honour me by a visit, I will show thee the regard due to a guest." The fatuous prince at the same time sought to associate his neighbour of Khiva in his abasement, but his overtures were received with outspoken contempt.

Nadir Shah saw in the submission tamely offered by Bokhārā (1740) a means of crushing his inveterate enemy, Ilbars Khan, and he accepted Abu-l-Fayz's invitation.

He marched from Peshawar to Herāt with three hundred elephants, a tent embroidered with pearls, and the famous Peacock Throne, ravished from the Hall of Private Audience at Delhi.2 Thence he travelled to Karki on the Oxus frontier of Bokhārā, where he was met by Rahim Bi with presents and supplies for his locust

1 Page 95, History of Central Asia, by 'Abd ul-Kerim Bokhārī; translated into French by Charles Schefer, Paris, 1876.

2 This throne was "so called from its having the figures of two peacocks standing behind it, their tails being expanded, and the whole so inlaid with sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and other precious stones of appropriate colours as to represent life. The throne itself was six feet long by four broad; it stood on six massive feet, which, with the body, were of solid gold, inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. It was surmounted by a canopy of gold supported by twelve pillars, all richly emblazoned with costly gems, and a fringe of pearls ornamented the borders of the canopy. Between the two peacocks stood the figure of a parrot of the ordinary size, said to have been carved out of a single emerald. On either side of the throne stood an umbrella, one of the Oriental emblems of royalty. They were formed of crimson velvet, richly embroidered and fringed with pearls. The handles were eight feet high, of solid gold and studded with diamonds. The cost of this superb work of art has been variously stated at sums varying from one to six millions sterling. It was planned and executed under the supervision of Austin de Bordeaux, already mentioned as the artist who executed the Mosaic work in the Ám Khás" (Beresford's Delhi, quoted by Mr. H. G. Keene at p. 20 of the third edition of his Handbook for Visitors to Delhi, Calcutta, 1876). Tavernier, who was himself a jeweller, and visited India in 1665, valued this piece of extravagance at two hundred million of livres, £8,000,000; Jonas Hanway estimated it as worth, with nine other thrones, £11,250,000 (Travels, ii. 383). It stood on a white marble plinth, on which are still to be deciphered the world-renowned motto in flowing Persian characters: "If there be a paradise on earth, it is even this, even this, even this."

Agar Fardawsi ba ruyi zamīn ast:

Hamin ast, hamin ast, hamin ast.

horde of followers. Thence he fared to Charjuy, and traversed the mighty river by a bridge which he threw across it in three days. Leaving half his army to protect the priceless baggage, he moved on to Karakul, a fortress one day's march from the capital. Here he was met by Abu-l-Fayz, attended by his nobles, courtiers, and clergy, bringing a present of beautiful Arab horses. The titular sovereign of Bokhārā presented himself as a suppliant, but was given a seat by Nadir Shah. Clad in a robe of state and crowned, the imperious guest carried his complaisance so far as to address his host as "Shah." But further honours were in store for the obsequious Abu-l-Fayz. Nadir deigned to accept his lovely daughter as a wife, bestowing her sister, at the same time, on his nephew. He created Mohammad Rahim Bi, to whose influence he owed his reception, Khān, and gave him command of 6000 chosen troops levied in Turkestān. Having thus brought Bokhārā to heel, Nadir Shāh turned his attention to Khiva. He sent an envoy to Ilbars Khān, demanding his instant submission. The Khivan was a man of ungovernable temper, and his reply was to put to death those who held out to him the olive branch. This breach of the usages of Islam sealed

his fate. He was attacked by Nadir Shāh with an overwhelming force, and closely invested in his fortress of Khanka. After undergoing a cannonade for three days, the proud Ilbars was forced to throw himself upon the mercy of a man whose fearful butchery of the population of Delhi showed that he was insensible of the softer feelings; and against him pleaded the children of the slaughtered envoys, whose blood cried aloud for vengeHe was put to death, and twenty-one of his principal officers shared his fate.1 Having thus rid himself of a perpetual thorn in his side, Nadir Shāh returned to 1'Abd ul-Kerim Bokhāri, p. 106.

ance.

Charjuy, whence he sent back to her father the young princess whom he had lately wedded. He then returned to Khorasan by way of Merv, and fell a victim to a conspiracy among his followers, provoked to extremities by his insane cruelty, A.H. I160 (1747).

