While speaking of jackals we must not forget the hyæna, for this animal

is one of the denizens of the desert, though it is of another genus. The

hyæna is a singular animal, neither dog nor cat, but a mixture of both

and larger than either. It is of a dirty greyish-brown colour with black

stripes or patches, has a rounded head with black muzzle and eyes, and

short hind legs, so that the bristly back slopes downwards. It prowls

about for food at night, and in western Persia comes down from its

hiding-places in the mountains to the caravan roads in quest of fallen

asses, horses and camels. If corpses are not buried deep enough it

scratches them up from beneath the tombstones, for it lives almost

exclusively on dead and corrupted flesh.

Thus the four-footed inhabitants of the desert prowl around the

outskirts of Tebbes and share the country with panthers, wild asses and

graceful elegant gazelles. Tebbes itself lies lonely and forgotten like

an island in the ocean.

The principal caravan road connecting the oasis with the outer world

runs north-eastwards to the holy town of Meshed, whither many pilgrims

flock. From Meshed it is only a few days' journey through a mountainous

tract to the frontier between Persia and Russian Asia. There lie

Transcaspia, Samarcand, Bukhara, Turkestan, and the Kirghiz Steppe. This

road would take us out of our way to India, but while we halt at Tebbes

I can tell you something about the country it passes through.

V

ON THE KIRGHIZ STEPPE (1893-5)

INTO ASIA FROM ORENBURG

I started my journey across the Kirghiz Steppe in November, 1893, from

Orenburg on the Ural River, which for some distance forms the boundary

between Asia and Europe. I travelled in a stout _tarantass_, the common

means of conveyance on Russian country roads; it consists of a sort of a

box on two bars between the wheel axles, with a hood but no seat. The

bottom is filled with hay, on which are spread a mat, cushions and

pillows, furs and felt rugs, for the cold is intense. There are

ninety-nine stages and changes of horses between Orenburg and Tashkent,

the capital of Russian Turkestan. At the post-houses nothing can be got

but tea, so provisions for nineteen days had to be taken with us, as

well as sawn wood, rope and tools in case anything should break, and a

large pot of cart-grease to keep the wheels cool. My boxes and trunks

are wrapped in bast-matting and secured with strong ropes to the

driver's box and behind the _tarantass_. It takes time to get everything

ready, and it is late in the afternoon before the first team of three

post-horses is led out and harnessed to the vehicle. I take my largest

fur coat and pack myself in among the cushions and felt rugs. The

carriage is open in front and the whirling snow which sweeps round the

corners flies straight into my face. The driver takes his seat on the

box, shouts shrilly and cracks his whip, and we dash along the streets

of Orenburg in the snow and twilight to the lively jingle of the bells.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM ORENBURG TO THE PAMIR (pp. 55-71).]

The lights come to an end and the night is intensely dark when we come

out to the high-road leading into Asia. The bells worn by the middle

horse on a necklace round his neck ring in frequent beats. This horse

always goes at a trot, being harnessed between the shafts with a high

wooden arch above his neck, but the two outside horses go at a canter.

The horses are accustomed to this pace and action, and a rapidly moving

team is a fine sight. After three hours a yellow light is seen through

the swirling snow, and the team dashes into a yard and comes to a halt

at the steps of a house. As I have been already tossed about a good

deal, I am glad to jump out and get a glass of tea. The horses are

taken into the stable, and a fresh team is led out to take their place

in the still warm harness.

The _samovar_, or Russian tea-urn, is boiling in the great room. While I

am drinking my first glass of tea the stamping and rattle is heard of

two other teams which roll into the yard. It is the post; and the

courier enters covered with snow and with icicles on his beard. He is a

good fellow, and we become acquainted at once and travel together to

Orsk. He has travelled for twenty years with the mails between the two

towns and must have covered altogether a distance as far as from the

earth to the moon and six thousand miles besides.

My new driver now appears and calls out "The _troika_[8] is ready." Then

I pack myself in again among the cushions and rugs and off we speed once

more through the darkness and snow.

After forty-eight hours we are in Orsk, which also stands on the Ural

River; and when we leave this town with fresh horses and steer

southwards we are on Asiatic ground, in the vast Kirghiz Steppe, which

extends from Irkutsk to the Caspian Sea, from the Ural River to the

Syr-darya.[9] It is extremely flat and looks like a frozen sea. Day

after day we drive southwards, the horses ready to run away; there is

nothing to drive over, no ditches to fall into, no stones to carry away

a wheel. The hoofs hammer on the hard ground, the wheels creak, I and my

things are shaken and thrown about in the carriage, the coachman plants

his feet firmly against the foot-board lest he should tumble off, and on

we go over the flat dreary steppe. As we drive on day and night the

_tarantass_ seems always to be in the centre of the same unbroken

landscape, always at the same distance from the horizon.

Here live the Kirghizes, a fine race of graziers and horsemen. They

support themselves by their large flocks of sheep, and also own numerous

horses and camels, as well as cattle. Therefore they are dependent on

the grass of the steppe, and wander like other nomads from pasture to

pasture. When their flocks have eaten up the grass at one place, they

roll up their black tents, pack all their belongings on camels and

migrate to another spot. They are a freeborn, manly people and love the

boundless steppe. Life in the open air and on the level country, which

affords grazing to their flocks, has sharpened their intellect to a

wonderful degree. They never forget a place they have once seen. If the

steppe plants grow closer or thinner, if the ground shows the slightest

inequality, if there is grey or black gravel of different

coarseness--all these details serve as marks of recognition. When we

rest a minute halfway between two post-houses to let the horses breathe,

the Kirghiz driver turns round and says, "Yonder rides a Kirghiz on a

dappled mare." Yet on directing my field-glass towards the indicated

spot, I can only see a small dot, and cannot distinguish what it is.

The stations on our road are usually small solid wooden houses with two

lamp-posts at the door and a white board, on which are written the

distances to the next stations in each direction. In some places there

is no house at all but only a black Kirghiz tent, and instead of a

stable fences of sticks and reeds afford the horses shelter. At one such

station three camels are harnessed to the _tarantass_, and the clumsy

animals waddle along so that their humps bob and roll on their backs.

The reason for this change is that we are now on the shore of the Sea of

Aral, where the soft yielding drifts make it impossible for horses to

draw the _tarantass_. The two rivers, the Syr-darya (or Jaxartes) and

the Amu-darya (or Oxus), which rise in the Pamir, flow into the Sea of

Aral. The Cossacks carry on a profitable sturgeon fishery in this lake,

which in area is not very much smaller than Scotland, and contains a

great number of small islands--whence its name, for the word _aral_

means "island."

