The Monmouth inquirer., 1926-04-29
SIGHTS OF soKHARA
Traveller Calls II Perfect Picture Of
the UnspoIed East.

Traveller Calls II a Perfect Picture Of
the UnspoIIed East.
Bokhara, that strange capital at the
back of the world on which every
road in Asia is said to have con-
7yerged, might well be called the Nee
ca Of Central Asia. It is more than
that, for besides being religious
centre it is also great capital and
centre.
The name Of Bokhara is we'll
known, yet it has been visited by but
few. Fifty years ago 1t was as linz
pregnable as Lhasa, and of the few
travellers who penetrated to within
its walls fewer still every came out
again.
"Bokhara is completely surround
ed by wall, and / had to enter by
one of the eleven gates" writes Prof.
ID. Carruthers in the Wide World
Magazine. eff by chance | had been
benighted should have had to stay
outside or at least leave my caravan
behind and enter by the tiny door be-
side the main gate, through which a
man can literally only just squeeze.
~Once inside the walls the whole
pageant of the East burst on me-
intense light and shade, brilliant
colors, the richness of the great men
and the squalid poverty of the beg
CARS, the cleanliness of the mosques
and the filth of the streets, the ach-
ing glare of the cIoudless sky and the
cool shade of the deep bazaars.
Nowhere in the world, / claim, can
such perfect picture Of the unspoil-
ed, unregenerated East be seen as in
Bokhara 1t is as If chapter of the
Arabian Nights had been put upon a
stage. Here one looks down through
a long vista Of years and sees the
East as it was long before the West
existed.
Let us stand a minute beside the
pool This is the very heart of the
city and Isl situated in square sur
rounded by giant madresas and a
motley crowd of booths and shops.
Here at midday the people of Bokhara
congregate to pray in the mosques
hC0A ny anu SdAO q AaCaA O1A lAC JC4
races that surround the pool. Men
Of every Eastern race assemble here.
1.-THE pool itself is nothing but q
large stone reservoir of filthy water.
Under a brilliant sky and Swallowed
by great trees it makes fitting FORE
ground to the gay costumes of the
men, the dark bazaars, and the mad
resas piled up behind. When l saw
men on the steps of the tank washing
themselves in this water / felt sur
prised, to say the least. But when
further along l noticed men filling
their water skins from the same sup
ply realized that East is really very
far from West.
THE terrible deeds that once made
Bokhara a boyword are now prohibit
ed by the Russian Government. Pris-
oners are not permitted. for instance,
to be dragged through tie streets by
galloping horses. Nor are they thrown
from the top of the high tower called
the Minar Katan. This was the usual
punishment melted out to the eYildoers
in the old days. Watched by thou
sands of spectators. the poor wretches
were flung from that giddy height on
to the hagstones beneath.
"Bokhara has many chambers OF
horrors unwhoIesome for Western
eyes to see and the description OF
which would certainly be- unfit for
publication. Perhaps the most hor-
rible of these is a pit where prisoners
were tortured by vermin, which ware
so numerous and ravenous that in tho
absence of human prey they were fed
on chunks of raw meat"