BOOKS.
IN 1873, Mr. Schuyler, then American Consul-General at St.. Petersburg, spent about eight months in travelling through Central Asia and the adjacent Russian provinces. The expedi- tion against Khiva was proceeding while he was in Centre/ Asia, and he did not visit Khiva ; but he saw the chief towns. of the countries under Russian government, the accessible parts of Khokand (which has become Russian since the date of his journey), the most important places in the Khanate of Bukhara, and something, too, of Kuldja, a province Chinese de jure, but Russian de facto, through which he passed while on his. return. This book contains a minute record of his experiences in those countries, but it contains much more than that. By them- selves, indeed, his experiences would not have been very valuable ; for, except at Tashkent, the Russian head-quarters in Central: Asia, where, first and last, he made a considerable stay, his opportunities of observation were extremely limited. The authorities, native and Russian, took such care of him, he tells us, that he had hardly a chance of getting into trouble, and not. the slightest chance of seeing anything except what hundreds of Europeans had seen before him. What he did see were the ruins which attest the might of former conquerors, the mosques, the colleges, the bazaars, the motley crowd, the streets, the soldiers ; and occasionally he managed to get frank conversation out of an Uzbek bek or a Russian prefect. With such opportunities, no * Turltiatan: Notes of a Journey in Russian 75trktstas, Naokand, Mahon; and Kuldja. By Eugene Schuyler, 2 yob. London : Sampson Low and Co. doubt a brilliant writer may gather material which can be wrought into graphic pictures ; but Mr. Schuyler's ambition was not confined to the production of graphic pictures, and accordingly, it is to the studies he made before his journey and after it that we owe his most important chapters. On so complete a scale have those studies been conducted, that he has given us a sort of encyclopardia of knowledge about Central Asia—not without some of the defects incident to encyclopardic attempts, but, nevertheless, wonderfully full, and to estimate the whole by the parts of which we are able to judge, also accurate and trustworthy. Condensed knowledge will make its weight felt more or less, but Mr. Schuyler has so managed, chiefly by a judicious mixture of his materials, that law, statistics, history, geography are taken almost with alacrity, and one ends with the feeling that his book ranks with the most interesting, as well as with the most valuable, of the class to which it belongs. The history, dealing cursorily with many races and with many centuries, does sometimes nod ; but what a history it is !—race after race vanishing in its turn, dynasty succeeding dynasty, great empires suddenly built up and still more suddenly broken into fragments, until now, with popu- lous city and fertile field replaced by wilderness, the descendants of the conquerors of Asia seem marked out by destiny for subjects of the Tsar. On the threshold of Asia, Mr. Schuyler had an experience not unillustrative of the vicissitudes which Central Asia has witnessed, and of the change which even now it is under- going. He had for fellow-traveller on a railway journey a descen- dant of Tchingis Khan, still a Mussulman and returning from the pilgrimage to Mecca, but a Russian prince and deep in a French novel.