With fresh horses we speed along the bank of the Syr-darya. Here grow

small woods and thickets where tigers stalk their prey, and in the dense

reed beds wild boars dig up roots. The shy gazelles like the open

country, hares spring over the shrubs, ducks and geese quack on the

banks, and flocks of pheasants lure the traveller to sport. The setting

sun sheds a gleam of fiery red over the steppe, and as it grows dim the

stars begin to twinkle. The monotonous ring of the bells and the shouts

of the driver never cease, whether we are near the river or far off in

the dreary steppe. The ground becomes soft and swampy. The wheels cut

like knives into the mud. We move more and more slowly and heavily, and

at last stick fast in the mire. The driver shouts and scolds, and cracks

his whip over the team. The middle horse rears, one of the outside

horses jibs and the other gathers himself together for a spring which

makes the traces break with a loud report. Then the driver jumps down

and says, "You must wait here, sir, while I ride back for two more

horses." And he trots off in the darkness. After waiting about two hours

I hear the tramp of horses in the distance. Now the team is made ready,

the two extra horses are attached in front, the coachman takes his place

on the box, and with united strength our animals drag the heavy vehicle

up out of the slough. We roll and jolt on again with lumps of wet clay

dropping and splashing round the wheels.

SAMARCAND AND BUKHARA

Russian Central Asia has ten million inhabitants and an area twelve

times as large as the British Isles. The part which is called Turkestan

extends between Eastern Turkestan and the Caspian Sea, the Kirghiz

Steppe, Afghanistan, and Persia. The greater part is occupied by blown

sand, the "Red Sand" and the "Black Sand." Right through the desert flow

the two rivers, the Syr-darya and Amu-darya. Two railway lines cross

Turkestan, one from the Kirghiz Steppe to Tashkent, the other from the

Caspian Sea to Tashkent and Ferghana. Ferghana is the most fruitful part

of Turkestan and lies between mountains in its eastern portion.

Tashkent, the capital of Turkestan, has 200,000 inhabitants, and is the

headquarters of the governor-general. South-west of Tashkent is the

district of Samarcand, with a capital of the same name. South-west of

Samarcand again, on the north of the Amu-darya, stretches a country

called Bukhara, ruled by an Emir, a prince under the supremacy of

Russia.

Close to the Caspian Sea, on the east, there is a large area of country

called Transcaspia. Central Asia was conquered by Russia forty-five

years ago, Transcaspia thirty years ago. Transcaspia is inhabited by

Turkomans, a powerful and warlike people, who in former times used to

make raids into northern Persia, carrying off men and women, whom they

sold as slaves in the markets of Bukhara and Samarcand. General

Skobeleff put a check to their domination when he invaded the country in

1880. In order to convey troops and war material into the country a

railway was laid down through the desert. It runs from one oasis to

another, and hardy desert shrubs were planted or upright palings erected

to protect the line from the drifting sand.

When the Turkomans were attacked by the Russians, they withdrew within

the walls of the large fortress which is called "The Green Hill." They

numbered about 45,000 in all--men, women and children--and they

believed that the fortress was impregnable. The Russian general,

Skobeleff, had a mine carried under the wall. Inside the fortress the

Turkomans heard the soldiers working underground with picks and

crowbars, but did not understand what was intended. They supposed that

the soldiers would crawl up out of a hole one after another and

therefore they assembled with shining weapons above the place of danger.

Consequently when the mine exploded a large number of unfortunates were

killed, and the enemy stormed in over the ruins of the wall.

A fearful massacre followed of all those who did not seek safety in

flight. The Persian slaves and some thousands of women were spared.

Twenty thousand bodies lay in heaps within and without the fortress. The

Turkomans will never forget that day. The cavalry band played at the

head of the columns during the fight. Old Turkomans still remember the

strains. They cannot hear regimental bands without weeping for some

relative who fell at "The Green Hill." Here was the death-bed of their

freedom and they were swallowed up by mighty Russia.

I have crossed Turkestan many times by rail, in _tarantass_, and on

horseback. I have strolled for weeks through the narrow picturesque

streets and the gloomy bazaars of the old town called Bukhara, the

"Blessed." There silk is produced and carpets are woven; great caravans

pass by laden with cotton; disfigured by sores, lepers sit begging in

front of the mosques; mulberry trees raise their crowns above artificial

ponds. From the summit of a tall minaret criminals used to be thrown

down to be dashed to pieces on the street.

Sixty years ago there ruled in Bukhara a cruel Emir who took a delight

in torturing human beings. A mechanician from Italy fell into his

clutches and was sentenced to death. The Italian promised that if his

life were spared he would construct a machine wherewith the Emir could

measure the flight of time. His prayer was granted and he made an

ordinary clock. This called forth the Emir's astonishment and

admiration, and the Italian lived in high favour for a time. Later on,

however, the tyrant wished to force him to embrace Islamism, but he

steadfastly refused. At that time there was in Bukhara a cave called

"the bugs' hole," and into this the unfortunate man was thrown to be

eaten up by vermin. Seventy years ago two Englishmen languished in this

abominable place.

There are towns in Asia with names which impress us as soon as we hear

them, like Jerusalem, Mecca, Benares, Lhasa. Samarcand is one of these.

It is not a place of pilgrimage, but it is an ancient town and famous

among the Mohammedans of Asia. It was already in existence when

Alexander the Great conquered Central Asia. Since then vast swarms of

men and migrations of peoples have swept over this region. The Arabs

have subdued it, countless hordes of Mongols have passed through it

pillaging and devastating, and now at last it lies under the sceptre of

the Tsar. Samarcand attained the height of its splendour during the rule

of the powerful Timur. When he died in the year 1405 he had conquered

all Central Asia, Persia, Mesopotamia, South Russia, Turkey, India and

many other countries. This Timur the Lame was not only a great general

but a man of culture, for he loved art and science, and listened

willingly to the songs of the poets. He built his own mausoleum, which

still rears its melon-shaped dome above Samarcand, and had carved in

raised letters on a marble tablet the words: "If I still lived, mankind

would tremble."

Timur had a wife, Bibi, whom he dearly loved. She expressed a wish that

her coffin should not be buried but should remain above ground, and

therefore Timur caused to be erected the handsome mosque-tomb which

still bears her name. When it was finished the Queen went, attended by

her slaves, to inspect her last resting-place. A poisonous snake crept

from under an arch. Those present wished to kill it, but the Queen

forbade them and caressed the snake, which offered her no harm. When at

length she died she was decked with all her jewels--costly pearls,

necklaces, and gold bangles--and her coffin was placed in the vault. One

night thieves broke into the tomb, opened the coffin and took all the

Queen's ornaments; but when they were sneaking off with their booty the

snake crept out and bit them so that they died immediately.

The great market-place of Samarcand is one of the finest squares I have

seen in Asia. There carts and caravans swarm, there fruit sellers and

pitcher-makers take their stand, there dancing dervishes beg for alms.

