[Illustration: COURT-YARD OF A HOUSE IN SAMARKAND]
The policy with which Nasrullah inaugurated his reign partook of the ingrained cunning which was his chief characteristic. He seemed to prefer amusements to affairs of state, and thus induced the Kushbegi to believe that his own lease of power would be indefinitely prolonged. Meantime no occasion was lost of strengthening his hold on the lower classes by acts of apparent generosity and justice. The motto on his seal was that adopted by the noble-hearted Tīmūr, whom he affected to regard as his prototype. It was “Truth and Equity”![492] When he felt himself strong enough to throw off the mask, he banished his benefactor to Karshī, and afterwards to Samarkand. Ayāz Topchi-bāshi’s suspicions were lulled by ardent asseverations of friendship, lest he should make away with the vast possessions which Nasrullah had long marked as his own. He summoned the old man to his presence, gave him a beautiful horse, and aided him to vault into the saddle with his own royal hands.[493] The victim set out for Samarkand, of which he had been appointed governor, in the assurance that he had not participated in his son-in-law’s disgrace; but he was soon ordered back to Bokhārā, and thrown into prison with the Kushbegi. To Nasrullah’s eternal disgrace, he put both of these early friends to death in the spring of 1840. Then he turned his attention to the military class, which had attained preponderance in an empire won and kept together by the sword. They were butchered in large numbers without any form of trial, or banished to a distance from the capital. The clergy had been permitted by his bigoted predecessor to meddle in the affairs of state, and even the warrior-prince Ma´sūm had not ventured to thwart them. Nasrullah overturned their authority, and substituted his royal commands for the hitherto sacred injunctions of law and custom.[494]
His evil passions gained a complete mastery as he grew older. He gave full rein to the foulest lust, and neither rank nor sex were sacred in his eyes. His temper became utterly ungovernable. “When angry,” writes one who knew him well,[495] “the blood comes into his face and creates a convulsive action of his muscles; and in such fits he gives the most outrageous orders, reckless of consequences.” These spells of madness alternated with periods when he became a prey to the wildest suspicion. To gratify it, an army of spies was maintained, who were paid to report the most trivial words of those whom he believed to be disaffected.[496]