832 
THROUGH ASIA 
he was changed to a divaneh (dervish), and was bidden 
go to Hazrett Ibraham (the Patriarch Abraham), and ask 
that he would give him, a poor man, animals from his 
flocks and herds. For twenty days Abraham gave the 
dervish a thousand animals daily, the first day sheep, the 
second day goats, then yaks, horses, camels, and so forth. 
Then God asked the dervish, if Abraham had fulfilled 
his request ; and the dervish answered, that Abraham had 
given him all that he possessed, so that he was now a poor 
man. Then God ordered the dervi.sh to give all the 
animals back to Abraham ; but the latter hesitated to take 
them, saying that what he had once given he would not 
take back. The dervish carried Abraham’s answer to 
God ; and God commanded all the animals to be homeless, 
and to wander about the earth without an owner, and any 
man that was so minded might freely take them and kill 
them. Then the sheep became arkharis (wild sheep), the 
goats tekkes, kiyik, and maral ; the yaks fled to the 
mountains and became wild yaks ; the horses were changed 
to khulans (wild asses) ; and the camels sought refuge in 
the desert. 
On February iith we marched through a Transitional 
region, in which the river-beds became less distinct, the 
forest gradually ceased, the tamarisks grew rarer, and the 
sand higher, although as yet it did not cause us any 
difficulty. Every now and again we sighted a solitary 
poplar growing along the line of the river - bed, now 
however choked with sand, while between them stood 
rows of dead tree-trunks as brittle as glass. 
Over country of this description we pushed on all day. 
The tracks of the wild camel were now so common that 
we no longer paid any attention to them. In the after- 
noon we reached a tract where the old bed of the river 
was more easily distinguishable and the tamarisks more 
abundant than in other places. 
Kasim, who always went on ahead with his gun over 
his shoulder, looking for the best road, stopped all of a 
sudden, as though he had been struck by lightning, and 
crouching down like a cat, signed to us to stop. Then 
