all, and gave them to eat and to drink. Whosoever came to him found abundance of kumis, and tea, and sherbet, and the flesh of rams. Whenever guests came a ram or two was immediately killed, and if there were many guests they killed a mare.
Elias had three children — two sons and a daughter. Elias had provided his sons with wives, and had given his daughter in marriage. While Elias was poor his sons had worked with him and guarded the herds and the tabuns themselves, but when the sons became rich they began to amuse themselves, and one of them took to drink. One of them — the eldest — was presently killed in a brawl, and the younger son fell into the power of a stuck-up wife, and this son no longer listened to his father, and Elias had to give him his portion and get rid of him.
So Elias paid him out and gave him a house and cattle, and the riches of Elias were diminished. And shortly after this a disease fell upon the sheep of Elias, and many of them perished. And then came a year of scarceness — no hay would grow — and many cattle starved in the winter. Then the Kirghiz came and stole the best part of the horses, and the estate of Elias diminished still further. Elias began to fall lower and lower, and his natural forces were less. And when he had reached his seventieth year things came to such a pass that he began to sell his furs, his carpets, his kibitki[1] and then he began to sell his cattle, down to the very last one; and so Elias came to nought. And he himself perceived that he had nothing left, and he was obliged in his old age
- ↑ A covered wagon.
