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306 ACKOSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
and night till the warmth made a dripping roof
above us. Through our only window, a foot-square
hole in the wall above my bed, snow blew in steadily
during the day — ventilation being precious ; but
when the light of winter afternoon began to fade
the heavy shutter was closed, for night air was said
to have evil effects which all wise men would try to
avoid. In seventy-two hours of this close life I
grew to know my companions like brothers, and found
them very human. Ighsan revealed characteristics
hitherto unsuspected ; the khan-keeper I understood
as one who blended caution and reserve with a
dozen strange qualities and mannerisms ; and his son
appeared as a man turned thirty, although of only
half those years. His was the business mind of the
khan,—he objected always to his father's free-handed
coffee,—the father a hospitable Moslem who v/ould
give away his own head in generosity.
As a Moslem of the straitest, our host followed
the observances of his faith with exactness and let
nothing stand in the way of doing. For one thing,
he was ever punctual in prayer. As the time for
devotions approached he grew more serious in mien
yet curiously restless. He ceased to speak, he
rose and sat down, he swept the hearth, he lit a
cigarette and threw it away. With a word to
Ighsan as another strict devotee— at this stage the
son always slipped out of the room—the two would
then prepare for prayer. They washed elaborately,
laid praying-rugs diagonally on the divan in
the true
direction of Mecca, and then, kneeling down, went
through the prescribed movements — the forehead
repeatedly to ground, the hands to side of head, and
the prayer with the body erect upon the knees.
When it came to looking right and left at the
attendant spirits, they turned the head and made
sign of recognition. Prayer over they reverently got
up, rolled the mats, and after a pause resumed their
ordinary manner. Consider the performance of these
rites several times daily, within five or six feet of