The Sultan of Constantinople is regarded as Chief of Religion and Khalif, and as it was the practice in the middle ages for the three Khanats of Turkestan to receive, as badges of investiture from the Khalif of Bagdad, a sort of court office, this old system of etiquette has not been abandoned even at the present day; and the princes, on their accession to the throne, are wont still to solicit, through the medium of an extraordinary embassy to Stamboul, these honorary distinctions. The Khan of Khiva assumes his rank as Cupbearer, the Emir of Bokhara as Reis (guardian of religion), and the Khan of Khokand as Constable. These courtly functions have always been in high estimation, and I have been informed that the different functionaries fulfil formally once every year the corresponding duties. But the bond that unites them with Constantinople goes thus far, and no farther. The Sultans cannot exercise any political influence upon the three Khanats. The inhabitants of Central Asia, indeed, are in the habit of associating with the word Roum (as Turkey is here called) all the power and splendour of ancient Rome, {435} with which, in the popular opinion, it is identified; but the princes seem to have seen through this illusion, nor would they be disposed to recognise the paramount grandeur of the Sultan unless the Porte associated its 'Firman of Investiture,' or its 'Licences to Pray,' with the transmission of some hundreds or thousands of piastres. In Khiva and Khokand these Firmans from Constantinople continue to be read with some demonstration of reverence and respect. The former Khanat was represented in Constantinople during a period of ten years, by Shükrullah Bay; the latter, during the reign of Mollah Khan, had only four years ago an ambassador, Mirza Djan, at the court of the Sultan. These envoys were, in accordance with ancient usages, sometimes maintained for long periods of years at the cost of the State, a charge not altogether convenient as far as its budget for foreign affairs was concerned, but nevertheless altogether essential and necessary to the pretension to a spiritual superiority in Asia.