When a reading of the Koran absorbed the whole time and attention of my learned friends, I stroll led into the house of Ammet the cobbler, or Abadil the gambler, handsome, genial fellows who always had time to play the Persian jdular and sing me sprightly songs of outlaws who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, Turkish Robin Hoods, or the endless wailing epics of Yussuf Akhmet the Kerghiz, and his endless adventures.
The Kumul men are big and handsome with bushy black beards and deep-set sparkling ey They consume enormous quantities of mutton, ride as well as their Mongo} cousins and are phenomenally strong. I once saw a strapping young coal merchant stagger into an eating house with a tremendous sack of coal on his back and heave it into a corn:
"There," said be, to the Chinese for "are your 700 catties."" Of all the races which meet and mingle in the heart of Asia, the Afghans are the most despised. A certain Abdul, unctious and obser qui ous, lived in Kumul and called on me frequently. I noted that my Turki friends always covered or sat on everything portable when he appeared and this peculiar conduct was afterwards explained by the disappearance of certain minor articles and of an expired passport. Yussuf took it upon himself to avenge these outrages and con-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.