Jules Verne (13 page)

He is a man of middle height, lithe in his movements, and with a
gliding kind of walk. He could roll himself up like a cat and find
quite room enough in his case. He wears an old vest, his trousers are
held up by a belt, and his cap is a fur one—all of dark color.

I am at ease regarding his intentions. He returns towards the van,
mounts the platform, and shuts the door gently behind him. As soon as
the train is on the move I will knock at the panel, and this time—

More of the unexpected. Instead of waiting at Tchardjoui one-quarter of
an hour we have to wait three. A slight injury to one of the brakes of
the engine has had to be repaired, and, notwithstanding the German
baron's remonstrances, we do not leave the station before half-past
three, as the day is beginning to dawn.

It follows from this that if I cannot visit the van I shall at least
see the Amou-Daria.

The Amou-Daria is the Oxus of the Ancients, the rival of the Indus and
the Ganges. It used to be a tributary of the Caspian, as shown on the
maps, but now it flows into the Sea of Aral. Fed by the snows and rains
of the Pamir plateau, its sluggish waters flow between low clay cliffs
and banks of sand. It is the River-Sea in the Turkoman tongue, and it
is about two thousand five hundred kilometres long.

The train crosses it by a bridge a league long, the line being a
hundred feet and more above its surface at low water, and the roadway
trembles on the thousand piles which support it, grouped in fives
between each of the spans, which are thirty feet wide.

In ten months, at a cost of thirty-five thousand roubles, General
Annenkof built this bridge, the most important one on the Grand
Transasiatic.

The river is of a dull-yellow color. A few islands emerge from the
current here and there, as far as one can see.

Popof pointed out the stations for the guards on the parapet of the
bridge.

"What are they for?" I asked.

"For the accommodation of a special staff, whose duty it is to give the
alarm in case of fire, and who are provided with fire-extinguishers."

This is a wise precaution. Not only have sparks from the engines set it
on fire in several places, but there are other disasters possible. A
large number of boats, for the most part laden with petroleum, pass up
and down the Amou-Daria, and it frequently happens that these become
fire-ships. A constant watch is thus only too well justified, for if
the bridge were destroyed, its reconstruction would take a year, during
which the transport of passengers from one bank to the other would not
be without its difficulties.

At last the train is going slowly across the bridge. It is broad
daylight. The desert begins again at the second station, that of
Karakoul. Beyond can be seen the windings of an affluent of the
Amou-Daria, the Zarafchane, "the river that rolls with gold," the
course of which extends up to the valley of the Sogd, in that fertile
oasis on which stands the city of Samarkand.

At five o'clock in the morning the train stops at the capital of the
Khanate of Bokhara, eleven hundred and seven versts from Uzun Ada.

The Khanates of Bokhara and Samarkand used to form Sogdiana, a Persian
satrapy inhabited by the Tadjiks and afterwards by the Usbegs, who
invaded the country at the close of the fifteenth century. But another
invasion, much more modern, is to be feared, that of the sands, now
that the saksaouls intended to bring the sandhills to a standstill,
have almost completely disappeared.

Bokhara, the capital of the Khanate, is the Rome of Islam, the Noble
City, the City of Temples, the revered centre of the Mahometan
religion. It was the town with the seven gates, which an immense wall
surrounded in the days of its splendor, and its trade with China has
always been considerable. Today it contains eighty thousand inhabitants.

I was told this by Major Noltitz, who advised me to visit the town in
which he had lived several times. He could not accompany me, having
several visits to pay. We were to start again at eleven o'clock in the
morning. Five hours only to wait and the town some distance from the
railway station! If the one were not connected with the other by a
Decauville—a French name that sounds well in Sogdiana—time would fail
for having even a slight glimpse of Bokhara.

It is agreed that the major will accompany me on the Decauville; and
when we reach our destination he will leave me to attend to his private
affairs. I cannot reckon on him. Is it possible that I shall have to do
without the company of any of my numbers?

