full, red-cheeked faces, know how by a toss of the head, to throw these tassels saucily from one side to the other. Where it can be afforded a black silk apron completes the attire.

The holiday costume is still more effective. A dress waist elaborately embroidered with silver thread, and often a precious heirloom for generations, replaces the one ordinarily worn. A silver belt of antique workmanship clasps the waist, and upon the head is set the graceful faldur, a Phrygian helmet of stiff white linen, over which is thrown a white gauze veil. A gala costume, now scarcely ever seen, is still more elaborate. In addition to the silver ornaments of belt and waist a flat silver embroidered ruff stands stiffly from the neck. Upon the head is wound, like a turban, a handkerchief of figured silk, while over it curves a stiff white linen headdress shaped like a miniature pulpit sounding-board.

During the long, dark winter months the Icelanders are confined to their cheerless huts. The walls of these huts are usually about four feet high and are constructed of alternate layers of stone and turf. Some sort of a wooden roof is placed on the walls, and this is covered thickly with sod. The dwellings are really clusters of separate huts, as the apartments are entirely separate from each other by thick walls of turf, and each has a separate roof. A long, dark, narrow passage leads to different apartments, among which are the cow shed, a sheep house, and often a blacksmith's shop. What light there is usually is admitted through holes in the roof covered with pieces of skin or glass, though occasionally a hut has small windows in the front. The floor is of hardened lava. Headless casks or barrels are often used for chimneys, but sometimes a hole in the roof forms the only outlet for smoke.

In Iceland everybody has something of an education. The children are all taught to read and write by their mothers. No means of obtaining knowledge is neglected. During the long winter months, while all the rest are engaged in spinning, knitting, mending tools, or chiseling ornaments from wood, one member of the family reads aloud from some book or paper.

As books are not very plentiful, when the Icelander goes to church he carries along some of his books to lend to his neighbor, and brings some of his neighbor's books home to read, and often one of these books is copied entire before it is returned.

The fishing season is from February to June. The fish are cured by exposure to the wind and sun. If properly cured they become perfectly hard and will keep good for years.

But the Icelander does not gain his livelihood chiefly by fishing, as is generally supposed, though fish forms one of the principal articles of food. Great care and attention are given to sheep and cattle raising, particularly the latter. The most important work of the year is securing fodder to feed the stock during the winter. The fodder is obtained principally from what are termed tuno. These are composed of mounds or hillocks, very close together, but with deep trenches between them. They usually contain several acres.

Till the year A. D. 1000 the old Scandinavian religion prevailed on the island, with the worship of Odin and Thor. Then Christianity was introduced and became the prevailing religion. In A. D. 1550 the Lutheran Reformation occurred, since which the Lutheran has been the established form of religion in Iceland.

Four or five Icelandic dwellings form a village, and as the people are, as a rule, Christians, usually a church is found in each village. The church building differs very little from the huts save by a cross on the roof. It is generally about twenty feet long by ten feet wide. The altar occupies eight feet of this space. "A small wooden chest or cupboard" forms the communion table, over which is a rough representation

of the Lord's Supper. The walls of the church are about six feet high. Large wooden beams extend from side to side. These beams serve as tables for the Bibles and other books. On one side of the door, which is so low that the people have to stoop considerably on entering, hangs a bell. Benches sufficient to seat thirty or forty people are crowded together on each side of the room, leaving a very narrow passage between. It is a common thing for the churches to be used as lodging houses for strangers traveling through the country.

The Icelanders show plainly enough their Scandinavian origin, and but little new blood has come in since the settlement, over a thousand years ago. One sees, however, fewer pleasing faces, both among men and women, than in Norway. It is a harsh life at the best in this unpropitious climate. It is far too serious a matter to be lived lightly, and there are few pleasures.

