DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15173#0275
CHAP. X.
CITY OF BOKHARA.
257
his way among lofty and arched bazars of brick, and
sees each trade in its separate quarter of the city ;
here the chintz sellers, there the shoemakers ; one
arcade filled with silks, another with cloth. Every
where he meets with ponderous and massy buildings,
colleges, mosques, and lofty minarets. Twenty
caravansarais contain the merchants of different
nations, and about one hundred ponds and fountains,
constructed of squared stone, furnish its numerous
population with water. The city is intersected by
canals, shaded by mulberry trees, which bring water
from the river of Samarcand. There is a belief
among the people, which deserves to be mentioned,
that the loftiest minaret, which is about 150 feet
high, rises to the level of that famous capital of
Timour. Bokhara is very indifferently supplied with
water, the river is about six miles distant, and the
canal is only once opened in fifteen days. In sum-
mer the inhabitants are sometimes deprived of good
water for months, and when we were in Bokhara
the canals had been dry for sixty days ; the snow
had not melted in the highlands of Samarcand, and
the scanty supply of the river had been wasted before
reaching Bokhara. The distribution of this necessary
of life becomes, therefore, an object of no mean
importance. After all, the water is bad, and said
to be the cause of Guinea worm, a disease fright-
fully prevalent in Bokhara, which the natives will
tell you originates from the water; and they add,
that these worms are the same that infested the
body of the prophet Job ! Bokhara has a popula-
tion of 150,000 souls : there is scarcely a garden or
VOL. II. s
CITY OF BOKHARA.
257
his way among lofty and arched bazars of brick, and
sees each trade in its separate quarter of the city ;
here the chintz sellers, there the shoemakers ; one
arcade filled with silks, another with cloth. Every
where he meets with ponderous and massy buildings,
colleges, mosques, and lofty minarets. Twenty
caravansarais contain the merchants of different
nations, and about one hundred ponds and fountains,
constructed of squared stone, furnish its numerous
population with water. The city is intersected by
canals, shaded by mulberry trees, which bring water
from the river of Samarcand. There is a belief
among the people, which deserves to be mentioned,
that the loftiest minaret, which is about 150 feet
high, rises to the level of that famous capital of
Timour. Bokhara is very indifferently supplied with
water, the river is about six miles distant, and the
canal is only once opened in fifteen days. In sum-
mer the inhabitants are sometimes deprived of good
water for months, and when we were in Bokhara
the canals had been dry for sixty days ; the snow
had not melted in the highlands of Samarcand, and
the scanty supply of the river had been wasted before
reaching Bokhara. The distribution of this necessary
of life becomes, therefore, an object of no mean
importance. After all, the water is bad, and said
to be the cause of Guinea worm, a disease fright-
fully prevalent in Bokhara, which the natives will
tell you originates from the water; and they add,
that these worms are the same that infested the
body of the prophet Job ! Bokhara has a popula-
tion of 150,000 souls : there is scarcely a garden or
VOL. II. s