458 JOSEPH, A GREEK, EXECUTED. CHAP. XXX. exercised once more his reluctant clemency by releasing the Afghan Envoy, Allah Dad Khan, and also Akhood Zadeh; the former hastened to return to Kabul, and the son of the Kazi of Herat, after having for a few days found shelter with a merchant in Bokhara, reached Persia on foot and joined his father at Meshed, where both sought an asylum from the rapacity and cruelty of Yar Mohamed Khan who had banished them from their country. Joseph was taken from the Siah-tchah at the same time as Allah Dad Khan and Akhood Zadeh, but the close of his captivity was to be that of his life also. The first time he was brought before Nasser Ullah he said that he was a subject of the Sultan's, which was true; but as he had not been circumcised the Emir thought that he told a falsehood, being persuaded, or pretending to be so, that all the subjects of the Sultan must be Mussulmans, and under the impression that he was an Englishman, he ordered him into the Siah-tchah. Suffering horribly from the misery he endured in this dreadful place, he thought that it might be mitigated if he turned Mussulman; he sent therefore a message to that effect to the Emir, who instantly assented to his proposition, but never took him out of the Siah-tchah, where the operation and cure were performed. It was not until the 17th of June, that he saw the light again, when he and the three malefactors, with whom Colonel Stoddart had passed the two first months of his captivity, were brought up to be slaughtered — the execution took place on a Friday, at the hour of evening prayer. The news of the massacre of the English in the Khyber Pass had been sent to Nasser Ullah by the Afghan serdars, who recommended him to get rid of his other prisoners or hand them over to them; and it was their letter which prepared the way for the death of the ill-fated British officers, which was hastened, however, by another cause. - Three days after the execution of Joseph, the Emir commanded that they should be taken from the citadel to a building near the Siah-tchah, but they were not lowered into the well. The guard then forced them to strip off all their clothes, and on inspecting them very closely, found in a small pocket sewn under the top of the sleeve of Colonel Stoddart's tchoka,* a pencil, some steel pens, a small phial filled with ink, and some sheets of paper, which were taken to the Emir. Some days previously the police at the fron *Bokharian robe. CHAP. XXX. EXECUTION OF STODDART AND CONOLLY. 459 tier had seized a letter which the Colonel had sent to Mr. Thompson, under-secretary to the British legation at Teheran, who was going to Khiva to continue the negotiations commenced by Captain Conolly; and when this letter was taken to Nasser Ullah he wanted Stoddart to translate it, and also to tell him the use of the articles that had been found upon him. Nothing excites more distrust in Oriental nations than the habit that Europeans have of writing down or sketching, what they see or hear, and in the questionable position in which these officers stood, the double discovery that had been made, could not but exasperate the Emir more and more against them; moreover, Colonel Stoddart at once refused to give the required translation, and he was cruelly beaten with rods on the soles of his feet for three days in succession without overcoming his resolution-he simply declared that the intercepted letter contained nothing hostile to the Emir. But Nasser Ullah would not believe him, and it being his conviction that the purport of the letter was to induce the Khan of Khiva to make war upon him, he condemned the two prisoners to death. No word of weakness escaped Colonel Stoddart when he was informed of the fate that awaited him, but he completely gave way to the violence of his disposition, exhausting the whole vocabulary of personal abuse in Persian against the Emir and his executioner, and ceased not thus to apostrophise them but in yielding his latest breath. He was put to death like a sheep, in some ruins at the back of his prison, and in the presence of a few passers-by who had been attracted to the spot by his cries and his invectives. The officer who was charged with the execution of the sentence then declared to Conolly, who had witnessed his countryman's death, that Nasser Ullah would grant him his life if he would become a Mussulman, but the Englishman replied without fear, as without boasting, "Stoddart and Yoossoof turned Mahomedans and you put them both to death; your proposal is a snare, for you will not spare me any more than you did them. I have no confidence in your promises; I will be no renegade. die firm in my faith. Finish your work!" They did so, and the bodies of these two heroic men were placed in a common grave that had been dug before their eyes. It was on a Friday evening, the 24th of June. I These sad details were communicated to me by Akhood Zadeh, the Syud Mir Sheriff, whom I saw at Meshed in 1845, my Heratee servant, who had also been Conolly's, and was im 460 REGISTER. CHAP. XXX. prisoned forty-four days in the Siah-tchah, and by many other Bokharians, to whom the particulars of the captivity and death of the British officers were perfectly well known. Dr. Wolf thinks that they were executed on the 17th of June; but, after much investigation, I consider that the event took place seven days later, which is proved by the following dates furnished by the persons above mentioned : Stoddart and Conolly were imprisoned in the citadel Forty-four days after, their servants were released, namely, on Four days later Akhood Zadeh and Allah Dad Jan. 2, 1842. . Feb. 15, . Feb. 19,,, Ninety-two days elapsed up to the death of Yoos- This statement is strictly correct; and was copied from the police register at Bokhara by the Syud Mir Sheriff. Akhood Zadeh, without being so precise himself, acknowledges the accuracy of these dates; he believed the death of the British officers to have taken place on the 2nd of Djemadee el Ewal, or Djemadee el Sanee, some days after the appearance of the first apricots such is the Asiatic mode of marking events. CHAP. XXXI. MOHAMED SHAH THREATENS KHIVA. 