other important members of the little community followed.  They were all swarthy in colour, and had the small eyes and prominent cheek-bones which are characteristic of the Tartar races, but they had little of that flatness of countenance and peculiar ugliness which distinguish the pure Mongol.  All of them, with the exception of the mullah, spoke a little Russian, and used it to assure us that we were welcome.  The children remained respectfully in the background, and the women, with laces veiled, eyed us furtively from the doors of the tents.

     * I presume this is the same word as akhund, well known on
     the Northwest frontier of India, where it was applied
     specially to the late ruler of Svat.

The aoul consisted of about twenty tents, all constructed on the same model, and scattered about in sporadic fashion, without the least regard to symmetry.  Close by was a watercourse, which appears on some maps as a river, under the name of Karalyk, but which was at that time merely a succession of pools containing a dark-coloured liquid.  As we more than suspected that these pools supplied the inhabitants with water for culinary purposes, the sight was not calculated to whet our appetites.  We turned away therefore hurriedly, and for want of something better to do we watched the preparations for dinner.  These were decidedly primitive.  A sheep was brought near the door of our tent, and there killed, skinned, cut up into pieces, and put into an immense pot, under which a fire had been kindled.

The dinner itself was not less primitive than the manner of preparing it.  The table consisted of a large napkin spread in the middle of the tent, and the chairs were represented by cushions, on which we sat cross-legged.  There were no plates, knives, forks, spoons, or chopsticks.  Guests were expected all to eat out of a common wooden bowl, and to use the instruments with which Nature had provided them.  The service was performed by the host and his son.  The fare was copious, but not varied—­consisting entirely of boiled mutton, without bread or other substitute, and a little salted horse-flesh thrown in as an entree.

To eat out of the same dish with half-a-dozen Mahometans who accept their Prophet’s injunction about ablutions in a highly figurative sense, and who are totally unacquainted with the use of forks and spoons, is not an agreeable operation, even if one is not much troubled with religious prejudices; but with these Bashkirs something worse than this has to be encountered, for their favourite method of expressing their esteem and affection for one with whom they are eating consists in putting bits of mutton, and sometimes even handfuls of hashed meat, into his month!  When I discovered this unexpected peculiarity in Bashkir manners and customs, I almost regretted that I had made a favourable impression upon my new acquaintances.