B908 <=> B910 [BTG XLI The bokharian dervish, p. 909]

“’Gas lighting existed here from the very beginning, and was arranged here on the initiative of myself and my old friend the dervish Kerbalai-Azis-Nuaran.

“’As for the electric lighting, it came here only quite recently, and the initiator of its origin was also one of my friends who is still young and who came from among the Europeans.

“’I think it will be better if I tell you the story of each kind of lighting separately.

“’I will begin with the gas lighting.

“’At the time when we first moved here, there was not far from here a certain holy place called the “holy cave” to which various “pilgrims” and “devotees” from all over Turkestan used to throng.

“’The popular belief about this holy place was that once there had lived in this cave, as it were, the famous “Herailaz,” who later was taken up “alive” into Heaven.

“’It was further said in this popular belief that he was taken alive into Heaven so unexpectedly that he even had no time to extinguish the fire which lit his cave.

“’This last belief was supported by the fact that in that cave there was indeed an “undying fire.”

“’And so, friend of my friend!

“’As neither I nor my friend the dervish Kerbalai-Azis-Nuaran could believe in the verity of this popular belief, we therefore decided to probe into the real cause of that peculiar phenomenon.

“’Having at that time sufficient material possibilities and having at our disposal the conditions necessary for the investigation of this phenomenon without any hindrance from anyone whatsoever, we began to seek the source of its arising.

“’It turned out that not far from that cave there flowed under the ground a stream which washed a medium composed of minerals, the totality of the action of which, on the water, resulted in the separation of an inflammable gas which through chance crevices in the ground found its way into that cave.