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N. destroyed, was restored to its former comfort and prosperity ; and, whilst it is certainly indicative of the persevering industry and enterprise of the people, suggests the possession of wealth and the existence of an extensive and profitable trade with China.

In the plunder of this prosperous commercial town Kutaiba took a vast store of gold and silver, and, amongst other valuables, two rare pearls, each the size of a pigeon's egg, found in one of the idol temples. These last he sent as an offering to Hajâj with the letter announcing his victory. The Khalif in acknowledgment gracefully expressed his astonishment more at the rarity of his General's honesty than of his precious offering.

After the destruction of Bekand, the Arabs successively reduced Khabnon,

Fârâb, and Wardâna; and then Kutaiba found himself surrounded, and cut off from communication with Khurâsân, by the numerous armies pouring in from the east and north to the aid of Bukhârâ. Amongst the leaders of these troops were Malik Tarkhon of Saghd, the Jand Khidât, and the Wardâna Khidât, and Malik Gormughânon, Turk, who was sister's son of the Faglfur=Emperor of China.

Kutaiba was thus hemmed in for four months, and was finally extricated from

his difficulty by the address of one of his councillors—the Maulâ Hayân Nabti, who opened a communication with Tarkhon, and so artfully played upon his fears, by representing in exaggerated terms the dangers that threatened him from the vast numbers of his foreign allies, that he soon succeeded in obtaining from him a nominal tender of submission with the payment of 2,000 diram as tribute, and thus effected a dissolution of the Turk confederation. The allies, finding that Tarkhon had retired from the field, broke from each other, and retraced their steps to their respective countries, plundering all the way; and the Arabs, thus set free, marched upon Bukhara, where they levied a heavy indemnity, and then returned across the Oxus to Marv.

Kutaiba made four successive campaigns against Bukhârâ., with whose deposed

Queen he carried on an amour, that has supplied the historians of the time with many amusing anecdotes. His last campaign was in 94H. =712 A.D., when he established Tughshâda in the government, and fixed the yearly tribute at 40,000 diram for the Khalif, and 10,000 diram for the Amir of Khurâsân. At this time, too, owing to the habitual relapsing of the people from the newly enforced faith to their old idolatary, he distributed his Arabs amongst the citizens—one in each household—the more effectually to convert the people by example and to teach them the rites and doctrines of the new religion. He ordered also that they should share equally with the family in food and raiment, to be supplied free of cost at the expense of the town. These measures proved extremely distasteful to the citizens, who naturally at first opposed them ; but the force of summary and severe examples speedily cowed them to submission, though 700 families of a sect called Kashkasha, who are described as a wealthy mercantile community, abandoned their dwellings in the city, and formed a settlement of huts outside its walls. These in the course of years grew into a suburb called afterwards Kok Mugkan=" Dwelling of fire-worhippers." It is probable, I may here note, that these Kashkasha (query Kaskisha =Christian priest) were Christians, and not, as the name afterwards given to their settlement would imply, Zoroastrians, because in this last campaign Kutaiba destroyed every emblem of idolatry in the place, and on the site of the great idol temple built the Jumâ Masjid or Friday Mosque, whilst he suppressed any outward signs of adherence to idolatry by the only arguments known to Islam, by death or tribute.

V. B.   In the year following this settlement of Bukhârâ, Kutaiba invaded the province

of Farghâna, and thence crossing the Tirik Dawân or " Sweating Pass" into Kishghar—at that time occupied by the trighûr—ran his expedition as far as Turfân on the Chinese frontier of Kinsuh. Here he received intelligence of the death of the Khalif Walid, and consequently, retracing his steps, returned to Mary where he was killed in a plot by his enemies at the end of 98H.=716A.D., aged 47 years.