178 THE PULSE OF ASIA
diminution of the water supply appears to be that the climate has changed.
It is proverbially unsafe to place much reliance upon legends. Students, however, are more and more recognizing that legendary stories contain a kernel of truth, which can be detected by comparing scientific facts with those details of the stories which would be least likely to be the product of imagination. Therefore the local legend of the destruction of Kenan or Ulugh Mazar is worth recording. According to Ismail Beg and the people of Malakalagan, a holy Mohammedan priest came to Kenan one day, long after the driving out of the former Buddhist inhabitants, and found no one at home. Men, women, and children had all gone out to work on the canals. The holy man was hungry and tired. Being accustomed to live on the fat of the land, he was irritated at finding the houses shut and empty. He offered a prayer, which can hardly be supposed to have been pious, and began to turn a hand-mill standing in a courtyard, whereupon sand rained down from heaven. It ceased to fall when the troubled villagers, having seen it from afar, came hastening home and supplied the good man's wants. Nevertheless, the visitation proved fatal. From that time onward the water supply decreased, until at last the people of both Lachinata and Kenan abandoned their houses and fields, and moved to old Dumuka and Ponak, which had remained uninhabited since the Buddhist inhabitants fled northward across the desert. A similar legend is found in many other places in Turkestan, apparently because similar events occurred. The rain of sand is often spoken of as if it were the cause of the abandonment
IIIF Color HighRes
