26o     IN RUSSIAN TURKESTAN
The word Namangan is a Persian word meaning
"salt town." All the salt used in Fergana comes
from here. Nearly everybody in the Russian town
is connected with the growing, or cleaning, or ex-
porting of cotton. The present chief of the district
has done much to improve both the Russian and the
native towns. He has had wooden lamps placed at
regular intervals along the streets, and, in order that
the posts may not rot, he has invented the ingenious
plan of encasing them in iron pipes.
The new prison is a fine building, with large and
airy rooms (they can hardly be called cells) all white-
washed and spotlessly clean; they are used for
Russians and natives alike. All the work of the
prison is done by native prisoners. Even the head
cook is a Sart. We found four Sart women in one of
the rooms. One had murdered her husband from
jealousy, another had helped to murder some one
else's husband. There is also a smaller prison for
those convicted of slight offences. These are taken
out to work in the streets all day. Many a Sart
will deliberately steal something in the autumn, in
order that he may have a comfortable place to sleep
in during the winter months, in which the weather
is usually as cold as it is in the county of Middlesex,
if not colder. In the centre of the Russian pleasure-
grounds there is a little piece of water where skating
can be indulged in during the month of January.
Namangan is situated on the right bank of a small