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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI. FROM TASHKEND TO MARGELAN I SPENT nearly seven weeks in Tashkend; but as I have already described the town in my former book, I will only record here one or two special reminiscences. The governor-general, Baron Vrevsky, received me with boundless hospitality; I was his daily guest, and enjoyed the opportunity of making acquaintances who were of great assistance to me in my journey across the Pamirs. During Christmas and New Year I was a guest at many festivities. Christmas Eve, the first and pleasantest during my travels in Asia, I spent at the residence of Baron Vrevsky in almost the same manner as at home in the North. Many of the Christmas presents laid out awaiting their future owners were accompanied with French verses; and in the middle of one of the rooms of the palace stood a gigantic Christmas tree, made of cypress branches, and decorated with a hundred tiny wax candles. We spent the evening in the customary ways, in conversation, by a smoking samovar in the drawing - room, which was tastefully furnished with all the luxury of the East. Portraits of King Oscar, the Tsar, and the Emir of Bokhara, each signed with the autograph of the original, adorned the walls. The fair sex could not have been represented more worthily than by the Princess Khavansky, the governor-general's charming daughter, who did the honours at all entertainments, private as well as official, with grace and dignity. Christmas Eve was kept en famille; but for New Year's Eve Baron Vrevsky invited some thirty gueststo his house. As midnight approached, champagne was served round, and in silence and with uplifted glasses we awaited the striking of the clock. As the New Year came in, the words 5' novom godom (A Happy New Year to You ) were spoken to right and to left by each ...