[583] The weapons were a long flintlock, laboriously loaded with the contents of a powder-horn and leather bullet bag, but the Tekke trusted chiefly to his sabre and a long murderous dagger, called _pshak_ (Moser, p. 296). [584] Moser, p. 324. [585] _Ibid._ p. 300. [586] Moser, p. 247. [587] _Ibid._ p. 320. [588] _Ibid._; also O’Donovan, p. 298. [589] O’Donovan, p. 297. The training consisted in a gradual reduction of the rations of food and water. Dry lucern gave place to chopped straw; barley and juwārī (_sorghum_), to a mixture of flour and matter-fat. [590] Moser, p. 322. It is remarkable that the Tekke seat is precisely the same as that in use among the nomads of the Mongolian plateau north of the Great Wall, who, according to Mr. E. H. Parker in a letter addressed to the _Pall Mall Gazette_, “always ride with very short stirrups, the knee bent forward almost to the withers, the reins grasped short, and (when there is any speed) the body well over the horse’s neck. Possibly this is the reason why the Mongol saddle always has a high peak, for it prevents the rider being chucked over the horse’s neck.” This method is also identical with that adopted by the jockey Tod Sloan. [591] The felt blankets were worked by the cavaliers’ women-folk. “The finer the courser’s felt,” ran a Turkoman proverb, “the greater the love of the maker for the horseman” (Moser, p. 331). [592] Moser, p. 274. [593] _Ibid._ p. 319. [594] See chapter iv. of Marvin’s _Merv_, which is a translation of Petrusevitch’s account of the Turkomans. [595] “The eyes of a cat, with the extremity raised towards the temple” (Ney, _En Asie Centrale_, p. 193). [596] A Turkoman, while travelling in the desert with Wolff, said, “I smell a caravan of Uzbegs”; and in a few hours one was met with. They can hear conversation at a great distance by flinging themselves on the ground and listening intently (Wolff, _Bokhara_, p. 242). They can name the tribe and even the individual cavalier by his traces on the sand (Moser, p. 300). [597] “The Tekke is the only woman in Central Asia who knows how to walk. Nothing is more graceful than a girl of this race going to fetch water from a well and carrying the tall amphora on her shoulder.” (Moser, p. 330). [598] O’Donovan, p. 193. [599] Moser, p. 330. [600] O’Donovan, p. 254. [601] It is generally admitted that these rules are slowly evolved by the community to which the individual who adopts them belongs. There are some still amongst us who looked with complacency at the cruelties once perpetrated in this Christian country in the name of justice. We see our own manners at earlier stages of our growth reflected in those of contemporary savages. [602] Pilaw, a dish which has now spread over the Eastern world, had its origin in Central Asia. It is a stew composed of hot mutton-fat into which meat has been shredded, carrots and rice, and, cooked as only a Turkoman knows how to prepare it, is a dish fit for a royal table.