On all four sides stand stately buildings erected by Timur and his

successors. Their façades, cupolas and minarets are covered with blue

faïence, burned and glazed tiles in varied patterns and texts from the

holy book of Islam, the Koran. It is worth while to ascend one of the

lofty minarets to take a look over Samarcand. Hence we see innumerable

gray mud houses with courts in the centre, pools, canals and gardens,

and in the maze of streets, squares and lanes moves a stream of people

of Turkish and Persian race. The dark-blue cupolas stand out against the

light-blue sky, and are surrounded by luxuriant dark-green vegetation.

In autumn the gardens assume a bright yellow tint. In winter the whole

country is often buried in snow, and only the bright blue cupolas rise

above the whiteness. Samarcand is the "blue" town, just as Jaipur in

India is the "pink" town.

THE PAMIR

To the south-east of Samarcand stand the huge highlands of the Pamir,

called by its inhabitants the "Roof of the World," for it seems to them

to rise like a roof above all the rest of the earth. From this great

centre run the lofty mountain ranges of the earth, the Himalayas, the

Trans-himalaya, Karakorum, Kuen-lun, and the Tien-shan on the east, the

Hindu-Kush on the west. If you examine the map you will see that most of

the ranges of Asia and Europe, and the most important, are connected

with it. The Tibetan ranges extend far into China and beyond the Indian

peninsula. The Tien-shan is only the first link in a series of mountains

which stretch north-eastwards throughout Asia. The continuation of the

Hindu-Kush is found in the mountains of northern Persia, in the Caucasus

and the chains of Asia Minor, the Balkan Peninsula, the Alps and

Pyrenees. The Pamir is like the body of a cuttlefish, which throws out

arms in all directions. The Pamir and all the huge mountain ranges which

have their roots in this ganglion are the skeleton of Asia, the

framework round which the lowlands cling like masses of muscle. Rivers,

streams, brooks, and rivulets, are the arteries and capillaries of the

Asiatic body. The deserts of the interior are the sickly consumptive

parts of the body where vitality is low, while the peninsulas are the

limbs which facilitate communication between different peoples across

the intervening seas.

In the month of February, 1894, I was at Margelan, which is the capital

of Ferghana, the granary of Central Asia, a rich and fruitful valley

begirt on all sides by mountains. I had got together a small reliable

caravan of eleven horses and three men, one of them being Islam Bay, who

was afterwards to serve me faithfully for many years. We did not need

to take tents with us, for the Governor gave orders to the Kirghizes,

to set up two of their black felt tents wherever I wished to pass the

night. We had a good supply of provisions in our boxes, straw and barley

in sacks, and steel spades, axes, and alpenstocks, for we had to travel

through deep snow, and over smooth, slippery ice. We forgot to procure a

dog, but one came to us on the way, begging to be allowed to follow us.

We march southwards up on to the Pamir, following a narrow valley where

a foaming stream tumbles over ice-draped boulders. We cross it by

narrow, shaking bridges of timber which look like matches when we gaze

down on them in the valley bottom from the slopes above. It thaws in the

sun, but freezes at night, and our path is like a channel of ice running

along the edge of a vertical precipice. We have several Kirghizes with

us to give assistance. One of them leads the first horse, which carries

two large sacks of straw with my tent bed between them. The horse is

shod and can keep his feet on ice, but at one place the path slopes to

the edge. The horse stumbles, tries in vain to recover his foothold,

rolls over the edge, falls into the chasm, and breaks his back on the

bank of the river. The straw is scattered among the stones, my bed

dances along the stream, and all the men rush down to save what they

can.

Now steps are cut in the ice and the path is strewn with sand. The

higher we go the worse the travelling. A Kirghiz leads each horse by the

bridle, while another holds on to his tail to help him if he stumbles.

To ride is impossible; we crawl along on hands and feet. Darkness

follows twilight; the rushing water of the stream gives forth a sound of

metallic clearness. We have been travelling more than twelve hours when

at last the valley opens, and we see blazing camp fires in front of

Kirghiz tents.

We mount higher day after day. We cross a pass, and at this giddy height

I experience the unpleasant feelings of mountain sickness--splitting

headache, nausea, and singing in the ears. On the further side one of

the affluents of the Amu-darya flows westwards. This valley, the Alai,

is broad and open, but full of snow in winter. We make our entry into

the Alai valley in a howling snowstorm and wade and plunge through

drifts. Two Kirghizes go in front with sticks to mark out the way, in

order that the horses may not sink in the snow. Our little caravan moves

slowly and painfully. One day the snow is so deep that we have to hire

four camels, which are led in front of the caravan to tramp out a

narrow path for the horses. Everything is white, sky and earth run into

one another, and there is nothing black to be seen but the men, camels,

and horses.

At every camp we find excellent felt tents set up in readiness for us.

Once we had only a short distance to go before reaching camp when we

were stopped by a trench filled with snow ten feet deep. The first horse

disappeared in a moment as though he had fallen through a trap-door. His

load was taken off, and he was pulled up with ropes. Then the Kirghizes

thought of a grand way of getting over the treacherous snow. They took

the felt covers of the tent and spread them over the snow and led the

horses one by one over this yielding bridge.

All this journey we waded and plunged through snowdrifts. One day I sent

a horseman on in front to examine the road, and only the horse's head

and the rider could be seen above the snow. Another time there was no

Kirghiz tent as usual, and we bivouacked round a fire behind a wall of

snow in a temperature of 29° below freezing-point. The Kirghizes who

should have furnished us with a tent had been delayed on a pass by an

avalanche of snow which overwhelmed forty sheep. Six men had struggled

on to meet us, but two had stuck fast and were abandoned in the snow. Of

the four who arrived in a sorry condition, one had his foot frozen and

another had become snow-blind. The Kirghizes usually protect their eyes

by a long lock of horse-hair hanging down over the forehead from beneath

the cap, or blacken the eye cavities and nose with charcoal.

Wolves swarm in these mountains, and we often saw the spoor of these

blood-thirsty robbers. Hunger makes them very daring, and they do great

damage to the flocks of the Kirghizes, as they will kill even when they

do not wish to eat. A single wolf had recently worried 180 sheep

belonging to a Kirghiz. A travelling Kirghiz was attacked in this

neighbourhood by a pack of wolves, and when the body was found a couple

of days later only the skull and skeleton were left. Another Kirghiz,

who was mounted, was attacked and killed, horse and all. Two of my

guides had fallen in with twelve wolves the winter before, but

fortunately they were armed and killed two of them, which were at once

devoured by their comrades.