Let us recapitulate. My Lord Faruskiar? Surely he will not have to
worry himself about the mandarin Yen Lou, shut up in this traveling
catafalque! Fulk Ephrinell and Miss Horatia Bluett? Useless to think of
them when we are talking about palaces, minarets, mosques and other
archaeological inutilities. The actor and the actress? Impossible, for
Madame Caterna is tired, and Monsieur Caterna will consider it his duty
to stay with her. The two Celestials? They have already left the
railway station. Ah! Sir Francis Trevellyan. Why not? I am not a
Russian, and it is the Russians he cannot stand. I am not the man who
conquered Central Asia. I will try and open this closely shut gentleman.

I approach him; I bow; I am about to speak. He gives me a slight
inclination and turns on his heel and walks off! The animal!

But the Decauville gives its last whistle. The major and I occupy one
of the open carriages. Half an hour afterwards we are through the
Dervaze gate, the major leaves me, and here am I, wandering through the
streets of Bokhara.

If I told the readers of the
Twentieth Century
that I visited the
hundred schools of the town, its three hundred mosques—almost as many
mosques as there are churches in Rome, they would not believe me, in
spite of the confidence that reporters invariably receive. And so I
will confine myself to the strict truth.

As I passed along the dusty roads of the city, I entered at a venture
any of the buildings I found open. Here it was a bazaar where they sold
cotton materials of alternate colors called "al adjas," handkerchiefs
as fine as spider webs, leather marvelously worked, silks the rustle of
which is called "tchakhtchukh," in Bokhariot, a name that Meilhac and
Halevy did wisely in not adopting for their celebrated heroine. There
it was a shop where you could buy sixteen sorts of tea, eleven of which
are green, that being the only kind used in the interior of China and
Central Asia, and among these the most sought after, the "louka," one
leaf of which will perfume a whole teapot.

Farther on I emerged on the quay of the Divanbeghi, reservoirs,
bordering one side of a square planted with elms. Not far off is the
Arche, which is the fortified palace of the emir and has a modern clock
over the door. Arminius Vambery thought the palace had a gloomy look,
and so do I, although the bronze cannon which defend the entrance
appear more artistic than destructive. Do not forget that the Bokhariot
soldiers, who perambulate the streets in white breeches, black tunics,
astrakan caps, and enormous boots, are commanded by Russian officers
freely decorated with golden embroidery.

Near the palace to the right is the largest mosque of the town, the
mosque of Mesjidi Kelan, which was built by Abdallah Khan Sheibani. It
is a world of cupolas, clock towers, and minarets, which the storks
appear to make their home, and there are thousands of these birds in
the town.

Rambling on at a venture I reach the shores of the Zarafchane on the
northeast of the town. Its fresh limpid waters fill its bed once or
twice a fortnight. Excellent this for health! When the waters appear
men, women, children, dogs, bipeds, quadrupeds, bathe together in
tumultuous promiscuousness, of which I can give no idea, nor recommend
as an example.

Going northwest towards the centre of the city, I came across groups of
dervishes with pointed hats, a big stick in their hands, their hair
straggling in the breeze, stopping occasionally to take their part in a
dance which would not have disgraced the fanatics of the Elysée
Montmartre during a chant, literally vociferated, and accentuated by
the most characteristic steps.

Let us not forget that I went through the book market. There are no
less than twenty-six shops where printed books and manuscripts are
sold, not by weight like tea or by the box like vegetables, but in the
ordinary way. As to the numerous "medresses," the colleges which have
given Bokhara its renown as a university—I must confess that I did not
visit one. Weary and worn I sat down under the elms of the Divanbeghi
quay. There, enormous samovars are continually on the boil, and for a
"tenghe," or six pence three farthings, I refreshed myself with
"shivin," a tea of superior quality which only in the slightest degree
resembles that we consume in Europe, which has already been used, so
they say, to clean the carpets in the Celestial Empire.

That is the only remembrance I retain of the Rome of Turkestan.
Besides, as I was not able to stay a month there, it was as well to
stay there only a few hours.

At half-past ten, accompanied by Major Noltitz, whom I found at the
terminus of the Decauville, I alighted at the railway station, the
warehouses of which are crowded with bales of Bokhariot cotton, and
packs of Mervian wool.

