After a fortunate adventure the marauder, however tired and hungry he may be, will listen in the open street with real delight to the bakhshi (troubadour), who comes to meet him. Returning home from a foray, or other heroic deed, the young warriors are in the habit of amusing themselves throughout the night with poetry and music. In the desert, where man is either ignorant of the luxuries of life, or does without them, it is, nevertheless, that the bakhshi is very seldom wanting, and besides, that the latter are found in great numbers, going about to exercise their art. The nomads have the habit of amusing themselves with poetic games. As people regard in company the happy finding of a rhyme or cadence as indispensable to education, the young nomad girl will also, say, give the preference to him who would answer her question in a verse with happy rhymes. The poetry of the Œzbegs consists first of narratives, which either appeal to religious life or famous heroic deeds. The first are composed by the Mullah world, or by the more polished bakhshis, after Arabic or Persian sources, and adapted to native taste,--the last are genuine Tartar compositions, in which there are not wanting at times both glowing language and good metaphors. These tales of heroic exploits, which are similar to our romances, begin already to be of even greater extent, and are often recited or sung many evenings together, and although Islam plays here and there a conspicuous part, nevertheless those pieces are preferred in which home-heroes figure on well-known historic fields. Of these last-named compositions, one much esteemed in Central Asia may serve as a specimen. It bears as its title "AHMED AND YUSUF," And is the history of two sons of heroes, who, after their country's fashion, even in early youth undertake a tchapao or razzia against heretical Iran, in which the leading motive is not so much the thirst for spoil as the chastisement of the unbelieving Shiites. Just at the beginning Yusuf harangues his heroes ready for the foray in the following fashion:--