19. Ever does the mighty sea rage and roar and mount with fury from the deep abyss.
20. Wild cries of creatures break out together, you would think it was the day of Resurrection.
21. In frightful hurly-burly one ship runs into the other; they split, and sink to the bottom of the sea.
22. The yards break, the planks fall in pieces, no possibility of escape.
23. Those hundred ships, said the tale-teller; that crew, those possessions,
24. All was wrecked on the sea coast, not a trace remained behind on the surface of the waters."
Wide as the territory of Turkestan-Proper extends, so far does the literature of which we have tried to give a slight sketch in the foregoing pages. And the further we betake ourselves from the frontiers into the desert, so in like manner does Islam become weaker, and here commences the change from Mohamedan civilisation into the old Shamanism. Among the Kirghis, notwithstanding the greater part of them profess Islam, one meets here and there with a tale which was generated in the Khanats; this, however, is looked upon as an exotic plant, and never preferred to the native. The popular poetry that one finds among them forms the point of transition from the currents of ideas of one society into another. Indeed, only two days' distance from the borders of the Yaxartes, or northward from the Sea of Aral, may a bakhshi prosper, provided he can give in the best fashion tales or narratives of a purely Kirghis character. The poetry of the wild inhabitants of the steppe is more strange and odd than pretty. Here and there a happy image occurs, at other times there are only broken exclamations and solitary verses without the smallest connection. Since each person is a poet, a tale cannot long preserve its originality, either they add something new to it or cast the whole off, and few people can keep themselves from annexing to their songs the momentary influence of their fantasy. Of the love-lays of the Kirghis, Lewschine has introduced a short poem, not without charm, in his book, p. 380:—
"Dost thou see this snow? The body of my loved one is whiter still."
"Dost thou see the dropping blood of the slain lamb? Her cheeks are redder still."
"Dost thou see the trunk of this burnt tree? Her hair is blacker still."