A Quaint Legend. 



en route, and there the son desired to visit his fiancee, who hved 

 in an aul by the lake. The father granted permission but warned 

 the son not to tarry the night there since the marriage portion 

 liad not been handed over, or the negotiations ratified. But 

 the son, enamoured of the lady, paid no heed to his father's 

 commands and remained there till dawn. When he returned 

 and endeavoured to take up his portion of the load all his 

 efforts proved futile, so the father divined the waywardness of 

 his son. He therefore directed him to stand beneath the 

 mountain, and, once in that position, released his hold, with the 

 result that the mountain fell and both were entombed. The 

 mother mourned many days for the lost ones, finally setting out 

 in search of them, in the end discovering the mountain beneath 

 which the two were buried. She wept bitterly, shedding tears 

 of blood in her anguish, and when these ceased to flow tears 

 of crystal succeeded them. The mountain in question, com- 

 posed of argil, crystal, and quartz, stands to the south of the 

 Zaisan Lake, and its appearance lends colour to this curious 

 tradition of the nomad Kirghiz. 



Throughout the 8th I drove on at great speed, at lo o'clock 

 that night reaching the little town of Kokbekti, 240 versts 

 from Zaisan. The post-house was a fairly substantial one as 

 they go in Siberia. I had rather an interesting adventure there 

 which deserves recording. Wishing to change some photo- 

 graphic plates I entered one of the rooms and transformed 

 it into an impromptu dark room by closing the door and 

 drawing sundry curtains. Whilst in the midst of operations 

 I was startled by shrieks from the corner of the room, and then 

 discovered I had penetrated the bedroom of an ancient dame, 

 who, to judge from her protestations, must have thought I was on 

 burglary bent or some other equally undesirable errand. Photo- 

 graphic operations were consequently postponed indefinitely. 



The great feature of a post-house is the ever-prominent 

 samovar, a brass urn with a chimney down the centre, the space 

 beneath being filled with a charcoal fire. The teapot contains a 



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