The interest of the expedition, though not its hardships, began with the journey from Orenburg to Tashkent. Mr. Schuyler had already passed through many settlements of the Cossacks,— who, it seems, are an amiable, docile people, somewhat given to raids on the nomads, but, on the whole, law-abiding, and by no means the ogres of Western tradition. Now, on the steppes between Orenburg and Kazala, he made acquaintance with the Kirghis, and from observation or reading, he has found a good deal to tell us about those curious tribes. He has added little to our knowledge of them, but that was almost unavoidable. What he has to say, however, is interesting enough, though his scraps of information are occasionally tantalising. The , Sirghis are mostly true nomads, not tilling the soil, not using bread—a porridge of some grain like millet being their only vegetable diet—living mainly on the produce of their flocks and herds, and feasting on horse-flesh for a rarity. Though obviously of mixed race, their speech is the purest Tartar,—a warning to philologists against hasty inferences. The kernel of the stock, however, seems to be Turkish, for though among their aristocracy Mongol features are very common, that is with much plausibility ascribed to their ancient prejudice against marrying their own women, and the habit they had of getting wives from a distance, which carried them so far afield as to the confines of China and the Astrakhan steppe. The form of capture, by the way, is still observed in their 'marriage ceremonies, and there are several varieties of it, one of the most striking of which is described by Mr. Schuyler. Many of their tribes and families have names which occur among the sedentary tribes of Uzbeks in Khokand • and Bukhara,—a fact of which the bearing on the question of race is obvious, and which, besides, conveys a suggestion of great • scientific interebt, and which might, could it be followed up, throw much light on the processes by which tribes and communities are aggregated. Between the aristocracy and the common people—. the "white bone" and the "black bone "—there is a great gulf fixed, and the Russians, though their methods have not lacked • ingenuity, have hitherto wholly failed in impairing the respect entertained by the latter for their rulers. Nothing about the
• Kirghis, however, is so curious and interesting as their legal arrangements, which, since they seem to be common to all the Nomads of Central Asia, while coinciding exactly, so far as they have been described, with the system of the ancient Irish—an Aryan race—appear to disclose a normal phase of legal history which as yet has been little noticed. The notion of crime does not exist amongst them, and injuries of every kind are on precisely -the same footing. The Kirghis Bii, like the Irish Brehon, is an arbitrator, not a judge, and is naturally selected for his duties, through the confidence that has grown up among his neighbours -in his judgment and his knowledge of tribal customs. Mr. Schuyler even tells us that a Russian Cossack, who went to fish every summer near an encampment of the Kirghis, became a great judicial authority among his neighbours,—so great, that dis- putes were held over from season to season for his decision. It is through the Ba system, and the appointment of the Velorsts or Elders, that the Russians have sought to undermine the authority of the Kirghis nobles. They have made the Bii elective—taking care to do their utmost to influence the election& ; and they have, moreover, instituted a system of appeal from their decisions. Mr. Schuyler says that the notion of an elective arbi- trator is absurd, and that appeal from an arbitrator is also absurd. An elective arbitrator, however, is simply a sort of judge ; and, as to appeal, whatever may have been the case among the Kirghis, the Irish Code did provide a sort of rough appeal against the decision of a Brehon. It was a suit against the Brehon, proceeding on the injury done by his wrong decision, and was taken to any Brehon whom those concerned might agree upon. The introduction of election does not seem as yet to have done the Kirghis nobles any harm. Its first effect, indeed, was to produce a sort of rebellion, which made travelling in the steppes until quite lately somewhat unsafe. Now it is safe enough. Mr. Schuyler found nothing to complain of in the Kirghis, except that when they served the post, they served it badly ; on the contrary, he found them invariably friendly, and willing to be helpful to him in the difficulties of his journey.
The Russians have failed in Making the Syr-Darya navigable between Kazala and Petrovsk, and the trade with Central .Asia still goes over the desert and the steppes. Between Kazala and Tashkent lies Turkistan, the Holy; and there Mr. Schuyler gazed with admiration on the Mosque of Hazret, of vast extent, "still grand in its decay, evidently once wondrously beautiful," and the holiest mosque in all Central Asia. Like many of the most famous buildings of this region, it was built for Timur, by a Persian architect. The conquerors of Central Asia seem always to have drawn on Persia for their architects ; and this leads us to say (not that we take the state of archi- tecture, or of any other art, for a test of civilisation) that, while Central Asia undoubtedly had at one time a far greater population than it has now, and included a far greater area of cultivated land, there is not the slightest indication that since the fall of the Grreco-Bactrian kingdom its civilisation has been better or higher than it is at present. The type has always been the same, never changing under the higher influences with which conquest brought the tribes into contact Turkistan is now a Russian town, and that has greatly lessened the throng of pilgrims to its mosque. The building has suffered "from earth- quakes and despoilers," and it sustained damage, too, in the bom- bardment which preceded the capture of the city by General Tchernaieff. Besides it there is little in the place to notice, but Mr. Schuyler found its bazaar interesting, as being the first genuine Oriental bazaar that had come in his way.