It is not difficult to imagine the terrible plight of an unarmed Kirghiz

attacked by wolves. They track him by scent and pursue him. Their

wicked eyes glow with fury and blood-thirstiness. They wrinkle up their

upper lips to leave their fangs exposed. Their dripping tongues hang out

of their jaws. The traveller hears their sneaking steps behind him, and

turning round can distinguish in the dusk their grey coats against the

white snow. He grows cold with fright, and putting up a prayer to Allah,

springs and dashes through the drifts in the hope of reaching the

nearest village of tents.

Every now and again the wolves halt and utter their awful prolonged

howl, but in an instant they are after the man again. Every minute they

become bolder. The man flies for his life. They know that he cannot hold

out long. Now they catch hold of a corner of his fur coat, but let go

when he throws his cap at them. They pounce upon it and tear it in

pieces. This only whets their appetites. The poor man staggers on until

he can hardly put one foot before another, and is almost at his last

gasp. This is the moment, and the wolves throw themselves upon him from

all sides. He screams, and fights with his hands; he draws out his knife

and stabs into the pack in front of him, but a large wolf springs upon

him from behind and brings him to the ground. There he has at any rate

his back protected, but the eyes and teeth of the wolves gleam above him

in the darkness, and he stabs at them with his knife. They know that he

will tire of this game soon. Two wolves tear open his boots to get at

his feet. He cannot reach them with his knife, so he sits up, and at the

same moment the leader seizes him by the neck so that the blood spurts

out over the white snow. The wolves have now tasted blood and nothing

can restrain them. The man is beside himself and throws himself about

thrusting desperately with his knife. The wolves attack him from behind

and he falls again on his back. Now his knife moves more slowly. The

wolves yelp, bark and pant, and the froth hangs round their teeth. The

unfortunate man's eyes grow dim and he closes them, consciousness leaves

him and he drops the knife from his hand, and the largest wolf is about

to plunge his fangs into his throat. But suddenly the leader stops and

utters a short bark, which in wolf's language is equivalent to an oath,

for at the foot of an adjacent hill are seen two mounted Kirghizes, who

have come out to seek their comrade. The wolves disappear like magic.

The poor man lies quite motionless in his tattered furs, and the snow

around is stained red with blood. He is unconscious, but is still

breathing and his heart beats. His friends bind up his wounds with

their girdles and carry him on the back of a horse to the tent, where he

soon comes back to life beside the flames of the evening fire.

Of course the Kirghiz must hate wolves. But the animals are cunning and

seldom expose themselves to gunshot. Woe to the wolf that is wounded or

caught! He is not killed, but the most cruel tortures are devised for

him.

When heavy winter snow falls in the Alai valley, the wolves return to

the higher wilds of the Pamir where the snow lies less deep, and here

they chase the wild sheep, _Ovis Poli_, as it is named after its

discoverer, Marco Polo. It has large, round, elegantly curved horns and

is somewhat larger than the wild sheep of Tibet. The wolves chase Marco

Polo's sheep by a cunningly devised method. They hunt up a herd and

single out some less cautious or less quick-footed member. This animal

is forced by a watch posted ready beforehand to take refuge on a

projecting rock which is surrounded by wolves. If they can get up to the

sheep they take him easily, but if not, they wait till his legs give way

with weariness and he falls into the jaws of his pursuers.

Many a time I have met wolves in various parts of Asia, and many sheep,

mules, and horses of mine have they destroyed. How often has their

dismal howl sounded outside my tent, as though they were calling for my

flesh and blood!

We had ridden 300 miles when we came to a small Russian frontier fort

which rears its simple walls on the middle of the "Roof of the World,"

beside one of the headwaters of the Amu-darya. On the other side of the

frontier lies the Eastern Pamir, in the dominion of the Emperor of

China.

"THE FATHER OF ICE-MOUNTAINS"

Wherever one may be in the Eastern Pamir one sees the Mus-tagh-ata, the

"Father of Ice-Mountains," rear its rounded summit above all the other

peaks (see map, p. 56). Its height is 25,800 feet, and accordingly it is

one of the loftiest mountains in the world. On its arched crest snow

collects, and its under layers are converted by pressure into ice. The

mountain is therefore crowned by a snow-covered ice-cap. Where there are

flat hollows round the summit, in these also snow is piled up as in

bowls. It glides slowly down with its own weight, and by pressure from

above is here also converted into ice. Thus are produced great tongues

of ice, which move downwards exceedingly slowly, perhaps only a few

yards in the year. They are enclosed between huge steep ridges, from

which time after time gravel and blocks of stone fall down on to the ice

and are carried down to lower levels. The further the ice descends the

warmer becomes the air, and then the ice melts in the sun. As it melts

below, the stream of ice is forced down from above, so that its lowest

margin is always to be found in the same place. The gravel and boulders

are brought down thither and piled up together so as to form great

mounds and ridges, which are called moraines. The ice-stream itself is

called a glacier. Many such tongues of ice fringe Mus-tagh-ata on all

sides. They are several miles long and half a mile to a mile broad. The

surface is very uneven and consists of innumerable knobs and pyramids of

clear ice.

I made several excursions on the glaciers of Mus-tagh-ata on foot or on

yaks. One must be well shod so as not to slip, and one must look out for

crevasses. Once we were stopped by a crevasse several yards broad and

forty-five feet deep. When we stooped over the brim and looked down, it

had the appearance of a dark-blue grotto with walls of polished glass,

and long icicles hung down from the edges. Streamlets of melted ice run

over the surface of the glacier, sometimes flowing quietly and gently as

oil in the greenish-blue ice channels, sometimes murmuring in lively

leaps. The water can be heard trickling and bubbling at the bottom of

the crevasses, and the surface brooks often form fine waterfalls which

disappear into chasms of ice. On warm days when the sun shines, thawing

proceeds everywhere, and the water trickles, bubbles, and runs all about

the ice. But if the weather is dull, cold, and raw, the glaciers are

quieter, and when winter comes with its severe cold they are quite hard

and still, and the brooks freeze into ice.

The yaks of the Kirghizes are wonderfully sure-footed, and one can ride

on them over slippery hillocky ice where a man could not possibly walk.

The yak thrusts down his hoofs so that the white powdered ice spurts up

around him, and if the slope is so steep that he cannot get foothold, he

stretches out all four legs and holds them stiff and rigid as iron and

thus slides down without tumbling. Sometimes I rode over moraine heaps

of huge granite blocks piled one upon another. Then I had to take a firm

grip with my knees, for the yak springs and jumps about like a lunatic.

Accompanied by specially selected Kirghizes, I tried four times to climb

to the top of the "Father of Ice-Mountains," but always without success.

