Entrance to a mosque in the vicinity of Kashgar.
where household utensils etc. are kept. The cattle are few in number and poorly cared for. A horse or donkey as a means of conveyance, a cow and a few sheep — a Sart peasant seldom has more. He keeps his cattle out-of-doors all the year round and gives them too little fodder. Milk products in the form of skimmed milk, sweet and sour, and thick, slightly sour cream are sold and consumed for preference. In both cases their cleanliness is doubtful. The food of the Sart consists of a kind of wheaten bread mixed with chopped onions and mutton fat in various forms, and tea. Weak meat soup, shashlyk and especially pälaw are accounted delicacies Vegetables and fruit are consumed in quantities and are often almost the only food of the people. Tea-houses where the events of the day are discussed over several cups of weak tea without sugar, are less numerous here, though as largely frequented as in Russian Turkestan. A large number of evil-smelling kitchens prevent the rural population from dying of starvation. The commonest dishes are pälaw, meat soup and small pies filled with chopped vegetables, meat and a lot of onion. All the food reeks of onion.
Education and spiritual life are at an extremely low level. In the schools nothing but reading and writing, parts of the Koran and religious poetry are taught. The curriculum in the higher schools, the so-called »madresse», does not differ from that of the lower schools except in a more extended study of the Koran and a little physical geography The height of education is the knowledge of the whole Koran by heart. Among the »educated» Mohammedans this is by no means rare and such proof of education always ensures its possessor great respect among the population. No books but the Koran circulate among the people and it is only quite recently that a few Sarts have begun to take in Turkish or Persian newspapers. Bazaar gossip, however, is so developed that news spreads like wildfire from town to town, if not as rapidly as by telegraph, at any rate as surely. The wandering mendicants, »maddakh», are a factor in spiritual life worth noting, telling with feeling in the streets and squares of the splendour of great historic events of bygone days and captivat-
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