Cloth, from its high price, meets with few purchasers, and is seldom found. The before-named articles are transported from Bokhara and Karshi, not only to the remaining parts of Turkestan, but to Maymene and Herat, and even as far as Kandahar and Kabul. The latter two cities are, indeed, nearer to Peshawur and Karatchi; but give, nevertheless, the preference to the Russian merchandise, although far inferior to that of England. The circumstance may seem surprising to the reader, and yet the reasons are simple. Orenburg is just as distant from Bokhara as Karatchi, which, being in the Indian territory of Great Britain, might form the outpost of English commerce. The route thence by Herat to Central Asia would be far more practicable and more convenient than that leading through the desert to Russia. That the English trade is here supplanted by the Russian is, in my humble opinion, to be ascribed to the following causes:--(1) The commercial relations of Russia with Tartary are now several centuries old, and in comparison with it that of England deserves to be denominated new, and it is notorious how tenaciously Orientals cling to old usages and customs. (2) The Russians occupying adjoining frontiers, in matters affecting the taste and requisitions of the Central Asiatics, are more experienced than the English manufacturers of Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow, &c., an evil only to be remedied by European travellers being able to move about more freely in these regions than is the case at the present day, when journeys, not only in Bokhara, {428} but even in Afghanistan, are attended by so much risk and peril. (3) The Herat route, in spite of its possessing every element of convenience, has very much to deter foreign merchants, in consequence of the organised system of what may be styled bandit governments, as may be seen from what was before said upon the subject. [Footnote 156] [Footnote 156: See Chapter XIV.]