The news of his death led the all-powerful Mohammad Rahim Bi to throw off the semblance of loyalty to his effete master.1 He entered Bokhārā with a strong force, seized the person of the wretched Abu-l-Fayz, confiscated his treasure, and finally put him to death. With him virtually ended the dynasty of the Astrakhanides, which had exhibited many virtues, neutralised, however, by an absence of will-power and a bias towards the mystic side of their religion. Their age was one of profound decadence. Its architectural remains, which reflect the spirit of an era much more closely than is generally supposed, are insignificant. They are, indeed, limited to the great college known as Shir Dar, which was built at Samarkand in 1610, and a few other public edifices which do not shine by contrast with those dating from Timur's happier days. But Bokhārā was destined to wallow in a yet deeper abasement under the uncouth Uzbegs, who supplanted the cultured sovereigns of the Astrakhan line.

1 Vambéry gives the date of this coup d'état as 1737 (p. 343); but 'Abd ulKerim Bokhāri makes it follow the assassination of Nadir Shah, the epoch of which is not open to question (p. 110). The dates of events of the eighteenth century in Bokhārā are strangely uncertain, contemporary chroniclers rarely deigning to aid posterity by recording them.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE HOUSE OF MANGIT

THE family thus raised to royal rank by the ambition of Rahim Bi1 belonged to the great Uzbeg tribe of Mangit, which had been brought from the north-east of Mongolia by Chingiz, and had settled on the lower reaches of the Oxus and around Karshī, a Bokhāran citadel 140 miles south-east of the capital. Their warlike spirit had placed them at the head of the Uzbeg clans; and while the Astrakhanide sovereigns retained any real power, the loyalty of the Mangits was as conspicuous as their courage. We have seen how the imbecility of the degenerate Abu-l-Fayz tempted his headstrong minister, Rahim Bi, to throw off the mask of allegiance. The latter sealed his disloyalty by assassinating the murdered Khan's young heir, 'Abd ul-Mu'min, who had married his daughter. By an irony of fate Rahim Bi was destined, in his old age, to sink to the condition of a roi fainéant. His vezir, a Persian slave named Dawlat Bi, usurped all the functions of royalty,

1 "Bi" is an Uzbeg word meaning "judge." It is not spelt "bai," nor does it mean "superior grey-beard," as M. Vambéry supposes (History of Bokhara, P. 347).

2 There are many versions of the death of 'Abd ul-Mu'min. The most probable is that related by 'Abd ul-Kerim of Bokhārā, at p. 115, which is to the effect that Rahim Bi had the young prince taken by his own followers on a pleasure-party, and then pushed into a well while he was dreamily peering into its depths.

On his death

and misgoverned Bokhārā in his name. bed, having no male heirs, he designated his uncle Dāniyāl Bi as his successor the choice having been probably dictated by his vezir, who was acquainted with Dāniyāl's weak and overscrupulous character, and fondly hoped to retain the mastery which he had won over the degenerate Rahim Bi. Daniyal was, at his nephew's death, governor of the town of Kerminé. His modest disposition forbade him to assume the purple. He contented himself with the title of Atālik,1 and placed Abū-l-Ghāzi Khān, the last scion of the Astrakhanides, on the throne.2 But his son, the famous Ma'sum, who afterwards assumed the name of Shah Murad, was not of a nature to brook an inferior position. Under a mask of asceticism and insensibility to the promptings of ambition, which imposed on the priesthood and the mob, he cherished deep-seated schemes of conquest. He gained unbounded influence over his doting father, and persuaded him to connive at his assassination of the vezir, Dawlat Bi, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. Then he gathered all the threads of authority in Bokhārā into his own hands, and, when the dotard Dāniyāl Bi died, in 1770,3 none of his brethren ventured to dispute his claims to the successorship. He was at first content to govern without reigning; and Abu-l-Ghāzi, the grandson of Abu-l-Fayz,

This is the highest degree in the Bokharan official hierarchy (see Khanikoff's Bokhara: its Amir and People, p. 239; Meyendorff's Voyage à Bokhara, p. 259).

* Note at p. 120 of Schefer's edition of 'Abd ul-Kerim Chronicles.

3 See note at p. 135, ibid. The editor corrects an obvious lapsus calami, -A.H. 1148 for 1184.

4 With characteristic Pharisaism, 'Abd ul-Kerim tells us that "fear and terror fell upon Ma'sum's brethren, even as they had possessed the brethren of Joseph. He set himself to repress their iniquities, and had their accomplices in crime put to death. He suppressed prostitution, and tolerated no disorders condemned by law. Bokhārā became the image of Paradise!" (p. 125).