In their social conditions the Icelanders are neither the best nor the worst of the world's people. Although as a whole the nation is to be characterized neither as immoral nor irreligious, its morals are by no means unimpeachable nor its religion zealous. The little cathedral at Reikiavik and the parish churches throughout the land are well filled on Sundays and festivals with congregations of worshipers. The Bible, thanks to the English Bible Society, is everywhere diffused, and books of homilies and hymns are common in nearly all households; but the religion is, after all, of that lukewarm quality that characterizes Protestant Germany. As a unit the nation is stanchly Lutheran, and schismatic "isms" have never appealed to Icelandic ears nor found root in Icelandic hearts. Viewed comprehensively the morals of the country are excellent, but judged in detail, the ethical code is, nevertheless, not wholly free from anomalies. Crime of any sort is infrequent. The Icelanders are and have always been a litigious folk, and their law courts are crowded with neighbor feuds and cases of grievance real or imagined, but their jails are empty and their house doors without locks. In all the land there are no criminal classes, and even petty crime is almost absolutely unknown.

B

BOKHARA AND ITS PEOPLE.

BY ARMINIUS VAMBERY.

OKHARA, the focus of Tartar civilization, possesses beyond a doubt much to remind one of a capital, particularly when a man enters it as a traveler, coming immediately from a journey of many weeks through deserts and As for the luxury of its dwellings, its dresses, and manner of living, that hardly merits attention at all when compared with what is to be seen. in the cities of western Asia. Still it has its peculiarities, which prevent one wondering so much that habit and partiality dispose the Bokhariot to be proud of his native city.

The houses, built of mud and wood, present, with their crooked, paintless walls, a gloomier appearance than the dwellings of other Mohammedan cities. On entering the court through the low gateway, one fancies oneself in a fortress. On all the sides there are high walls, which serve as a protection, not so much against thieves as against the amatory oglings of intriguing neighbors. In Bokhara, the most shameless sink of iniquity that I know in the East, a glance even from a distance is regarded as dishonoring! The number of the separate apartments varies with the fortune of the proprietor. The more important part of them comprises the harem, styled here endevur (the inner penetralia), the smaller room for guests, and the hall for receptions. This last is the most spacious, as well as the most ornamented apartment in the house, and, like the other rooms, has a double ceiling, with a space between used as a storeroom. The floor is paved with bricks and stones, and has only carpets round the sides near the walls. Rectangular stones, which have been hollowed out, are placed in a corner-a comfortable contrivance enabling the owner to perform the holy ablutions in the room itself. This custom is met with in no other Mohammedan country. The walls have no particular decorations; those, however, which are nearest to Mecca are painted with flowers, vases, and arabesques of different kinds. The windows are mere openings, each with a pair of shutters. Glass is seen nowhere, and few take the trouble to use paper smeared with fat as a substitute. Articles of furniture, still rarities throughout the East, are here scarcely known by name.

The expenditure upon the wardrobe is on a footing with the style of each house and its arrangement. Cloth is rarely met with: it serves for presents from the khan to his officials of high rank. Different qualities of the aladja (cotton) are employed by all classes, from king to dervish, for winter and summer. Although the Bokhariot over-garment has the form of a nightdress extending down to the ankles, still it is subject from time to time to little innovations as to cut, sleeve, collar, and trimming, in accordance with the fashion of the moment, which is as much respected in Bokhara as in Paris. A dandy in the former city takes especial care to have his turban folded according to the idea in force at the moment, as an evidence of good taste. He sees particularly to his shawl, by which he binds his trousers round the loins, and to his koshbag suspended to that shawl. The koshbag is a piece of leather consisting of several tongues, to which are fastened a knife or two, a small tea bag, a miswak (toothpick), and a leathern bag for copper money. These articles constitute the indispensables of a central Asiatic, and by the quality and value of each is a judgment formed of the character and breeding of the man.

It does not excite less wonder on our part when we see the men in Bokhara clad in wide garments of brilliant color, whereas the women wear only a dress that is tight to the shape, and of a dark hue. For in this city, where the civilization has retained

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with the greatest fidelity its antique stamp of oriental Islamism, women, ever the martyrs of Eastern legislation, come in for the worst share.

