SHRINE OF ORDAN PADSHAH 465 
insignificant village of Lengher (the Rest-Station). There 
a dervish resides during the great annual religious festivals, 
to take charge of the pilgrims’ horses, which are left to 
graze on the grass and kamish which abound in the 
neighbourhood. He also sells maize to the pilgrims, and 
supplies the shrine with fuel. Beyond this place the sand- 
dunes were fairly continuous ; but as they ran south-south- 
west to north-north-east, and we were riding south-south- 
west, we were generally able to take advantage of the 
intervening hollows, where the soil was hard clay. 
An hour’s ride short of the shrine we caught up a party 
of forty-five pilgrims, men, women, and children, who were 
on their way thither from Lengher to pray at the tomb of 
the saint. Fifteen of the men carried tughs, t.e. long sticks 
with white and coloured pennons fluttering from the ends. 
At the head of the procession rode a flute-player, and on 
each side of him was a man banging away at a drum as 
hard as hands and arms could move. Every now and then 
the whole concourse shouted “ Allah ! " at the full pitch of 
their voices. When they drew near to the shrine, they 
greeted the sheikh who had charge of it with wild howls of 
“ Allah ! Allah ! ” while the standard-bearers performed a 
religious dance. 
It was dusk when we reached the khanekah (prayer- 
house) adjoining the shrine, and standing in a village of 
twenty-five households. Most of the people only sojourn 
there for a short time ; but four families remain the whole 
year round to take care of the saint’s tomb. The principal 
sheikh, who also has control over the Hazrett Begim s 
tomb, was for the time being absent at Yanghi-hissar. 
He constantly travels backwards and forwards between 
the two shrines, spending some time at each, and for 
this reason has a wife at each. One of the resident 
custodians informed me, that every winter 10,000 to 12,000 
pilgrims visit the shrine of Ordan Padshah ; but in the 
summer there are usually not more than 5000, as at that 
season of the year the heat and scarcity of water render 
travelling irksome. The pilgrims who came from Lengher 
at the same time we did brought with them two sacks of 
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