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Show oo THE MECCA OF CENTRAL ASIA. Bokhara, that stranpe capital at tho hack of the world on w hich every road In Asia Is smld to have converged. mlRht well he called the Mecca of Central Ania. It Is more than that, for besides beln a religious center It Is also u great capital and trado center. The name, Uokhara la well known; yet It has been visited by but few. Fifty years nro It was as Impregnable us Lhasu, and of the few travelers who penetrated to within Its walls fewer still ever camo out ajraln. "Bokhara Is completely surrounded by a wall and had to enter by cne of tie eleven gates, ir by chance I had been benighted I should have had to stay outside or at least leave my caravan behind and cater by the tiny door beside the main gate, through which a man enn literally Just squeeze. Once Insldo the walls tho whole pageant page-ant of tho East bur6t on mo Intense light and Bhade, bright colors, tho richness of the great men and tho uquulld poverty of the beggars, the cleanliness of the mosques and the filth of tho streets, tho aching gljre of the deep -bazars. Nowhere In the world, I claim, can such u perfect picture pic-ture of the unspoiled, unregenerated East be seen as In Bokhara. It Is as If a Chapter of tho 'Arabian Nights' had been put on the stage. Here one looks down through a Ions vista of years and sees the East as it waa long beforo the West existed. 5 "Let ue stand a minute beside tho 'pooL' This Is the very heart of the city and Is situated In a square surrounded sur-rounded by giant mudresa.9 and a motley mot-ley crowd of booths and shops Here at midday tho people of Bokhara congregate con-gregate to pray In the mosques near by and to take a meal on the ter-rcces ter-rcces that surround tho pool. Men of every eastern race assemble here. The 'pool' Itself la nothing more than a large 6toue reservoir of filthy water. Under a brilliant 6ky and shadowed by great trees It makes a fitting foreground fore-ground for the gay costumes of tho men, toe dark bazars and the madres-ap madres-ap piled up behind. When I saw men on the steps of the tank washing themselves them-selves In the water I felt surprised, to say the least. But when further nlong I noticed men filling their wuter sk.'ns from the same supply t realized that the East Is renin- very far from the West. Tho terrible deeds that once made Bokhara a byword are now prohibited by the Russian government. govern-ment. Prisoners are not permitted, fur Instance, to be dragged through the streets by gnlloplng horses. Nor are they thrown from the tops of the high i lower called the Minar Katan. This was the usual punishment meted out to evil-doers In the old days. Watched I by thousands of spectators, tho poor wretches were flung from that giddy height on to the flagstones beneath. Bokhara has many chambers of horrors hor-rors unwholesome for the western eye to see and the description of which would certainly be unfit for publication publica-tion Perhaps the most horrible if these is a pit whero prisoners were trrtured by verinlu, which were so r.i meroiis and ravcnnu6 that in tho absence of human prey they wore foj on chunks of raw meat Professor I) Carruthers in Wide World Mjga zlne. |