The Russian town of Tashkent reminded Mr. Schuyler of the new cities of Western America, but its growth has not proceeded at the American rate, and there are other points of difference. Founded in 1866, it has 3,000 inhabitants, not counting soldiers, of whom there are about 6,000. There are Government buildings, there is a church, and a cathedral is being built, but there is nothing that can properly be called an hotel. Though there is a journal, news of every kind is carefully excluded from it, and in 1873, the portion of it specially devoted to the instruction of the natives contained nothing but translations from the Arabian Nights. The Governor-General's palace is the great architectural feature
• of the place, and the only building in it which has been got up
regardless of expense. General Kaufmann was absent on the Khiva expedition while Mr. Schuyler was at Tashkent, and he
missed the sight of the little Court in which the Half-king (so
the natives call him) emulates the state of Eastern monarchs. He was told, however, that at the Governor-General's parties the etiquette is stricter than it is at the Winter Palace. The chief Russian officials had gone to Khiva with General Kaufmann, and what society remained in the town seems not to have been very attractive. What struck Mr. Schuyler most was the almost universal indifference shown about everything connected with Central Asia. To many, Tashkent was simply a place of exile; to others, who had come to make their fortunes, it had been bitterly disappointing; nearly all thought it impossible to have any wish about it except to get out of it. The circumstances were favourable for a study of the native town, and to this Mr. Schuyler industriously applied himself. He made some curious acquaintances, and heard many strange histories, exemplifying in their ups and downs the uncertainties of Eastern political life, and the fluctuations incident to the career of the adventurous wanderer after fortune. Tashkent was as a city of refuge to many • who had found the native States too hot for them, and it was among these he found the most interesting of his associates. But he mixed with respectable citizens, too—with merchants, kazis, andlahs—was admitted to their houses, saw their household ways, and joined in their amusements. When he first asked what were the amusements of Central Asia, he was told there were no amusements, except saying one's prayers ; but this proved to be a hasty generalisation. He found the people, generally speaking, not too much addicted to saying their prayers, while they were fond of music, passionately fond of dancing as a spectacle, and apt to celebrate every suitable occasion—a circumcision, a marriage, a death—by a festival to which the dance should not be wanting, nor the stimulus of fermented liquors (privately consumed) wholly unknown. In the country the chase is practised ; and horse-racing and wrestling for the kid—a game not unlike polo—are the favourite sports of the nomads. Mr. Schuyler describes for us, one by one, the great events of a Mahommedan life, from the cradle to the grave—certainly from the circumcision to the laying-out—but here we think he must have brought his book-knowledge to the aid of his observations. He gives us, too, a good deal of Mahom- medan law, which is not without its interest, and is certainly relevant to his subject, while most of us are in a state of dense ignorance about it. It may be doubted, for example, whether many, even among professed 'anthropologists, know that by Idahonnizedan law, as among the ancient Irish, the tie of milk —i.e., connections arising through a foster-mother—is, as re- gards marriage and most other effects, regarded exactly like the tie of blood. As to marriage, it seems that misalliances are as badly looked upon in Central Asia as in Europe ; it is de rigueur, at least, that tlie first wife should be socially on a par with her husband. The process of choosing a wife is described by Mr. Schuyler, as also the marriage ceremony (at which the pair who are to be made happy are not present), after which the bridegroom is often hard put to it to find his bride, whom, pro- bably never having seen her, he has to discover and carry off from among a bevy of her companions. The Russians found the judicial arrangements of their new subjects not very materially in advance of those of the Kirghiz, and here, too, they have been meddling, unwisely and with bad results. The kazi or judge differed from the bll in that he was appointed by the Khan after his fitness for the judicial function had been tested by severe examinations ; but his appointment made, he was left to do such business as came to him. Now he is elected, and Las a district assigned to him, but the examinations, if we gather rightly, are discontinued, while the election is a sham, there being always a Russian nominee. The result is said to be that corrupt practices have sprung up among the judges, who, at any rate, are not trusted as they were under native rule. It is not easy to understand the Russian preference for the blind of elec- tion, seeing that election was absolutely unknown in Central Asia, and that that might have been done directly without remark which, done covertly, is felt as a grievance.
