scholars
are wanting, but there is no want of schools.

The population of Tachkend does not differ very much from that met with
in other parts of Turkestan. It comprises Sarthes, Usbegs, Tadjiks,
Khirgizes, Nogais, Israelites, a few Afghans and Hindoos and--as may be
naturally supposed--a fair supply of Russians.

It is perhaps at Tachkend that the Jews are gathered in the greatest
numbers. And from the day that the town passed under Russian
administration their situation has considerably improved. From that
epoch dates the complete civil and political liberty they now enjoy.

I have only two hours to spare in visiting the town, and I do my work
in true reporter style. You should have seen me dashing through the
grand bazaar, a mere wooden building, which is crammed with Oriental
stuffs, silk goods, metal ware, specimens of Chinese manufacture,
including some very fine examples of porcelain.

In the streets of old Tachkend a certain number of women are to be met
with. I need hardly say that there are no slaves in this country, much
to the displeasure of the Mussulmans. Nowadays woman is free--even in
her household.

"An old Turkoman," said Major Noltitz, "once told me that a husband's
power is at an end now that he cannot thrash his wife without being
threatened with an appeal to the czar; and that marriage is at an end!"

I do not know if the fair sex is still beaten, but the husbands know
what they may expect if they knock their wives about. Will it be
believed that these peculiar Orientals can see no progress in this
prohibition to beat their wives? Perhaps they remember that the
Terrestrial Paradise is not far off--a beautiful garden between the
Tigris and Euphrates, unless it was between the Amou and the Syr-Daria.
Perhaps they have not forgotten that mother Eve lived in this
preadamite garden, and that if she had been thrashed a little before
her first fault, she would probably not have committed it. But we need
not enlarge on that.

I did not hear, as Madam Ujfalvy-Bourdon did, the band playing the
_Pompiers de Nanterre_ in the governor-general's garden. No! On this
occasion they were playing _Le Pere la Victoire_, and if these are not
national airs they are none the less agreeable to French ears.

We left Tachkend at precisely eleven o'clock in the morning. The
country through which the Grand Transasiatic is now running is not so
monotonous. The plain begins to undulate, for we are approaching the
out