Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/78

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April 4th, and after being delayed for some time at the station by a subordinate Custom House officer, who had carelessly or designedly allowed the railway porters to carry our luggage out of the station without going through the formality of a Custom House inspection, and who afterwards insisted upon making a minute search of all our effects in the middle of the road, surrounded by an insolent crowd, we drove four miles to the modern Russian quarter of Samarcand, and alighted at the 'Hôtel de Varsovie.' The road from the station was broad and metalled, and planted on both sides with avenues of tall poplars. We drove in a small Russian droshky, similar to those which ply for hire in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities, whilst our luggage followed in a one-horse cart peculiar to Samarcand and Bokhara. It consisted of a rough wooden platform, roofed in with wooden hoops and straw matting, and slung upon two enormous wheels, over eight feet in height. The driver, a native Sart, was perched, or rather crouched, like a monkey upon the horse's neck, and the whole conveyance, which presented an