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Burned by the armies of Cyrus in B.C. 329, Samarkand was in part destroyed by Genghis Khan, about 1219. When it had become the capital of Tamerlane, its position, which certainly could not be improved upon, did not prevent its being ravaged by the nomads of the eighteenth century. Such alternations of grandeur and ruin have been the fate of all the important towns of Central Asia.
After the Russian capture of Tashkend in 1865, the Amir Muzeffared-din proclaimed a holy war against the Russians, who invaded his province and captured Samarkand in 1868. By a treaty of 1873, no foreigner may be admitted into Bokhara without a Russian passport. The population is estimated at 2,000,000. The Amir Syed Abdul Ahad succeeded in 1885. The Uzbegs are still the dominant race.
But that only proves that the system introduced by Bábar was the system to which he had been accustomed all his life the system which had alternately lost and won for him Fergháná and Samarkand; which had given him Kábul, and, a few years later, India; the system of the rule of the strongest.
In the caravanserais of Bokhara and Samarkand he is known, and there are shikaris in the Pamirs who still speak of him round their fires. If you were going to visit Petrograd or Rome or Cairo it would be no use asking him for introductions; if he gave them, they would lead you into strange haunts.
We had five hours to stop at Samarkand during the day, and that promised something pleasant and several pages of copy. But there was no time to lose.
For here was India, here was Samarkand, in the light of the late afternoon; and China and the swarming cities upon her silvery rivers sinking through twilight to the night and throwing a spray and tracery of lantern spots upon the dark; here was Russia under the noontide, and so great a battle of artillery raging on the Dunajec as no man had ever seen before; whole lines of trenches dissolved into clouds of dust and heaps of blood-streaked earth; here close to the waiting streets of Constantinople were the hills of Gallipoli, the grave of British Imperialism, streaming to heaven with the dust and smoke of bursting shells and rifle fire and the smoke and flame of burning brushwood.
Bukhara is a celebrated city in Tartary; it was formerly the capital of the province called Mawaralnahr, or Transoxiana, before the Tartar conquerors fixed on Samarkand. It lies to the northward of the river Oxus or Gihun, which divides Tartary from Persia, or as the Persian geographers term it, Iran, from Turan.
It was a little disconcerting, this request to point out those regions where adventure could be found, very much as a visitor from the provinces might ask a New York hotel clerk to tell him where he could see the Bohemian life of which he had read in the Sunday supplements. "There's Russian Central Asia, of course," I suggested tentatively. "Samarkand and Bokhara and Tashkent, you know.
Called Asperah by Forster. From this description of the route, and the implied division of empire, it would appear that Shah-Rokh ruled over a very ample portion of the vast conquests of Timur, having under has command the countries of Iran and Touran; or Persia, Chorassan, Balkh, Kharism, Great Bucharia, and Fergaana; even including Samarkand, the imperial residence of Timur.
The dignity of Timur could not endure the impunity of the Getes: he passed the Sihun, subdued the kingdom of Kashgar, and marched seven times into the heart of their country. His most distant camp was two months' journey to the northeast of Samarkand; and his emirs, who traversed the river Irtysh, engraved in the forests of Siberia a rude memorial of their exploits.
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