I found my fellow-travellers, and we proceeded together to rejoin the karavan, now five leagues distant. The day was intensely hot; but, happily, here and there we came, in spite of the sandiness of the land, upon Kirghis' tents, and I had only to approach one of them for the women to make their appearance with their skins, when a regular squabble arose amongst them if I did not accept a drink from everyone. To quicken thus a thirsty traveller in the heat of summer, is regarded as the supreme degree of hospitality, and you confer a kindness upon a Kirghis when you give him an occasion to carry out its laws. The karavan was waiting our arrival with the greatest impatience: they were upon the point of starting, as henceforth we began to march only by night, a great solace both {152} for us and for the cattle. Immediately upon our coming up the move began, and bewitching was the view by the clear moonlight of the karavan winding onwards, the Oxus rolling with a dull sound on our right, and the fearful desert of Tartary on our left. The next morning we encamped on an elevated bank of the same river. The district there bears the name of Töyeboyun (camel's neck), probably from the curves described by the bank: it is inhabited in certain months of the year by Kirghis. In an interval of ten hours I saw in our neighbourhood three families of them, who in turn remained near us, but at most only three hours, when they moved on further. Nothing could give me a more vivid picture of nomadic life; and when I afterwards questioned a Kirghis woman respecting this unsettled mode of existence, she answered, laughingly, 'We shall, I am certain, never be so indolent as you Mollahs, and remain sitting days and days in one place! Man must keep moving; for, behold, sun, moon, stars, water, beast, bird, fish, all are in movement; it is but the dead and the earth that remain in their place!' I was upon the point of making many objections to the philosophy of this nomadic lady, when a cry was heard from a distance, in which I could distinguish the word Büri! Büri! (the wolf, the wolf). She hurried like lightning to the herd that was grazing afar off, and her shouting had such an effect that this time the wolf contented himself with the fat tail of a sheep, and with it took to his heels. I felt very disposed to ask her, as she returned, what advantages resulted from the wolf keeping 'moving,' but she was too much troubled by the loss she had sustained, and I returned to the karavan. {153}