Page:The young Moslem looks at life (1937).djvu/18

 filled with travelers, but Mohammed Beg selected an unoccupied corner, and there they opened their packs and spread their scanty bedding for the night on the hare mud floor. But before retiring they must cook their meal of meat stew and rough unleavened cakes, and for this purpose they had brought with them a few pots and pans. Finally, after they had eaten and when the night was well advanced, they joined the other Moslem occupants of the resthouse in offering the last or fifth prayer of the day, and witnessed to their devotion to Islam by reciting its brief but powerful creed "There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is the apostle of Allah."

Day after day this program was repeated as they trudged through the high passes of the Karakoram range. Occasionally other travelers would join them. Before long they were in western Tibet. Once they had dropped down on to the desolate plateau across which the upper Indus flows they met quaint Buddhist priests carrying their prayer wheels. Their religion was as different from that of Mohammed Beg as day from night. They did not have five stated times of prayer every day, no bowing and prostrating. Not even verbal repetition the mere whirling of the wheel which contained written prayers in Tibetan characters sufficed to complete their acts of devotion; and of course the more whirling the better!

As they traveled farther down the valley of the Indus towards India they encountered Moslems with customs never known in Kashgar. Abdullah was