"Rorthwith 1 was led to a building which I was admitted after numerous locks had been opened. Then from a locked cupboard taken a cloth-bound pare! from which the two leather-bound vol-Umes were produced, I was not allow: Jed to touch them but T had with mo Moslem who could read Arabic Bently and who jus having attend, fed the prayers at the mosque, was Cevemonially clean, With great rev= rence he kissed the sacred volumes Some pages were missing Teginuing of the first volume. bul, otherwise, both books seemed to be {nan excellent state of preserva~ Hone The Salary have a continuous tin broken record. covering a. period of 630 years during which these 'Saeed books have been in their Sseasion in the locality of their gh font settlement, It wns a weird experience to be present in that toom with thee Turkish deseend~ fants' of Samarkand origin and 10 eas, Upon theaptieauted. volumes fen fad been the centre piece of poke elgious and sel ile residence in a strange land."
ough years, of wandering.
"With almost hesitating anxiety. 1 proffered a request to be allowed to" photograph the books. By this ime such friendly relationships had been established that my arguments favour of being allowed to take stares of the sacred volumes, were listened to. Eventually, after a good deal of discussion I was per-Titted to have the sacred books placed on a table near the door and Ehere to take a couple of exposures.
The mullah who was detailed ito hold the precious volumes," sai Mr. Findlay Andrew, "had' strict regard to the Koran's prohibition of human lkapesses and it, will be noted in the picture that he over came the difficulty by, hiding his features behind the books." entury when. they were. expelled from Samarkand by their ruler, a descendant of the Prophet, for hele freebooting activities which made, them nuisance to, their neighbours. They" are unintelligible ocreligioniats speaking Turkish dialect and. only, in recent years has Chinese been adopted but this very few speak well.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.