This is administered in the mosques, and the private dwellings of the Kazis and Muftis, on whom the jurisdiction devolves. But every individual may prefer his complaint before the governor of the city or the province, who then makes his decision after Urf (i. e., as it seems to him right). Each governor, and even the Khan himself, must every day hold a public audience of at least four hours' duration, a duty the neglect of which illness can alone excuse; and, as no one can be excluded, the ruler is often forced to listen to and settle even the pettiest family differences amongst his subjects. I have been told that the Khan finds it fine sport to witness the quarrels of married couples, { 339} maddened with anger which he himself takes care to foment. The father of the country is obliged to hold his sides for laughter to see, sometimes, man and wife thrashing each other around the hall, and finally falling wrestling in the dust.
The Khanat of Khiva, known in history under the name of Kharezm, [Footnote 115] and called also in adjoining countries Ürgendj, is surrounded on all sides by deserts; its extreme frontiers to the south-east are formed by the city of Fitnek, to the north-west by Kungrat and Köhne Ürgendj, to the south by Medemin and Köktcheg. Without attempting to give the superficial measurement of the land occupied by fixed settlers, or ascertain precisely the number of the inhabitants, let me rather content myself by furnishing as complete a description as circumstances admit of the topography of the Khanat, and leave the geographer, if so disposed, to apply himself to the arithmetical calculation.
[Footnote 115: Kharezm is a Persian word signifying warlike, rejoicing in war.]
But we may with less hesitation enlarge upon the extraordinary fruitfulness of the soil, to be ascribed, not so much to appropriate modes of cultivation, as to the excellent irrigation, and the fertilising waters of the Oxus.
These in Khiva are of two sorts--(_a_) Arna, those formed by the river itself, which have from time to time been merely widened and deepened by the { 340} inhabitants; (_b_) Yap, canals dug to a width of one or two fathoms, for the most part fed from the Arna. With these the whole of the land that is under cultivation is covered, as with a net. Amongst the Arna deserve particular mention--