Our camp was pitched high up among the moraines. Islam Bay, six

Kirghizes, and ten yaks were in readiness before sunrise, and we took

with us ample provisions, fur coats, spades and alpenstocks, food and a

tent. At first we climbed up over gravel, and then over snow which

became deeper the higher we went. As the air became rarer, respiration

was more difficult, and even the yaks halted frequently to recover their

breath. The Kirghizes walked on foot and urged the animals up towards

the giddy heights. It took us the whole day to reach a point 20,700 feet

above sea-level. At this point we halted for the night, intending to

push on higher in the morning, but two of the Kirghizes were so overcome

with weariness and headaches that they asked to be allowed to go down

again. The others shovelled away the snow and pitched the little tent

within a wall of snow. A fire was kindled and the tea-kettle put on, but

our appetites were poor, as we were suffering from mountain sickness.

The ten yaks stood tethered in the snow outside, and the Kirghizes

curled themselves up in their skin coats like hedgehogs. The full moon

soared like a silvery white balloon just above the top of the mountain,

and I left the tent to enjoy this never-to-be-forgotten spectacle. The

glacier below us lay in shadow in its deep bed, but the snow-fields were

dazzling white. The yaks stood out jet black against the snow, their

nostrils steaming, and the snow crunching under them. Light white clouds

floated rapidly from the mountain under the moon. At last I returned to

the tent. The fire had died down, and the recently melted snow had

frozen into ice. There was a smell of damp and smoke inside, and the men

groaned and complained of headache and singing in the ears. I crawled

under my furs, but could not sleep. The night was quiet, but at times a

dull report was heard when a crevasse was formed in the ice or a boulder

fell from the mountain-side.

When I crawled out from under my furs in the morning, a violent

snowstorm was sweeping along the flanks of the mountain. Through the

dense cloud of whirling snow we could not see our way, and it would have

been death to mount to still higher regions. We might be glad if we

could struggle down again alive in such weather, so down we started

through the drifts, down headlong. We all needed a thorough rest after

this experience.

On another occasion we had a perilous adventure on the rounded ice-cap

of Mus-tagh-ata. We were marching upwards as usual, suspecting no

danger, when the foremost yak, which carried two large bundles of fuel,

suddenly sank through the snow and disappeared. Fortunately he was held

fast by his horns, a hind leg, and the faggots, and there he hung

suspended over a dark yawning chasm. The snow had formed a treacherous

bridge over a large crevasse in the ice, and this bridge gave way under

the weight of the yak. We had all the trouble in the world to haul him

up again with ropes.

A KIRGHIZ GYMKHANA

At the foot of Mus-tagh-ata there is a level and extensive valley, where

grass thrives luxuriantly. The black tents of the Kirghizes stand

scattered about like spots on a panther's skin. I hired one of these

tents for the summer of 1904, and spent several very interesting months

in studying the habits and mode of life of the people. If the weather

was fine, I made long excursions on horseback or on a yak, and compiled

a map of the surrounding country. If rain poured down, I kept inside my

own tent, or visited my Kirghiz neighbours and talked with them, for by

that time I had learned to speak their language.

Round the large hive-shaped tents fierce dogs keep watch, and small

naked sunburnt children tumble about in play. They are charmingly sweet,

and it is hard to believe that they will grow up into tall rough

half-wild Kirghizes. But all children are attractive and lovable before

life and mankind have hardened them. In the tent sit the young women,

spinning thread or weaving cloth; the older women are busy with the sour

milk and butter behind a partition in the tent, or perhaps they are

sitting round a pot, cooking meat. A fire is always burning in the

middle of the tent, and the smoke finds its way out through a round

opening in the top. The young men are out with the sheep or are looking

after the yaks grazing in the mountains. The older men repair saddles

and boots, make harness for horses or household utensils. Sometimes they

go hunting after wild sheep and goats. When the sun sets the sheep are

driven into folds near the tent; the women milk the ewes and yak-cows.

During the night a watch is kept on account of the wolves. The Kirghizes

are Mohammedans, and are often heard intoning Arabic prayers outside the

tents.

Not many days had passed before I was on friendly terms with all the

Kirghizes. They perceived that I wished them well, and was glad to live

among them. They came from far and near and gave me presents--sheep and

milk, wild sheep they had shot, and mountain partridges. All my servants

except Islam Bay were Kirghizes, and they followed me willingly wherever

I chose to travel.

One day the chiefs of the Kirghizes decided to hold a grand festival in

my honour. It was to be a _baiga_, or gymkhana, and early in the morning

small parties of horsemen were seen gathering to the great plain where

the wild sport was to take place.

When the sun was at its height I was escorted to the arena by forty-two

Kirghizes, who rode beside and behind me. In their best clothes,

coloured mantles with girdles and embroidered caps, and with their

daggers and knives, fire steel, pipe and tobacco box rattling at their

sides, they presented a stately and festal appearance. Among them might

be noticed the chief of the Kirghizes who lived on the eastern side of

Mus-tagh-ata. His long mantle was dark blue, his girdle light blue; on

his head he had a violet cap with a gold border, and at his side dangled

a scimitar in a black scabbard. The chief himself was tall, with a thin

black beard, scanty moustaches, small oblique eyes and high cheek bones,

like most Kirghizes.

The plain in front of us was black with horsemen and horses; there was

bustle, neighing, and stamping on all sides. Here the high chief, Khoat

Bek, a hundred and eleven years old, sits firmly and surely in his

saddle, though bent by the weight of years. His large aquiline nose

points down to his short white beard, and on his head he wears a brown

turban. He is surrounded by five sons, also grey-bearded old men,

mounted on tall horses.

Now the performance began. The spectators rode to one side, leaving an

open space in front of us. A horseman dashed forward with a goat in his

arms, dismounted, and let the poor animal loose near to us. Another

Kirghiz seized the goat by the horn with his left hand, cut off its head

with a single blow of his sharp knife, allowed the blood to flow, and

then took the goat by the hind legs and rode at full speed round the

plain. A troop of riders appeared in the distance and drew near at a

furious pace. The hoofs of eighty horses beat the ground and the

deafening noise was mingled with wild cries and the rattle of stirrup

irons. They rushed swiftly past us in a cloud of dust, making a current

of air like a storm of wind. The first rider threw the dead goat, which

was still warm, in front of me, and then they whirled off like thunder

over the plain.

"Ride back a little, sir," called out some chiefs, "there will be wild

work now." We had hardly time to draw back far enough before the excited

troop came rushing along, with their horses in a lather, like an

avalanche from the mountains. Round the goat there was an inextricable

confusion of men and horses, only partially visible in the dust. They

were struggling for the goat, and the one who gets it is the winner.

They crush together and tear and push; horses shy, rear, or fall down,

while other horses leap over them. Holding on to their saddles the

horsemen bend down towards the ground and feel for the hide. Some have

fallen off and are in danger of being tramped upon, while others are

hanging half under their horses.

