Why a felt tent beats a house
Editorial contextLodged in a Turkmen camp of about 300 black tents, Abbott was won over by the felt tent. He explains that the felt can be lifted in summer, a central fire warms it in winter with the smoke escaping through a roof opening, and the whole home can be moved to a better spot.
These Toorcumun tents are the most comfortable of dwellings … by removing a portion of the felt covering, this tent is open to the air in summer ; and in winter a fire lighted in the centre makes it the warmest of retreats, all the smoke rising through the skylight in the roof.
About Yomut Turkmens (called 'decidedly Tartar' by Abbott)
Khiva's manor houses of rammed clay
Editorial contextRiding into the Khiva oasis, Abbott describes the country houses of the gentry: tall clay-walled compounds with towers at the corners, locally called 'castles'. The walls were of rammed clay, generally fluted, an effect he thought perhaps came from the hurdles of straight branches that held the clay while it was rammed.
The houses have all one character, being an enclosure of very lofty clay walls, flanked by ornamental towers at the angles, which give them the appearance of castles. This name (Gullah) they bear at Khiva. … The walls, built with great regularity of rammed clay, are generally fluted, an effect given them perhaps by the hurdles of straight branches, between which the clay is supported whilst soft
About Uzbek gentry of Khiva
The Khan holds court in a felt tent
Editorial contextAt his first audience Abbott found the ruler of Khiva not in a hall but in a plain black felt tent pitched inside his court, with a wood fire burning in the middle. Even a settled king with a brick citadel kept the nomad's tent as his reception room.
He was seated upon a carpet, and supported by cushions. Before him a wood fire blazed up, sending its smoke and sparks through the sky-light of the tent. … The black tent of felt which he occupied, was of the usual dimensions, i. e. about 24 feet in diameter, and quite unadorned, its sole furniture being the carpet and cushions, on which he reclined.
About Allah Quli Khan of Khiva and his Uzbek court
A brick tower said to be Genghis Khan's
Editorial contextAmong the ruins of Old Urgench Abbott saw a tall, tapering brick column that he says was put up by Genghis Khan, decorated only with bands of patterned brick and leaning from the wind. Nearby he describes a saint's tomb with a conical roof of coloured tiles on a 24-sided base, and a tiled tomb said to have been built by a lady of Genghis Khan's family for her lover.
On the north of the site, (I speak at hazard,) stands a brick column, erected by Chenghis Khaun. It is the frustrum of an extremely taper cone, surmounted by a cylinder, and is very sufficiently ugly. It has no base, and its sole ornaments have been zones of bricks, of alternating patterns.
About Turkmens of the Khorezm oasis
Keep in mind
The attribution to Genghis Khan is what Abbott was told or assumed; the tall minaret standing at Konye-Urgench today is usually dated to the 14th century.
A Kazakh feast: mutton, broth and thumbs for napkins
Editorial contextAt a Kazakh host's tent, the guests ate boiled mutton with no bread or vegetables, the men first and the women afterwards. Abbott is squeamish and scornful, but he records exactly how the meal was served and cleaned up.
It consisted of boiled mutton, soused in its own soup. Bread and vegetables are things quite unknown in these parts. Kuzzauks are exclusively carnivorous. … The bowls were handed to the women, who scraped them clean with their thumbs … The thumb and tongue are the only napkins in Khaurism … The Tartars are right not to eat with their women.
About Kazakhs (Kuzzauks), called Tartars by Abbott
Keep in mind
Abbott's sneering tone is his own; the facts of the meal are what he saw.
Slave caravans on the road to Khiva
Editorial contextAbbott travelled alongside caravans that had carried grain south and were returning to Khiva with captives, many from Herat. He describes the women riding with their captors and the men walking the whole way, chained by the neck at night.
They had brought grain from Khiva, and are returning thither laden with slaves, many of whom are natives of Heraut. … But the men are chained together by the throats at night, so that rest is scarcely possible, whilst the contact of the frozen iron with their skin must be torturous. For them also no carriage is found, they walk the whole way
About Turkmen traders and their captives from Herat
Singing kites over Khiva
Editorial contextFor weeks Abbott heard a strange humming music over Khiva at night. It turned out to be paper kites with a taut string stretched across a bent crosspiece, which hummed in the wind and were left flying all night. He thought the idea worth copying in England.
Seeing some children on the road with their paper kites, I approached to examine the contrivance, by which these toys emit a musical sound, whilst floating in the air. … And, as numbers of these kites are left floating in the air all night, the effect is that of aerial music ; monotonous, but full of melancholy interest.
About Children of Khiva
Kazakh, Kirghiz or Cossack?
Editorial contextAbbott explains a naming tangle: the steppe people between Khiva and Orenburg call themselves Kazakhs (Kuzzauks), but the Russians call them Kirghiz to tell them apart from Russia's own Christian Cossacks. The people themselves, he says, do not know the name Kirghiz.
The kingdom of Khaurism is separated from the Russian district of Orenburgh by a considerable belt of steppe, held by Kuzzauks, whose chief, or Sooltaun, is nominally tributary to Russia. The Russians call this people Kirgheez, to distinguish them from their own Kuzzauks, or Cossacks, who are Christians, but the name is unknown to the people themselves.
About Kazakhs
'Tartar' as a look, not a nation
Editorial contextAbbott calls the Jamshidis Turkish by descent and 'decidedly Tartar' in their features, using 'Tartar' as a racial type. He adds an insult that recurs in the book: that all Tartars fear artillery.
The Jumsheedees are of Toorkish descent, as their habits and physiognomy imply. They are short, stout, very dark, with decidedly Tartar features. … They are arrant cowards, and like all Tartars, superstitiously fearful of artillery.
About Jamshidis
Keep in mind
Prejudiced generalisation. The Jamshidis are usually counted today among the Persian-speaking Aimaq peoples, not as Turks.
A cemetery of giants at Umbarr
Editorial contextPassing an abandoned walled town, Abbott's interpreter told him it had been a Kalmyk capital, and that the late Khan stopped rebuilding it when diggers found huge human bones. The interpreter claimed to have seen skulls too big to hug that crumbled to powder in the air. Abbott doubts the giants but thinks the bones deserve study.
He said, it was supposed to have been the capital of Khaurism, under the Culmauks, whom we call Calmucks. That these were slain, in an invasion by Russia. That the late Khaun purposed rebuilding this city, and had walled it accordingly ; but that, in digging, some monstrous human bones were found, which proved it to have been a cemetery of giants.
About Khivans, Turkmens; Kalmyks (as former rulers in the story)
Keep in mind
Hearsay. Abbott did not see the bones and on the next page says few would accept the giants theory.
An Uzbek map of the world
Editorial contextThe Khivan minister showed Abbott a world map by an Uzbek scholar that put Italy north of England and Russia south of China. Abbott, tongue in cheek, decided not to argue.
A map of the world, the production of a profound Oozbeg philosopher, was then produced ; I begged a clue to this singular chart, and was rather surprised to find, that Italy lay north of England ; and Russia south of China.
About Uzbek court of Khiva
Keep in mind
Abbott is being sarcastic about the map.