The best city on the desert caravan routes is the walled citadel of Bukhara.
It is even hotter here than Samarkand.  However, the Musselmen who inhabit
this place are very clever.  They build canals and ponds to cool the city
and even plant trees.  The buildings are low because, they say, the earth is
uncertain here and shakes at times.  Outside all is white washed and
blinding at midday, though pleasant enough before dawn and after sunset.
They have no wood, but build of mudbrick, white washed.   All the important
buildings are stone or brick-- the Citadel, Tower, caravansarai and markets.
Storks, which feed on frogs and fishes in the canals and pools, build nests
in the trees and on the buildings.  They are deemed a sign of good luck

The markets are the jewels of Bukhara.  The ruler rebuilt three new markets
with stone vaulting, named for the moneychangers, jewelers and hat makers.
There are also a large spice and slave markets here.   The people of the city are
very diverse- mainly Musselmen, but also Nestorian Christians, idol
worshippers from far India, fire worshippers and Jews.  Caravans rest and
recover here on their long journeys.  There are secure rooms and compounds
to store goods and protect horses and camels of travelers.  It is the
quality and security of these caravansarai to which Bukhara owes its wealth
and fame.  The evenings are very fine when breezes arise from the waters.
Then there is music and dance, roast lamb and mutton, large round breads,
yogurt and large pots of "plov"-- a feast meal of the grain rice and
vegetables.  They have a wonderful and monstrous fruit, being up to the size
of a two-year old child, called melon, with delicate flesh.  Sadly, they
have nothing whatsoever in the way of meads or beers.

Bukhara is home to many saints of the Musselman religion.  It is a center
for their priests and has many open courtyard monasteries, which they call
medressas.  Here there are great number of scholars, calligraphers and
bookbinders.  Indeed their drawings are most wonderful,
though the script is completely illegible.  They have a material we do not
have for their manuscripts and scrolls said not to be vellum, but I could
not understand what this material was nor how it was made.  They have
many wise men who watch the stars and are said to foretell events by this
method.  The city is such a center of learning throughout the land it is said,
"Elsewhere light radiates from heaven unto earth, in holy Bukhara it radiates
 upwards to illuminate heaven."

It is something of a miracle that the city survives at all.  Ghengis Khan
himself besieged and stormed this place not more than two generations ago.
It is said of the battle,

"The forces of Ghengis Khan proceeded to encamp before the citadel
and his troops were more numerous than ants or locusts, being a
multitude beyond estimation or computation.  Detachment after
detachment arrived each like a billowing sea, and encamped round the
town.  At sunrise an army of 20,000 defenders issued form the citadel.
The Mongol army fell upon them and left no trace of them.  Wise men
say that when it is impossible to flee from destruction in any manner, then
patience is the best and wisest course.  On the morning of the following
day when from the reflection of the sun the plain seemed to be a tray
filled with blood, the people of Bukhara opened the gates and closed
the door to strife and battle.”

Ghengis Khan then entered the city and stabled his horses in the mosque.
That he spared much of the citadel and especially the tower is another tale
worth telling.  Kalon Minaret, the name meaing Great Tower is one of the
wonders of the world.  It is, without doubt the tallest building in the world
east of Saint Sophia's in Constantinople.  One can climb the long dark spiral
stair to its summit and from there look out and see caravans approaching,
even more than a day's journey distant.  After the Mongol Horde took the
city Ghengis Khan rode in to inspect it.  Being close to the tower, he looked up
craning to see its apex.  Thus looking his hat fell off.  He had to dismount and
bent to retrieve his hat.    Then he said, "As this tower has done what no man
could, in making me bow before it, I will spare it."  And he did.