Still worse becomes the tumult when a couple of men on yaks push

themselves into the scrimmage. The yaks prod the horses' loins with

their horns. The horses are irritated and kick, and the yaks defend

themselves; then there is a perfect bullfight in full swing.

A strong fellow has now succeeded in getting a firm hold of the goat.

His horse knows what to do, and backs with his rider out of the

scrimmage and flies swiftly as the wind in a wide course round the

plain. The others pursue him, and as they turn back they look as if they

mean to ride over us with irresistible force. At the last moment,

however, the horses stop as if turned to stone; and then the struggle

begins again. Many have their faces covered with blood, others have

their clothes torn, caps and whips lie scattered over the arena, and one

or two horses are lamed.

"It is very well for us who are old that we are not in the crush," I

said to Khoat Bek.

"Ah, it is nearly a hundred years ago since I was as old as you are

now," the old man answered with a smile.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] A team of three horses abreast.

[9] The word "darya" means "river."

VI

FROM PERSIA TO INDIA (1906)

TEBBES TO SEISTAN

Now we can return to Tebbes and continue our journey to India.

The camels are laden, we mount, the bells ring again, and our caravan

travels through the desert for days and weeks towards the south-east. At

length we come to the shore of a large lake called the Hamun, which lies

on the frontier between Persia and Afghanistan. The Amu-darya forms the

boundary between Bukhara and Afghanistan, the northern half of which is

occupied by the Hindu-kush mountains. The name means "slaughterer of

Hindus," because Hindus who venture up among the mountains after the

heat of India have every prospect of being frozen to death in the

eternal snow. Large quantities of winter snow are melted in spring, and

then rivers and streams pour through the valleys to collect on the

plains of southern Afghanistan into a large river called the Hilmend,

which flows into the Hamun. As there are no proper boats or ferries on

the lake, we had here to take farewell of the camels who had served us

so faithfully and had carried us and our belongings through such long

stretches of desert. We were sorry to part with them, but there was

nothing for it but to sell them to the only dealer who would take them

off our hands.

Reeds and rushes grow in abundance along the flat shores of the Hamun,

but no trees. The natives build their huts of reeds, and also a curious

kind of boat. Handfuls of dry, yellow reeds of last year's growth are

tied together into cigar-shaped bundles, and then a number of such

bundles are bound together into a torpedo-like vessel several yards

long. When laden this reed boat floats barely four inches above the

water, but it can never be filled and made to sink by the waves. It is

true that the bundles of reeds might be loosened and torn apart by a

high sea, but the natives take good care not to go out in bad weather.

It took fourteen of these reed boats to accommodate our party and its

belongings. A half-naked Persian stood at the stern of each boat and

pushed the vessel along by means of a long pole, for the lake though

twelve miles broad is only five or six feet deep. A fresh breeze skimmed

the surface when we came out of the reeds into the open lake, and it was

very refreshing after weeks of the dry oppressive heat of the desert.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM TEHERAN TO BALUCHISTAN

(pp. 46-54 and 72-81).]

After crossing the Hamun we had not more than a couple of hours' ride to

the capital of Seistan, Nasretabad. Five months before us another guest

had arrived, the plague; and just at the time the black angel of death

was going about in search of victims. He took the peasant from the

plough and the shepherd from his flock; and the fisherman, who in the

morning had gone cheerily to set his nets in the waters of the Hamun, in

the evening lay groaning in his hut with a burning fever.

Asia is the birth-place of the ruling peoples, the Aryans, and of the

yellow race; it is the cradle of the great religions, Buddhism,

Christianity, and Mohammedanism; and it is also the breeding-place of

fearful epidemic diseases which from time to time sweep over mankind

like devastating waves. Among these is the "Black Death," the plague

which in the year 1350 carried off twenty-five millions of the people of

Europe. Men thought that it was a divine punishment. Some repented and

did penance; others gave themselves up to drunkenness and other

excesses. They had then no notion of the deadly bacteria, and of the

serum which renders the blood immune from their attacks.

In 1894 a similar wave swept from China through Hong Kong to India,

where three millions of human beings died in a few years. I remember a

small house in the poor quarter of Bombay which I visited in 1902. The

authorities had given orders that when any one died of the plague a red

cross should be painted beside the doorpost of the house. And this small

house alone had forty crosses.

And now in 1906 the plague had reached Seistan. From the roof of the

house where I lived with some English officers, we could see the

unfortunate people carrying out their dear ones to the grave. We could

see them wash the bodies in a pool outside the walls, and then resume

their sad procession. The population of the small town seemed in danger

of extermination, and at length the people fled in hundreds. An English

doctor and his assistant wished to help them by means of serum

injections, but the Mohammedan clergy, out of hatred of the Europeans,

made the people believe that it was the Christians who had let loose the

disease over the country. Deluded and excited, the natives gathered

together and made an attack on the British Consulate, but were repulsed.

Then they went back to their huts to die helplessly.

They tried as far as possible to keep the cases of death secret and

carried out the corpses at night. Soon the deaths were so frequent that

it was impossible to dig proper graves. Those, therefore, who thought of

the hyænas and jackals, digged their own graves beforehand. Processions

round the mosque of the town were instituted, with black flags and a

sacrificial goat at the head, and the mercy of Allah was implored. But

Allah did not hear, and infection was spread among the people who

flocked together to the processions.

Under the microscope the deadly microbes appear only as quite small

elongated dots, though they are magnified twelve hundred times. They

live in the blood of rats, whose parasites communicate the infection to

human beings. It is therefore most important to exterminate all rats

when an outbreak of plague occurs. The disease is terribly infectious.

In a house where the angel of death descends and carries off a victim,

all the inmates die one after another. Stupidly blind, the natives did

not understand what was good for them, and could not be induced to burn

infected clothes and the whole contents of a plague-stricken house. They

would not part with their worldly goods and preferred to perish with

them.

In one house dwelt a poor carpenter with his wife, two half-grown sons

and a daughter. For two days the father had been oppressed by a feeling

of weakness, and then, his body burning with fever, he lay raving in a

corner on the floor of stamped earth. He was indifferent to everything

and wished only to be left in peace. If his wife threw a rug over him he

groaned, for the lymph glands, which swell up in large tumours, are

exceedingly painful. In a couple of days the microbes penetrate from the

tumour into the blood and the unfortunate man dies of blood poisoning.

The vermin under the man's clothes leave the body as soon as the blood

ceases to flow. Then is the danger greatest for the survivors who stand

mourning round the deathbed, for the vermin seek circulating blood and

carry infection from the corpse with them. It is useless to warn the

natives of the danger, for they do not believe a word of it--and so die

in their turn.

A BALUCHI RAID

We were glad to leave a country where the plague had taken up its abode

and to hasten away to the desert tracts of Baluchistan, which still

separated us from India. My old servants had taken their departure, and

a new retinue, all Baluchis, accompanied me.

