Evening star., 1929-12-08


Sobbed Desperately, frantically the
= savage Oriental music swelled then
broke off suddenly ,gh note, as
Katya. the gypsy dancer. gave a throaty cry,
Hail and disappeared in the wings of the
cabaret stage with silken swish Of her skirts,
her left foot stabbing straight into the air in
IN impudent farewell kick.
= Came thunderous applause. Russians We'd
with Tartars and Turkomans to see who would
make the most noise. could show the greatest
enthusiasm. The Europeans clapped hands and
pounded on the floor with their walking g-sticks
and shouted Bravo! Bravo! Bravissimo" while
the Asiatics yelled gutturaly and ratified
crooked daggers in silver scabbards.
At the other end of the cabaret the Seven
Alabam Chocolate Drops-recently and vely
expensively imported, with Grand Duke Boris
Pavlovtch, the governor general. footing the
bill-blared out hiccoughy jazz. But saxo-
phone and clarinet had chance against the
tumult the insistent demands-"Encore! En-
core! Encore! Encore!" in Russian and Polish
and French and half the languages of Central
Asia hodgepodge of tongues-a hodgepodge
of races For this was Samarkand.
Samarkand during the glittering decadent
cynical years before the World War Before
Central Asia, its murky, sleepy depths stirred by
the wars BolsheviSt aftermath, began to bubble
and ferment ominously finally to boil over into
the making of history-history fully as bloody
as in the forgotten epoch when the Tartars
of the Golden Horde had gaIcped cut of the
yellow brittle stepps, squirting their shaggy
ponies to the loot of shuddering Europe.
EOR CENTURIES Samarkand had been the
capital of the Grand Khans of the Golden
Horde. Here they had reigned in violent and
strange-hued pomp. Here the princes of the
house of Romanoff had made yearly pilgrimage
to bring tribute of red gold, to kiss the upturned
toes OF grease-smeared, rawhide Tartar boots
and swear fealty to the heathen.
But the Golden Horde was no more The
wild riders of the steppa had returned TO the
steppe shepherds, no longer conquerors Prince
Shamyl Ali, last descendant of the Grand
Khans-he was sitting tonight in the front row
OF the cabaret-wore a monocle had his
clothes made by Mr.. Poole of London and
spoke Tartar with Russian and Russian with
a French accent. The Romanoff. by the same
token had become the Ak-Padshsh, the White
Father who lorded it over Central Asia-a land
just before the war; growing steadily more cos
mOpolitan.
Most typical this cabaret, called lie
Grand Bi-Ba-Bo" for no reason anybody had
ever been able to find out. For it was framed
on the left by the squat, gray barrack of a
regiment of Russian grenadiers while On the
right the ancient mosque of Kassm-ibn-
Abbas. High Tartary's patron saint, stabbed at
the sky with seven lance-sharp. mauve-and-
Orchid-tled minarets: and it was homesick
trotter who dreaming of New York and the
Great White Way, had outraged both Christian
barrack and Mcslem mosque by Designing
and incidentally paying for-the large electric
sign above the door
Nightly it stammered through the dusk with
hickering bulbs of crimson and orange and pea
cock green Nightly, in a kind of arrogant
challenge, it spelled out just the one word
"Katya." Nightly, inside Katya danced across
the boards and brought down the house.
Thus. again. this evening. Applause roaring
humping, dcafening. Insistent, camorous,
"Encore!"
His Britannia MajeSty's consular service
He turned to Prince Shamyl ALI last de-
scendant of the Grand Khans of the Golden
Horde. who had returned that morning from
Paris. where he had spent a number of years
attached to the Tsar's embassy
How do you like the little gypsy? Not half
dusty. eh what?"
'She Is lovely" replied the other
He was young not older than 27: handsome
In startling way. only the high cheek-bones
showing his Tartar blood His gold-rimmed
monOcle was doubtless snobbish foppish
Slightly theatrical But most women and a
. good many men, were willing to forgive him
after they had looked into his brown. deep-set
amazingly frank eyes: the eyes of a dreamer
passionate and reckless idealist-perhaps a
fanatic
THE sort of chap" Basil Webb who had
becn his classmate at Eton used to describe
him. who should nave lived in the picturesque
old days when a proper cavalier Surged about
with frilled lace at his throat and rapier at hip,
ready to fight no end of duels and write no
end OF rather corkin' poetry because of wo-
mans smile"