Hospitality in Turkestan is " religion. Doors are never locked and no one knock: The socially inclined wander in and out of half the houses in the town in the course of the day, drink tea and gossip. smoke and sing, eat, if a meal is in progress, and wander aimlessly in the streets if no one is at home. One goes to the cating houses to gorge meat balls and raisins, and drink wine in violation of Moslem law and the prince's edicts. There is gossip and song there. Then one strolls into the reception room behind some big shop and sits cross-legged before a public samovar to hear more gossip and song; and at night, everyone! who smokes hashish drops in to sce Rozi Abun, the confirmed hashish smoker, and have a draw at his gourd and more gossip.
A Turki room 1s comfortably carpeted and frequently the walls ure padded to afford ease tu the back, but there is no other furniture than a low table, about eight inches high and, in winter, a brasier, or "fire basin" as the Chinese call it. The guest strolls in, kicks off his shoes, drops on his knees and offers a prayer with upturned palms, Then he rises hastily and greets the inmates of the room, who insist clamorously that take place on the best rug at the top of the apartment. His go ing is not so ceremony but a second visit within the hour would entail a similar prayer and greeting.
Even in the home of Shah Akhmet, the Nogai, the white Turk, where the criterions of wealth, piety and learning sat together and talked 12 hours a day on terms of the closest intimacy, the ceremonies were observed. There one met the Kari, a modernized product of Stamboul, Mohamet Ah Effendi, who was once a Turkish officer and knew Gordon in the Sudan, Shakhai, the one-eyed Arab from Jappa who lived on charity and could recite the Koran from cover to cover, Kasim Taranchi, venerable as Michael Angelo's Moses, but the keenest wit in Turkestan and the best story-teller in Chinese, Turkish, Mongol. Manchu or Russian whom one could meet in Asia.
There were Kazzaks from the Altai, shepherd princes with whom Shah' Akhmet did profitable business in wool and furs, there were clan chiefs from the Barkul mountains, scions of the old Uigur, and foppish buyers from Tashkend and Samarkand, who knew world poli tics and had their newspapers forwarded to, them.
There were days when we sat all day round the samovar and talked, and there were days when we, the aristocracy of Kumul, repaired to the Chinese theatre in a body snd laughed at the plays we did not understand. But a real outing was picnic in a garden. A garden may be an elaborate bit of tand-scape artistry or merely a beside 2 brook, but whatever it is, it is beautiful to the Turki. If he sings of beautiful women, he places them in gardens. If the heroes of his epics relax and refresh themselves, they recline in gardens. My companion Yussuf talked in superlatives of his native Kashgar—"the most beautiful, the richest, the most gorgeous, the most fragrant city on earth," and when questioned about its definite merits he could only exclaim "Ah! the gardens!"
So our wildest orgy in Kumul was a mounted pilgrimage to a garden where a cloth was spread on the sod, tea wae brewed and bread broken beside some little brook, while Kasim Taranchi kept us gaping with stories of the magic world in the Taklamakan where n whole kingdom lies hidden to mortal ken and stupendous mirage cities are made tangible to those whom the magicians of the realm favour.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.