In Turkey the contact with the Christian elements has already introduced many innovations, and the tashmak (veil) is rather treated as part of the toilet than as the ensign

of slavery. In Persia the women are tolerably well muffled up, still they wear the tstakschur (pantaloons and stockings in one piece) of brilliant coloring and silken texture, and the rubend (a linen veil with network for the eyes) is ornamented with a clasp of gold. In Bokhara, on the other hand, there is not a trace of tolerance. The women wear nothing that deserves to be named full dress or ornament. When in the streets, they

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draw a covering over their heads, and are seen clad in long gowns of deep blue, with the empty sleeves hanging suspended to their backs, so that observed from behind, the fair ones of Bokhara may be mistaken for clothes wandering about. From the head down to the bosom they wear a veil made of horsehair, of a texture which we in Europe would regard as too bad and coarse for a sieve, and the friction of which upon cheek or nose must be anything but agreeable. Their chaussures consist of coarse heavy boots, in which their little feet are fixed, enveloped in a mass of leather. Such a costume is not in itself attractive; but even so attired, they dare not be seen too often in the streets. Ladies of rank and good character never venture to show themselves in any public place or bazaar. Shopping is left to the men; and whenever any extraordinary emergency obliges a lady to leave the house and to pay visits, it is regarded as bon ton for her to assume every possible appearance of decrepitude, poverty, and age.

Let me now attempt to portray in the following slight sketch the external mode of living in Bokhara. In the morning-I mean by the term before sunrise, as by religious compulsion every man is an early riser-one encounters people, half asleep and half awake and half dressed, hurrying one by one to the mosques; any delay in arriving not only entails reproach, but is considered as meriting punishment. The stir made by these devotees in running through the streets rouses the houseless dogs from their lairs in the out-of-the-way corners or upon the heaps of dung. These famished, horrid-looking animals yet contrasted with their Stambouli brethren, presenting a princely appearance-are crying proofs of the miserly nature of the Bokhariots. The poor creatures first struggle to rear their gaunt frames, mere skin and bone, from sleep; then they rub their rough, hairless carcasses against the moldering walls, and, this toilet at an end, they start upon their hunt for a dejeûner à la fourchette, for the most part made up of a few fleshless bones or carrion, but very often of kicks in the ribs administered by some compassionating and charitable inhabitant of Bokhara. At the same time as the dogs awake the hardly better lodged Pariahs of the Tartar capital-I mean the wretched men afflicted with incurable and contagious skin diseases, who sit at the corners of the streets en famille, and house in miserable tents. In Persia they are met with, remote from cities and villages, on highroads; but here, owing to the absence of sanitary regulations, they are tolerated in the middle of the city. Their lot is far the most terrible to which any son of earth can have to submit, and unhappily they are long livers too. While the mother is clothing her other accursed offspring with a scanty. covering of rags, the father seats himself with the most disfigured one among them by the roadside, in order to solicit charity and alms from those who pass. Charity and alms to prolong such an existence !

After the sun has looked long enough upon this miserable spectacle, the city in all its parts begins slowly to assume animation. The people return in crowds from the mosque; they are encountered on their way by troops of asses laden with wood, corn, grass, large pails of milk, and dishes of cream, pressing from all the city gates, and forcing their way in varied confusion through the narrow and crooked streets. Screams of alarm from the drivers, the reciprocal cries issuing from those who buy and those who sell, mix with that mighty hee-haw of the asses for which Bokhara is renowned. To judge by the first impression, it might be supposed that the different drivers would be obliged to fish out their wood from milk, their grass from cream, charcoal from corn, silkworm cocoons from skimmed milk. But no, nothing is spilt, nothing thrown down; the drivers are wont to flog each other through in right brotherly fashion, till in the end all arrive in safety at their destination.

At an hour after sunrise the Bokhariot is already seated with his cup of schirtschaj (milk tea). This beverage is composed of tea made from bricks of tea in the form of