In a few minutes Abdullah appeared, with a big, half-picked bone in his hand, and the lower part of his face besmeared with grease.  He was a short, thin man, with a dark, sallow complexion, and a look of premature old age; but the suppressed smile that played about his mouth and a tremulous movement of his right eye-lid showed plainly that he had not yet forgotten the fun and frolic of youth.  His dress was of richer and more gaudy material, but at the same time more tawdry and tattered, than that of the others.  Altogether he looked like an artiste in distressed circumstances, and such he really was.  At a word and a sign from the host he laid aside his bone and drew from under his green silk khalat a small wind-instrument resembling a flute or flageolet.  On this he played a number of native airs.  The first melodies which he played reminded me of a Highland pibroch—­at one moment low, solemn, and plaintive, then gradually rising into a soul-stirring, martial strain, and again descending to a plaintive wail.  The amount of expression which he put into his simple instrument was truly marvellous.  Then, passing suddenly from grave to gay, he played a series of light, merry airs, and some of the younger onlookers got up and performed a dance as boisterous and ungraceful as an Irish jig.

This Abdullah turned out to be for me a most valuable acquaintance.  He was a kind of Bashkir troubadour, well acquainted not only with the music, but also with the traditions, the history, the superstitions, and the folk-lore of his people.  By the akhun and the mullah he was regarded as a frivolous, worthless fellow, who had no regular, respectable means of gaining a livelihood, but among the men of less rigid principles he was a general favourite.  As he spoke Russian fluently I could converse with him freely without the aid of an interpreter, and he willingly placed his store of knowledge at my disposal.  When in the company of the akhun he was always solemn and taciturn, but as soon as he was relieved of that dignitary’s presence he became lively and communicative.

Another of my new acquaintances was equally useful to me in another way.  This was Mehemet Zian, who was not so intelligent as Abdullah, but much more sympathetic.  In his open, honest face, and kindly, unaffected manner there was something so irresistibly attractive that before I had known him twenty-four hours a sort of friendship had sprung up between us.  He was a tall, muscular, broad-shouldered man, with features that suggested a mixture of European blood.  Though already past middle age, he was still wiry and active—­so active that he could, when on horseback, pick a stone off the ground without dismounting.  He could, however, no longer perform this feat at full gallop, as he had been wont to do in his youth.  His geographical knowledge was extremely limited and inaccurate—­his mind being in this respect like those old Russian maps in which the nations of the earth and a good many peoples who