respecting the type of their physiognomy as of their language; for these stand in a similar