B872 <=> B874 [BTG XLI The bokharian dervish, p. 873]

“Having no special business in that town where we then happened to be, and as his friend resided just among those mountains the nature of which I had long intended to see, I at once agreed and on the very next day we set off.

“From that town where we were, we walked three days.

“Finally high up in the mountains of Upper Bokhara, we stopped at a small gorge.

“This part of ‘Bokhara’ is called ‘Upper’ because it is very mountainous and much higher than that part of Bokhara which, to distinguish it, is called ‘Lower Bokhara.’

“At the said gorge my acquaintance the dervish Hadji-Zephir-Bogga-Eddin asked me to help him move a small stone slab to one side and when we had moved it a small aperture was revealed underneath it from the edges of which two iron bars projected.

“He put these bars together and began to listen.

“Soon a strange sound was heard coming from them, and to my astonishment Hadji-Zephir-Bogga-Eddin said something into that aperture in a language unknown to me.

“After he had finished speaking, we moved the stone slab back to its old place and went on.

“After having gone a considerable distance we stopped in front of a rock and Hadji-Zephir-Bogga-Eddin began to wait very tensely for something, when suddenly the enormous stone which lay there opened and formed an entrance into a kind of cave.

“We entered this cave and began moving forward when I noticed that our way was lit up alternately by what are called gas and electricity.

“Although this lighting astonished me and several questions about it arose in me, I nevertheless decided not to disturb the serious attentiveness of my fellow traveler.

“When we had again walked a considerable distance further, we saw at one of the turnings coming to meet us another terrestrial three-brained being who met us with the greetings customary there on such occasions and led us further.