ISRAEL IN CENTRAL ASIA

him about the Sarts in his vicinity. He had said that
the Sarts of Tashkent had a great deal of Jewish blood
in their veins and much of the Jewish character.
"The Sarts have the monopoly of the cotton
trade, just as the Jews have the dyeing of silk," he
said. "They are shrewd business men. A man
will hire out his wife to another if he is short of
money, and take her back afterwards. The early
Russian settlers often hired women in that way, not
only in Tashkent but all over the country."
" How did the Sarts come by their Jewish blood ?"
I had asked.
"Through the Chaldean Nestorians and the Jews
of Bokhara," was the reply. "There have been two
distinct Jewish influences; the former includes that
of the Semitic Arabs."
A lady who had been present at a Jewish wedding
the day before we reached Samarkand, described it
to us as an unusually interesting one. It seems
that in the middle of the ceremony the bride's
father insisted that the bridegroom should sign a
document to the effect that the bride might be at
liberty to return to her home-that is, to Samarkand
from Tashkent, a twelve hours' journey by rail-as
often as she felt inclined to do so. He did this
because his other daughter's husband objected to
giving his wife such freedom. The bridegroom got
very angry, and in a loud and surly voice refused
to comply. This unseemly quarrel took place before