They discussed the pros and cons of the serious events which
were taking place beyond the Ural, and those merchants seemed
to fear lest the government should be led to take certain
restrictive measures, especially in the provinces bordering on
the frontier--measures from which trade would certainly suffer.
They apparently thought only of the struggle from the single
point of view of their threatened interests. The presence
of a private soldier, clad in his uniform--and the importance
of a uniform in Russia is great--would have certainly been enough
to restrain the merchants' tongues. But in the compartment occupied
by Michael Strogoff, there was no one who seemed a military man,
and the Czar's courier was not the person to betray himself.
He listened, then.

"They say that caravan teas are up," remarked a Persian,
known by his cap of Astrakhan fur, and his ample brown robe,
worn threadbare by use.

"Oh, there's no fear of teas falling," answered an old Jew
of sullen aspect. "Those in the market at Nijni-Novgorod will
be easily cleared off by the West; but, unfortunately, it won't
be the same with Bokhara carpets."

"What! are you expecting goods from Bokhara?" asked the Persian.

"No, but from Samarcand, and that is even more exposed.
The idea of reckoning on the exports of a country in which the khans
are in a state of revolt from Khiva to the Chinese frontier!"