two
o'clock in the afternoon
These Mongols are as close as a safe , and when you have not the word it is difficult to open them . The train is running at high speed . In the ordinary service , when it stops at the eleven stations between Bokhara and Samarkand , it takes a whole day over the distance . This time it took but three hours to cover the two hundred kilometres which separate the two towns , and at two o'clock in the afternoon it entered the illustrious city of Tamerlane . Samarkand is situated in the rich oasis watered by the Zarafchane in the valley of Sogd . A small pamphlet I bought at the railway station informs me that this great city is one of the four sites in which geographers `` agree '' to place the terrestrial paradise . I leave this discussion to the exegetists of the profession .