461 CHAPTER XXXI. Mohamed Shah of Persia threatens Khiva - Mr. Thompson, the British minister, arrives at that city-He fails in his negotiations -Nasseli Flores, a Neapolitan, comes to Teheran Travels to Bokhara, and is thrown into prison there-The Naib, Abdul Samut Khan-Nasseli is condemned to death-Abdul Samut experiences the same fate-Reasons that led to his execution - The watchmaker, Orlando Giovanni — The Emir orders him to be put to death — Character of Nasser Ullah Khan - Measures taken in England to ascertain the fate of Stoddart and Conolly - Dr. Wolf-Policy of Yar Mohamed after the English left Herat - The Shah Kamran in arms against the Vizier-Yar Mohamed besieges him in the citadel -The Serdar Dine Mohamed Khan - Kamran is made prisoner, and plundered by Yar Mohamed - The Shah Zadeh Mohamed Yoossoof - The diamond vest - Negotiations regarding it-Mohamed Yoossoof Mirza the dupe of Yar Mohamed- He flies to Meshed-Revolt to set Kamran at liberty - Yar Mohamed assassinates his sovereign. SOME months before the terrible tragedy related in the last chapter occurred, namely in the winter of 1841, the British Minister at Teheran made a last effort to induce the Khan of Khiva to give up the Persian slaves; the case was urgent, for Mohamed Shah was marshalling his battalions on the borders of the Atrak and the Gourghan, and threatened to penetrate the heart of Khiva if Allah Kooli Khan persisted in detaining his subjects any longer. The Shah had been driven to this demonstration by the fresh inroads made upon his territory by the Turcomans, who at the instigation of the Khivans, plundered several Persian villages and carried off their inhabitants; in one of these raids they surprised Mohamed Walee Khan, a cousin of the Shah's, and brought him to Khiva, where he was kept a close prisoner. At the time that Mr. Thompson went to that city, accompanied by the Persian envoy Mohamed Ali Khan Kiaffoor, a Russian agent left Orenburg for the same destination, to combine his efforts with theirs in the hope of bringing about a pacific solution of the affair ; and notwithstanding the threatened invasion Allah Kooli Khan received them all haughtily. To Mr. Thompson he said, "London is too far off for me to have any intercourse with it, or expect any help from there. Twenty times I have asked the English for instructors of artillery, and they have tantalized me with promises which I have never seen realized; I cannot understand why they 462 MR. THOMPSON AT MERV. CHAP. XXXI. interfere in my affairs." He was not so arrogant with the Russian, in whose favour Yacooba Mehter had been endeavouring to prepossess him; but he addressed that ambassador thus: "Petersburg is nearer to Khiva than London, but the bones of the soldiers that the Tzar sent from Orenburg last year to subjugate this country still cover the steppes upon your frontiers, and remain, whitening in the sun, a proof that that undertaking is not easy to carry out." Then, turning to the Persian, he said, "As to Mohamed Shah he may be the cat's-paw of England or Russia, whichever he pleases; Allah Kooli Khan will never imitate his example. You have all taken the trouble to come here to ask me to release the Persian slaves, which I am resolved never to do." And the three ambassadors left Khiva without having in the least advanced their cause. At Merv Mr. Thompson happily escaped the malevolence of the Emir of Bokhara and Yacooba Mehter, who had sent assassins to the neighbourhood of that town to murder him, but chance and bad information prevented them. While he was here, Mr. Thompson delivered from captivity a Neapolitan named Nasseli Flores, who had been incarcerated by the Governor Niaz Mohamed Beg. When this young man passed through Teheran he was told by a great many persons, that, in taking the road to Bokhara, he was rushing upon certain death; but he would not listen to their advice, and fate drove him on to his destruction. For many months Flores had enjoyed the hospitality of M. Anitchkoff, the Russian Consul-General at Tauris, and when he put into execution his project of going to Lahore through the Usbek states, Sir John M'Neil, who had a few months previously returned to Teheran, conceived some suspicions against him; he even opened a corre spondence with Count de Medem, the Russian Minister, and complained of the direction Nasseli intended taking, protected by a passport which had received the visa of the Russian authorities. He said that he considered the journey of Flores across Tartary concealed intentions hostile to England, and offered to send him safely to Lahore free of expense if he would consent to go there by the Persian Gulf and India, but nothing could overcome the obstinacy of the traveller; and the Count de Medem to After this was written, Mr. Thompson informed me that that this story was not true. An Usbek woman, in order to get a good reward for saving his life, invented the tale.-Ferrier. |