I see at a glance that all my numbers are on the platform, including my
German baron. In the rear of the train the Persians are keeping
faithful guard round the mandarin Yen Lou. It seems that three of our
traveling companions are observing them with persistent curiosity;
these are the suspicious-looking Mongols we picked up at Douchak. As I
pass near them I fancy that Faruskiar makes a signal to them, which I
do not understand. Does he know them? Anyhow, this circumstance rather
puzzles me.

The train is no sooner off than the passengers go to the dining car.
The places next to mine and the major's, which had been occupied since
the start, are now vacant, and the young Chinaman, followed by Dr.
Tio-King, take advantage of it to come near us. Pan Chao knows I am on
the staff of the
Twentieth Century
, and he is apparently as desirous
of talking to me as I am of talking to him.

I am not mistaken. He is a true Parisian of the boulevard, in the
clothes of a Celestial. He has spent three years in the world where
people amuse themselves, and also in the world where they learn. The
only son of a rich merchant in Pekin, he has traveled under the wing of
this Tio-King, a doctor of some sort, who is really the most stupid of
baboons, and of whom his pupil makes a good deal of fun.

Dr. Tio-King, since he discovered Cornaro's little book on the quays of
the Seine, has been seeking to make his existence conform to the "art
of living long in perfect health." This credulous Chinaman of the
Chinese had become thoroughly absorbed in the study of the precepts so
magisterially laid down by the noble Venetian. And Pan Chao is always
chaffing him thereupon, though the good man takes no notice.

We were not long before we had a few specimens of his monomania, for
the doctor, like his pupil, spoke very good French.

"Before we begin," said Pan Chao, "tell me, doctor, how many
fundamental rules there are for finding the correct amounts of food and
drink?"

"Seven, my young friend," replied Tio-King with the greatest
seriousness. "The first is to take only just so much nourishment as to
enable you to perform the purely spiritual functions."

"And the second?"

"The second is to take only such an amount of nourishment as will not
cause you to feel any dullness, or heaviness, or bodily lassitude. The
third—"

"Ah! We will wait there, to-day, if you don't mind, doctor," replied
Pan Chao. "Here is a certain maintuy, which seems rather good, and—"

"Take care, my dear pupil! That is a sort of pudding made of hashed
meat mixed with fat and spices. I fear it may be heavy—"

"Then, doctor, I would advise you not to eat it. For my part, I will
follow these gentlemen."

And Pan Chao did—and rightly so, for the maintuy was delicious—while
Doctor Tio-King contented himself with the lightest dish on the bill of
fare. It appeared from what Major Noltitz said that these maintuys
fried in fat are even more savory. And why should they not be,
considering that they take the name of "zenbusis," which signifies
"women's kisses?"

When Caterna heard this flattering phrase, he expressed his regret that
zenbusis did not figure on the breakfast table. To which his wife
replied by so tender a look that I ventured to say to him:

"You can find zenbusis elsewhere than in Central Asia, it seems to me."

"Yes," he replied, "they are to be met with wherever there are lovable
women to make them."

And Pan Chao added, with a laugh:

"And it is again at Paris that they make them the best."

He spoke like a man of experience, did my young Celestial.

I looked at Pan Chao; I admired him.

How he eats! What an appetite! Not of much use to him are the
observations of the doctor on the immoderate consumption of his radical
humidity.

The breakfast continued pleasantly. Conversation turned on the work of
the Russians in Asia. Pan Chao seemed to me well posted up in their
progress. Not only have they made the Transcaspian, but the
Transsiberian, surveyed in 1888, is being made, and is already
considerably advanced. For the first route through Iscim, Omsk, Tomsk,
Krasnojarsk, Nijni-Ufimsk, and Irkutsk, a second route has been
substituted more to the south, passing by Orenburg, Akmolinsk,
Minoussinsk, Abatoni and Vladivostock. When these six thousand
kilometres of rails are laid, Petersburg will be within six days of the
Japan Sea. And this Transsiberian, which will exceed in length the
Transcontinental of the United States, will cost no more than seven
hundred and fifty millions.