We rode _jambas_, or swift-footed dromedaries, which for generations

have been trained for speed. Their legs are long and thin, but strong,

with large foot pads which strike the hard ground with a heavy tapping

sound as they run. They carry their heads high and move more quickly

than the majestic caravan camels; but when they run they lower their

heads below the level of the hump and keep it always horizontal.

Two men ride on each _jambas_, and therefore the saddle has two hollows

and two pairs of stirrups. A peg is thrust through the cartilage of the

nose and to its ends a thin cord is attached. By pulling this to one

side or the other the dromedary may be turned in any direction. My

courser had a swinging gait but did not jolt; and I sat comfortably and

firmly in the saddle as we left mile after mile behind.

It is not more than thirty or forty years ago since the Baluchis used to

make raids into Persian territory, and although much better order is

maintained now that the country is under British administration, an

escort is still necessary--I had six men mounted on dromedaries and

armed with modern rifles. This is how a raid is conducted.

One evening Shah Sevar, or the "Riding King," the warlike chieftain of a

tribe in western Baluchistan, sits smoking a pipe by the camp fire in

front of his black tent, which is supported by tamarisk boughs (Plate

VII.). The tale-teller has just finished a story, when two white-clad

men with white turbans on their heads emerge from the darkness of the

night. They tie up their dromedaries, humbly salute Shah Sevar, who

invites them to sit down and help themselves to tea from an iron pot.

Other men come up to the fire. All carry long guns, spears, swords, and

daggers. Some lead two or three dromedaries each.

Fourteen men are now gathered round the fire. There is a marked silence

in the assembly, and Shah Sevar looks serious. At length he asks, "Is

everything ready?"

"Yes," is the reply from all sides.

"Are the powder and shot horns filled?"

"Yes."

"And the provisions packed in their bags?"

"Yes--dates, sour cheese, and bread for eight days."

"I told you the day before yesterday that this time we shall strike at

Bam. Bam is a populous town. If we are discovered too early the fight

may be hot. We must steal through the desert like jackals. The distance

is three hundred miles, four days' journey."

Again Shah Sevar stares into the fire for a while and then asks, "Are

the _jambas_ in good condition?"

"Yes."

"And ten spare dromedaries for the booty?"

"Yes."

[Illustration: PLATE VII. A BALUCHI NOMAD TENT.]

Then he rises and all the others follow his example. Their wild, bold

faces glow coppery-red in the light of the fire. They consider petty

thieving a base occupation, but raiding and pillaging an honourable

sport, and boast of the number of slaves they have captured in their

day.

"Mount," commands the chieftain in a subdued voice. Muskets are thrown

over the shoulder and rattle against the hanging powder-horn and the

leather bag for bullets, flint, steel, and tinder. Daggers are thrust

into belts, and the men mount without examining the saddle-girths and

bridles, for all has been carefully made ready beforehand. The spear is

secured in front of the saddle. "In the name of Allah," calls out Shah

Sevar, and the party rides off through the night at a steady pace.

The path they follow is well known and the stars serve as guides. Day

breaks, the sun rises, and the shadows of the dromedaries point towards

Bam over the hard yellow sand where not a shrub grows. Not a word has

been spoken during the night, but when the first seventy miles have been

traversed the chief says, "We will rest a while at the Spring of White

Water." On arriving at the spring they refill their water-skins and let

the dromedaries drink. Then they go up into the neighbouring hills and

wait till the hot hours of the day are over. They never encamp at the

springs, for there they are likely to meet with other people.

At dusk they are in the saddle again. They ride harder than during the

first night and travel till they come to a salt spring. The third night

the dromedaries begin to breathe more heavily, and when the sun rises

flecks of white froth hang from their trembling lips. They are not tired

but only a little winded, and they press on through clouds of dust

without their riders having to urge them.

Now the party leaves behind it the last desert path, which is only once

in a while used by a caravan, and beyond it is a perfect wilderness of

hardened salt-impregnated mud. Nothing living can be seen, not even a

stray raven or vulture which might warn the people in Bam of their

danger. Without rest the robber band pushes on all day, as silent as the

desert, the only sounds being the long-drawn breathing of the

dromedaries and the rasping sound of their foot-pads on the ground. When

the reflection of the evening sky lies in purple shades over the desert,

they have only ten or twelve miles more to go.

Shah Sevar pulls up his dromedary and orders a halt in muffled tones,

as though he feared that his voice might be heard in Bam. With a hissing

noise the riders make their animals kneel and lie down, and then they

spring out of the saddle, and tie the end of the cord round the

dromedaries' forelegs to prevent the animals from getting up and making

a noise and thus spoiling the plan. All are tired out and stretch

themselves on the ground. Some sleep, others are kept awake by

excitement, while four riders go scouting in different directions. Bam

itself cannot be seen, but the hill is visible at the foot of which the

town stands. The men long for night and the cover of darkness.

The day has been calm and hot, but now the evening is cool and the

shadows dense. A faint breeze comes from the north, and Shah Sevar

smiles. If the wind were from the east, he would be obliged to make a

detour in order not to rouse the dogs of the town. It is now nine

o'clock and in an hour the people of Bam will be asleep. The men have

finished their meal, and have wrapped up the remainder of the dates,

cheese, and bread in their bundles and tied them upon the dromedaries.

"Shall we empty the waterskins so as to make the loads lighter for the

attack?" asks a Baluchi.

"No," answers Shah Sevar; "keep all the water that is left, for we may

not be able to fill the skins in the town before our retreat."

"It is time," he says; "have your weapons ready." They mount again and

ride slowly towards the town.

"As soon as anything suspicious occurs I shall quicken my pace and you

must follow. You three with the baggage camels keep in the rear."

The robbers gaze in front like eagles on their prey, and the outlines of

the hill gradually rise higher above the western horizon. Now only three

miles remain, and their sight, sharpened by an outdoor life,

distinguishes the gardens of Bam. They draw near. The bark of a dog is

heard, another joins in--all the dogs of the town are barking; they have

winded the dromedaries.

"Come on," shouts the chief. With encouraging cries the dromedaries are

urged forward; their heads almost touch the ground; they race along

while froth and dust fly about them. The dogs bark furiously and some of

them have already come out to meet the dromedaries. Now the wild chase

reaches the entrance to the town. Cries of despair are heard as the

inhabitants are wakened; and women and wailing children escape towards

the hill. The time is too short for any organised defence. There is no

one to take the command. The unfortunate inhabitants run over one

another like scared chickens and the riders are upon them. Shah Sevar

sits erect on his dromedary and leads the assault. Some jump down and

seize three men, twelve women, and six children, who are hastily bound

and put in charge of two Baluchis, while others quickly search some

houses close at hand. They come out again with two youths who have made

a useless resistance, a couple of sacks of grain, some household goods,

and all the silver they could find.

