CHAPTER VI

GOVERNMENT OF NATIVE TOWNS
A LITTLE to the north of Tashkent there lies a
small town called Turkestan. On their way south-
ward from Siberia in 1864, the Russians took it, and
many writers affirm that, mistaking its name for that
of the entire region, they adopted the appellation
of "Turkestan " for their new territory. Up to that
time, they assure us, the Khanates of Bokhara,
Khiva, and Kokand were known by these names
alone. Yet I find that Gibbon also gave the name
of Turkestan to that part of the world, and he wrote
more than a hundred years earlier.1
A Central Asian Khanate consists of a number
of small states gathered loosely together under one
supreme ruler. Each of these states is composed
of a large town and the villages scattered around it.
A Khan or Amir governs directly that town alone
in which he resides. Here he collects the taxes,
appoints judges and other officials, and decides all
important disputes and criminal cases. The states,
it will be remembered, are separated from one
another by great stretches of desert, and each is
1 Marco Polo called it "Great Turkey."
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