National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

and pay the teacher from half a tanga to a tanga a month. Education is not compulsory, but
a certain coercion is exercised on the parents to make them send their children to school. For
the higher forms of education, as it is by the Mahommedan standard, the pupils go from the
Maktab, to the Madrassa or college. Here they study theology, law, medicine, poetry and
history, with writing and accounts. Physics are unknown, and altogether the standard of
knowledge is very inferior. Much too great importance is attached to theology and meta-
physics, to the neglect of more practically useful studies. There are several colleges in each
city, and all the shrines and more sacred tombs in the country have either a college or a school
attached to them. The colleges are charitable foundations which have been established at
different periods by pious individuals, and are supported by grants of rent-free land. Under the
Amir's rule, all these establishments have been restored to their original prosperity, and many
which had fallen to decay have been entirely rebuilt and enlarged. Most of them have cloisters,
with accommodation for from twenty to eighty students or more, and a chapel and hospice are
attached to each, with a considerable establishment of priests, teachers, and servitors. In all
of them the teaching is strictly that of Islam, to the exclusion of everything not allowed by the
Shari'at or unprovided for in the hadith, and they are all under the special patronage of the
Amir, who from time to time visits some of the more important ones, and on all occasions of
public rejoicing or festivity distributes bounty to the establishments and resident scholars.

Games and Amusements.—Those played by young people are corchác,="wrestling;" "romps;"
Bád-parg,="kite-flying;" Mnoca warstáriáti,="marbles;" Khanjar oyándi,="pitch-and-toss"
into a hole with walnuts or pice; Uzuc oyándi,="knuckle bones," dice playing with four bones;
Top chatáng,="ball-and-bat" or "rounders," in which the player is put out by a catch, and has to
go out and carry in the winner on his back; and Tushe Anusi Bálási,="mother and children in
the hole," a sort of tip-cat played with bat and ball from a little pit.

Those played by grown-up people are Shatranj, chess; takhna, draughts; kághaz-oyándi,
cards, called kaphi by the Khitay; Tukhm chic'li, cracking eggs by tapping small ends together
for wager; Dah chin oyándi, gymnastics, athletics, &c., by professionals. Other amusements are
kaptar-oyándi,="pigeon-flying;" Tukh or Cocheár or Kikiik-warstáriáti,="cock or ram," or
"partridge-fighting." There are besides other sports and exercises, such as single-stick, cudgel-
ling, fencing, wrestling, archery, &c., but they are only practised by professionals of Chinese
or Kalmák race who are now enlisted in the Amir's army. Amongst the athletic exercises occasion-
ally indulged in by the troops are úlak, a sort of chevy chase on horseback to gain possession of
a slaughtered lamb carried away by an acknowledged champion, by pursuit and snatching from
his lap; and Miltic chicdi,="target practice," loading and firing on horseback at a cap stuck
on a stake, whilst at full gallop.

The more refined amusements in which both sexes meet for society are tea-parties and
musical concerts and dances, each of which is conducted with the observance of much
ceremony and etiquette, according to rules and conventionalities appropriate to each. The
dances are performed by women only, and not in public; only in the presence of invited
guests, and are conducted with proper decorum. The musical concerts are performed by
professional artists and singers, and the principal instruments used are the guitar; a sort of
harp or violin called cánún; a sort of violin called rabáb; the flageolet; the cymbal; the
triangle; and the tambour and the trombone. The musician or naghmáchi does not
play in public, only at private houses to which he is called to give an entertainment.
There is a class of mendicant minstrels and actors who go about the streets, and wander from
place to place to make a living. They are of two distinct orders, viz., the calandar or darwesh,
and the báochi. The two first are religious beggars and vagabonds, and go about in companies
of five or six. They sing and dance and dress in a grotesque fashion, and affect a demented
character, with dishevelled hair and patched garments, often covered with a cape of some wild
animals' skin, such as of the tiger, bear, leopard, or wolf. They always carry a staff topped
with a tuft of yák-tail hair, or an iron mace on which is fixed a string of steel rings. This they
jingle in keeping time with their vociferous songs and dances of gesticulation. The báochi is a
musician, conjuror, improvisatore, and actor. He professes acquaintance with the world of
spirits, and glibly calls on Michael and all the angels who throw him into a cataleptic state,
and the spectators are persuaded into the belief that he does all sorts of marvels.