the Russians invaded the territory of
Bokhara proper, and a decisive battle was fought on the 20th of May at
Irdjar on the left bank of the Jaxartes. The Bokharians were defeated;
but after a period of reluctant peace they forced the emir to renew the
war. In 1868 the Russians entered Samarkand (May 14), and the emir was
constrained to submit to the terms of the conqueror, becoming
henceforward only a Russian puppet.

See Khanikov's _Bokhara_, translated by De Bode (1845); Vambery,
_Travels in Central Asia_ (1864), _Sketches of Central Asia_ (1868),
and _History of Bokhara_ (1873); Fedchenko's "Sketch of the Zarafshan
Valley" in _Journ. R. Geogr. Soc._ (1870); Hellwald, _Die Russen in
Central Asien_ (1873); Lipsky, _Upper Bukhara_, in Russian (1902);
Skrine and Ross, _The Heart of Asia_ (1899); Lord Ronaldshay,
_Outskirts of Empire in Asia_ (1904); and Le Strange, _The Lands of
the Eastern Caliphate_ (1905). (P. A. K.; C. El.)

BOKHARA (Bokkara-i-Sherif), capital of the state of Bokhara, on the left
bank of the Zarafshan, and on the irrigation canal of Shahri-rud,
situated in a fertile plain. It is 8 m. from the Bokhara station of the
Transcaspian railway, 162 m. by rail W. of Samarkand, in 39 deg. 47' N.
lat. and 64 deg. 27' E. long. The city is surrounded by a stone wall 28
ft. high and 8 m. long, with semicircular towers and eleven gates of
little value as a defence. The present city was begun in A.D. 830 on the
site of an older city, was destroyed by Jenghiz Khan in 1220, and
rebuilt subsequently. The water-supply is very unhealthy. The city has
no less than 360 mosques. Nearly 10,000 pupils are said to receive their
education in its 140 _madrasas_ or theological colleges; primary schools
are kept at most mosques. Some of these buildings exhibit very fine
architecture. The most notable of the mosques is the Mir-Arab, built in
the 16th century, with its beautiful lecture halls; the chief mosque of
the emir is the Mejid-kalyan, or Kok-humbez, close by which stands a
brick minaret, 203 ft. high, from the top of which state criminals used
to be thrown until 1871. Of the numerous squares the Raghistan is the
principal. It has on one side the citadel, erected on an artificially
made eminence 45 ft. high, surrounded by a wall 1 m. long, and
containing the palace of the emir, the houses of the chief
functionaries, the prison and the water-cisterns. The houses are mostly
one-storeyed, built of unbu