2i8 
THROUGH ASIA 
insuperable obstacles to progress. The flanks of the 
mountain were sheathed in ice as bright and smooth 
as glass. On them and on the summit storms roared 
without cessation ; and if I were so venturesome as to 
defy the giant, he would bid the winds sweep me away 
like a grain of sand. 
But Mus-tagh-ata is truly a magnificent mountain. 
Whenever the Kirghiz pass it, or first catch sight of 
it in the course of a journey, they fall upon their knees 
and say their prayers. They declare that it is the abode 
of three score and ten saints. Nay, they assert that it is 
one gigantic masar or burial-mound of saints. Within 
its interior dwell amongst others the souls of Moses 
and Ali, the son-in-law and nephew of the prophet 
Mohammed. When Ali lay at the point of death, he 
prophesied to those about him, that as soon as the 
breath was gone out of his body, a white camel would 
come down from heaven and carry him away. As he 
said, so it came to pass. When he was dead, the white 
camel appeared, took the holy man on its back, and 
hastened with him to Mus-tagh-ata. The Kirghiz are 
firmly convinced that Moses’ soul also abides in that 
mountain ; and for that reason they sometimes call it 
Hazrett-i-Musa or the Holy Moses. 
The Kirghiz of Su-bashi told me this story about the 
holy mountain. Many hundred years ago an aged ishan 
(holy man) went up the mountain by himself. And 
when he came a certain way up it, he found a lake 
and a little stream, with a white camel grazing on the 
shore. There was also a large garden planted with 
plum-trees, and under the plum-trees there walked to 
and fro a number of venerable old men dressed in 
white garments. The holy man plucked some of the 
fruit and ate it. Then came one of the venerable 
inhabitants of the garden, and said to him, that it was 
well he had done so ; for if he had despised the fruit, 
as all those aged men had done, he would have been 
condemned like them to stay on the mountain, walking 
up and down the garden, to the end of time. Then 
