MY FIRST VISIT TO BOKHARA 275
followers of Islam, was also the seat of a flourishing
European colony with High Schools for Girls, quite
equal to anything of the sort in our own country.
To me this was a revelation indeed.
How these young ladies enjoyed themselves!
how they frizzed their hair before the mirror in the
ladies' cabin! and how they flirted with the hand-
some officers bound for more distant and less
civilised stations, where there was to be no amuse-
ment in life beyond the delectable game of Vint, a
version of which we now call "Bridge."
As the train came into the states of New Bokhara,
two days after we had landed on the farther side of
the Caspian, the Chief of Police in the long cloak
came up and offered to show us the way to the
Russian Embassy; but my brother, who had already
stepped out on to the platform, declined with thanks,
and said that we had decided not to break our
journey till we got to Samarkand. He then rejoined
me in the train, where I had just finished packing
up our things and was preparing to alight. We
resumed our journey.
It was on our return that we stopped at Bokhara.
On that occasion there was no one at the station to
offer us any assistance. We got into a droshky
and drove at once to Old Bokhara, a distance of
about four miles. No one asked us any questions,
and we settled down comfortably in the only
caravanserai that is fit to receive Europeans. It