The body of Mahommedan law, contained in the Koran and in the Shariat—a collection of commentaries upon the Koran—has, in Mr. Schuyler's opinion, up to the present time "answered well enough the needs of Mussulman communities," while it might by the skill of lawyers be greatly developed. There may be doubt as to the latter point, unless we assume a weakening of the reli- gious sanction, upon which any extent of development might follow. As to the former, it is to be said that Mahommed's legis- lation has powerfully tended to limit the needs it satisfies, and this means very much more than is conveyed in Mr. Schuyler's statement that, with it, "the spirit of speculation and credit is less rife" than it is now in Christian countries. Mahommed's legis- lation consists of mere jottings embodying the rude customs of Arabs, and it has made these, except so far as casuistry has been able to modify or evade them—and with such materials its task has been very difficult--a law binding for all time upon Mahom- rnedans. This is what Mr. Schuyler leaves out of sight in a com- parison which he makes between the Bible and the Koran, in order to show that, taken by the letter, they are about equally adverse to the advance of men in civilisation. The New Testament lays down no legal system, and
it was of the very essence of the Christian teaching that it should not do so. Christian communities have been free to mould their laws to their needs, while Mw3sulmans have had their lives cramped by rules supplied by the practices of semi- nomadic tribes, but impressed with the authority of a divine in- spiration. Mr. Schuyler suggests an inquiry of great interest when he says that "the present state of Mussulman countries seems hardly worse than that of Europe in the dark ages preceding the Reformation, if we take into account the difference of races and national character." But he is disappointingly vague here.
He has, as we have said, only suggested an inquiry when he seems to have thought he was making a contribution to our knowledge.
Mr. Schuyler visited Samarkand, now a Russian city, and de- scribes its ruins, of which the most remarkable are associated with the name of Thnur. He made a journey into Khokand, and saw everything in the capital, but all his diplomacy failed to gain him an interview with the Khan. He was more fortunate in Bukhara with the Amir, but he did not get much conversation out of that sovereign, and though he got some promises, the officials declined to fulfil them. The Amir, notwithstanding that the few words he gave were fair ones, seems to have been somewhat an- noyed with Mr. Schuyler, for he wrote to the Russian authorities to complain of the way in which that gentleman squeezed his hand. Some slight means of judging between the conditions of the people under native and under Russian rule Mr. Schuyler did get —the only result of his journey which can be thought valuable— but of that we can more conveniently speak hereafter.
The history of Kuldja, the Chinese province which Mr. Schuyler visited on his return from Central Asia, has probably been the history of not a few of the districts in which the remains of ruined cities, surrounded by forest or wilderness, per- plex the traveller with doubts as to the stability of civilisation. An agglomeration of hostile races had been long held in order, because they hated the power above them less than they hated each other. Trade and agriculture flourished; large cities sprang up. But there came a time when the races, hostile to each other as they were, hated the governing power more than they hated each other, and they united against it and destroyed it. That done, there was nothing to restrain their hatred of each other, and wars began which were threatening the complete destruction of society, when the Russians stepped in and put an end to them. Mr. Schuyler came upon a city which had contained 75,000 inhabitants, every soul of whom had perished. There is some- thing in prestige, and a handful of Russians easily keep the peace in Kuldja, and the shattered industries are being re-established. The Russians say the province is to be handed back to China as soon as the Chinese provide a force to keep it in order, and a Chinese army is believed to have been for some years past on the march for it, stopping every season to sow grain and reap a harvest. Mr. Schuyler thinks the Russians ought to keep it, and certainly their fitness to govern it constitutes a title which, it is to be feared, the Chinese cannot present. If the Russians do keep it, it will be one of their few Asiatic possessions about the value of which there can be no dispute.
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