had never more than a mythical existence are jumbled together in hopeless confusion—­but his geographical curiosity was insatiable.  My travelling-map—­the first thing of the kind he had ever seen—­interested him deeply.  When he found that by simply examining it and glancing at my compass I could tell him the direction and distance of places he knew, his face was like that of a child who sees for the first time a conjuror’s performance; and when I explained the trick to him, and taught him to calculate the distance to Bokhara—­the sacred city of the Mussulmans of that region—­his delight was unbounded.  Gradually I perceived that to possess such a map had become the great object of his ambition.  Unfortunately I could not at once gratify him as I should have wished, because I had a long journey before me and I had no other map of the region, but I promised to find ways and means of sending him one, and I kept my word by means of a native of the Karalyk district whom I discovered in Samara.  I did not add a compass because I could not find one in the town, and it would have been of little use to him:  like a true child of nature he always knew the cardinal points by the sun or the stars.  Some years later I had the satisfaction of learning that the map had reached its destination safely, through no less a personage than Count Tolstoy.  One evening at the home of a friend in Moscow I was presented to the great novelist, and as soon as he heard my name he said:  “Oh!  I know you already, and I know your friend Mehemet Zian.  When I passed a night this summer in his aoul he showed me a map with your signature on the margin, and taught me how to calculate the distance to Bokhara!”

If Mehemet knew little of foreign countries he was thoroughly well acquainted with his own, and repaid me most liberally for my elementary lessons in geography.  With him I visited the neighbouring aouls.  In all of them he had numerous acquaintances, and everywhere we were received with the greatest hospitality, except on one occasion when we paid a visit of ceremony to a famous robber who was the terror of the whole neighbourhood.  Certainly he was one of the most brutalised specimens of humanity I have ever encountered.  He made no attempt to be amiable, and I felt inclined to leave his tent at once; but I saw that my friend wanted to conciliate him, so I restrained my feelings and eventually established tolerably good relations with him.  As a rule I avoided festivities, partly because I knew that my hosts were mostly poor and would not accept payment for the slaughtered sheep, and partly because I had reason to apprehend that they would express to me their esteem and affection more Bashkirico; but in kumyss-drinking, the ordinary occupation of these people when they have nothing to do, I had to indulge to a most inordinate extent.  On these expeditions Abdullah generally accompanied us, and rendered valuable service as interpreter and troubadour.  Mehemet could express himself in Russian,