The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-06-06
BY HoRsLEY BROS. & FIGUERs.

which rendered into English may be
translated farm yard. Do not fail to
note how luxuriantly green the sumach
and dwarf-been plants are. It is not
altogether Natures handiwork, for
those lazy-looking Usbegs, working
with primitive spade, alike regardless
of summer blaze or wintry chill, have
long since led the fertilizing Oxus
through artificial waterways of all di-
mensions to the cherished plants. Per-
haps some slaves may come to view
plowmen, as it may be, the plow with
which they fUrrow the sandy soil being
a mere pole studded with q sort of
teeth herdsmen it too may be, whose
duty it is to drive their masters sheep
nd camels to pasture. Slaves, how
"yer, are luxury only compatible with
the means of rich khivans. The gen
eral run of landowners work spade in
hand winter and summer. month after
month, with little intermission. Only
the old paterfanpilids it is who will be
seen sitting on the pond-bank, shaded
by his wide-spreading elms. Stay per-
haps we may add the farm-yard beadle,
whose time is divided between keeping
order and playing with the children.
In converse with the two old 110tres-
faniti0s it was that acquired my best
store of acquaintance with Usbeg life
and character. Picture to yourself,
gentle reader, a certain man of fifty or
sixty perhaps, wonderfully tranquil IN
motion as in speech, man of high
honor to all seeming, so slow of speech
that he may just vouchsafe one reply
to every three questionings-on who
never speaks at all until you have
spoken; who never falls into a passion,
who never laughs, whose every third
word will convey either some Usbeg
moral or point of native PHILOSOPHY /;
not that he plumes himself upon these
things at all, only using them because
they are supposed to accord with his
age and standing. Figure to yourself
all this, and you have before you a staid
Khivan Usbeg. It is impossible TO con-
vey a notion of the feeling of bizarre
antediIuvianism the converse of such
old fellows as these awakened within
me-men before whose eyes the worlds
progress might have been made mani
fest, yet in whom was to be found, no
one spark, no atom, so to speak, OF Eu-
ropean influence. Then and there the
fact, came home to me that 1 was indeed
in Central Asia, conviction that
neither Japan nor China, neither the
Malayan Archipelago, nor, indeed, any
other part of Asia, is able any longer to
convey.
Occasionally, in the course of conver-
sation, some religious topic may be
handled, but, for the most part, dis
course will take an agricultural turn, or
else be directed to such subjects as the
political state of Toorkomania, or the
last caravan robbery. By your leave,
gentle reader, you must swallow cups
of tea without number, between talk
and talk It is sugarless, and reputed
good for digestion, so one is supposed
to drink lot of it. Hot the beverage
will be served to you, but pray don't
blow-shake it about till cool enough
to drink, such being the etiquette of
| Khiva. Presently will be brought a
cloth containing fruit, fresh in summer,
in winter dried. The Khivans are won
derful Mt fruit-eating between meals.
| You must eat much would you be
polite, and whether it be pegging into
the fruit, or extracting tidbits of pillau,
| heavy consumption on you part will
be rewarded by such looks and gestures
of satisfaction by your host, that you
| cannot fail to be encouraged to do like
wise for the future, To complete our
picture of Khivan rural life we must
| put in the children, old-fashioned look
ing little things, conspicuous for their
large, melon-formed caps. There they
will be clinging to knees, or clambering
upon shoulders, after the fashion OF
| children elsewhere. How the little
! creatures do stare out of their large,
! black eyes at stranger to be sure, and
! if that stranger chances to be a der
| wish, which was just my case, how, after
/ a little time. confidence being estab.
lished, they will begin to play with the
| beads of. ones rosary
And how about the ladies'? If not
there, they will be thereabout, peepinG
at the stranger from behind trees and
other posts of conceaiment. To mark
the curiosity and wonderment Their
looks convey. What q man without
projecting cheek-bones - without al
| mond eyes-one who, being evidently
foreign, has not long, black Persian
beard-what sort of man can he be
How many tales of strange zones an6
outlandish places my presence origin
ated in the wonder smitter minds O.
Khivan ladies At length increasing
courage banishes feminine reserve. On
lady will come from her concealment
and actually address the wondroui
stranger. When he replies in passibly
good Usbeg speech, then her wonde,
attains its climax He is queer man
indeed Mutual confidence being a
length established, the wOmanl1ind
just now so reserved, will unloose thei
tongues with q vengence, asking yoI
questions without end, some of thu
very plainest. Curiosity is an attriF>yt'
of Ewes daughter all the wide WI -lf
over The more primitive TIE race
manners, the more pointed are thes
feminine interrogatories, and, if L ma.
add, the more embarrassing to respon
dent.
In an ancient stronghold of barbarity
in a land of most repulsive cruelty
where the very air is fnll of shrieks o
tortured slaves-where blood oftel
flows in streams-there shall the reade
gaze upon picture where poetry min
giles with the softest traits and pures
characteristics of an ancient patriarcha
life. For man centuries past, Khiv
has been celebrated for its music ant
song, 1IS JO6lIJ duu GIOuOdSlOu1S' II
Bokhara the stork, in Khiva the night
ingale, is the favorite bird This
heard in Turkey, and, it truth, sub
sequently found the plaintive warble
no less markably frequent in Khiv
than its absence had been noteworth.
in Bokhara AS 1 would take morn
ing walk in the month of June, unde
the garden-walls of the Usbeg capital
, out of almost each one of the thickly
leaved trees would grsh the melodious
plaintive song of some gay-feathere
UirtuOsO, giving me morning concer
gratis. "The nightingale has been th
music-master through long years to tn
entire Khivan population y thus run
the adage, which, whether true or not
it is still an historical fact that, fo
centuries past, the best singers, violi
and guitar players, know at Constan
tine, Ispahan, Lahore, and the ancien
Fergans (where they acquired and stil
acquire princely favor and correspond
ing pay were and are Khivans. Jus
as a traveller in Italy may sometime
hear most excellent music in low pot
house, so in Khiva would he be SIM
lurly delighted by song and instrument
) al music under the shade of garden
| walls, or even in the open country. No
; less generally diffused is the taste fo
\ / YanItofiOr ond Tn thaca aRonO7