"How many slaves?" roars Shah Sevar.

"Twenty-three," is answered from several directions.

"That is enough; pack up." The slaves and the stolen goods are bound

fast on dromedaries. "Quick, quick," shouts the chief. "Back the way we

came." In the hurry and confusion some of the animals get entangled in

one another's ropes. "Back! Back!" The chieftain's practised eye has

detected a party of armed men coming up. Three shots are heard in the

darkness, and Shah Sevar falls backwards out of the saddle, while his

dromedary starts and flies off into the desert. The rider's left foot is

caught fast in the stirrup and his head drags in the dust. A bullet has

entered his forehead, but the blood is staunched by the dust of the

road. His foot slips out of the stirrup, and the "Riding King" lies dead

as a stone outside Bam.

Another robber is severely wounded and is cut to pieces by the townsmen.

Bam has waked up. The entangled dromedaries with their burdens of slaves

and goods are captured, but the rest of the party, twelve riders with

ten baggage camels, have vanished in the darkness, pursued by some

infuriated dogs. Sixteen of the inhabitants of the town are missing. The

whole thing has taken place in half an hour. Bam sleeps no more this

night.

Now the dromedaries are urged on to the uttermost; they have double

loads to carry, but they travel as quickly as they came. The kidnapped

children cease to cry, and fall asleep with weariness and the violent

swaying motion. The party rides all night and all the next day without

stopping, and the robbers often look round to see if they are pursued.

They rest for the first time at the salt spring, posting a look-out on

an adjacent mound. They eat and drink without losing a minute, and get

ready for the rest of the ride. The captives are paralysed with fright;

the young women are half choked with weeping, and a little lad in a

tattered shirt goes about crying vainly for his mother. The eyes of the

captives are blindfolded with white bandages that they may not notice

the way they are travelling and try later to escape back to Bam. Then

the headlong ride is resumed, and after eight days the troop of riders

is back at home with their booty, but without their chief.

Innumerable raids of this kind have scourged eastern Persia, and in the

same way Turkomans have devastated Khorasan in the north-east. On the

eastern frontier it is the Kurds who are the robbers. In this disturbed

frontier region there is not a town without its small primitive mud fort

or outlook tower.

SCORPIONS

On running dromedaries we now ride on eastwards through northern

Baluchistan. Dry, burnt-up desert tracts, scantily clothed with thistles

and shrubs, moving dunes of fine yellow sand, low hill ridges

disintegrated by alternate heat and cold--such is the country where a

few nomads wander about with their flocks, and the stranger often

wonders how the animals find a living. In certain valleys, however,

there is pasture and also water, and sometimes belts of thriving

tamarisks are passed, and bushes of saxaul with green leafy branches,

hard wood, and roots which penetrate down to the moisture beneath the

surface.

The great caravan road we are following is, however, exceedingly

desolate. Only at the stations is water to be found, and even that is

brackish; but the worst trial is the heat, which now, at the end of

April, becomes more oppressive every day. The temperature rises nearly

up to 105-1/2° in the shade, and to ride full in the face of the sun is

like thrusting one's head into a blazing furnace. When there is a wind

we are all right, and the sand whirls like yellow ghosts over the heated

ground. But when the air is calm the outlines of the hills seem to

quiver in the heat, and the barrel of a gun which has been out in the

sun blisters the hands on being touched. In the height of the summer the

Baluchis wrap strips of felt round their stirrup-irons to protect the

dromedaries from burns on the flanks.

This region is one of the hottest in the world. The sun stands so high

at mid-day that the shadows of the dromedaries disappear beneath them.

You long for sunset, when the shadows lengthen out and the worst of the

heat is over. It is not really cool even at night, when, moreover, you

are plagued with whole swarms of gnats.

Baluchistan and Persia abound with scorpions, which are indeed to be

found in all the hot regions of the five continents. About two hundred

species have been distinguished. Some are quite small, others six inches

long. Some are dark-brown, others reddish, and others again

straw-yellow, as in Baluchistan. The body consists of a head and thorax

without joints, and a hinder part of seven articulated rings, besides

six tail rings. The last ring, the thirteenth, contains two poison

glands and is furnished with a sting as fine as a needle. The poison is

a fluid clear as water.

Scorpions live in rotten tree-trunks, under stones, on walls, and as

they like warmth they often enter houses and huts, and creep into

clothes and beds.

The scorpion leaves his dark den at night and sets out on the hunt. He

holds his tail turned up over his back, in order to keep his sting from

injury and to be ready at once for attack or defence. When he meets with

a desirable victim, such as a large spider, he darts quickly forward,

seizes it with his claws, which are like those of crabs, raises it above

his head in order to examine it with his eyes, which are turned upwards,

and gives it the death-stroke with his sting. Then he sucks up the

softer parts and grinds the harder between his jaws.

The young ones, which are active as soon as they are born, are like the

old ones from the first day, but are light-coloured and soft. They crawl

about their mother's back and legs and do not leave her body for some

time. When that happens the mother dies, having meanwhile wasted away.

The sting of large scorpions is dangerous even to human beings. Cases

have been known of a man dying in great agony twelve hours after being

stung. Others get cramp, fever, and pains before they begin to recover.

A man who has often been stung becomes at last insensible to the poison.

Many a time I have found scorpions in Asiatic huts, in my tent, on my

bed, and under my boxes, but I have never been stung by one. On the

other hand, it has been the fate of many of my servants, and they told

me that it was difficult to find out where the scorpion had stung them,

for their bodies sweated and burned equally intensely all over. In

Eastern Turkestan it is the practice to catch the scorpion which has

stung a man and crush him into a paste, which is laid over the puncture

made by the sting. But whether this is a real cure I do not know.

THE INDUS

After travelling 1500 miles on camels and dromedaries, the whistle of an

engine sounds like the sweetest music to the ear. At Nushki (see map, p.

132), the furthermost station of the Indian railway, I took leave of my

Baluchi servants, stepped into a train, and was carried past the

garrison town of Quetta south-eastwards to the Indus. Here we find that

one branch of the railway follows the river closely on its western bank

to Karachi, one of the principal seaports of British India. Our train,

however, carries us northwards along the eastern bank to Rawalpindi, an

important military station near the borders of Kashmir.

[Illustration: MAP OF NORTHERN INDIA, SHOWING RIVERS AND MOUNTAIN RANGES.]

In the large roomy compartment it is as warm as it was lately in

Baluchistan, or nearly 107°. To shade the railway carriages from the

burning sun overhead, they are provided with a kind of wooden cover with

flaps falling down half over the windows. The glass is not white, as in

European carriage windows, but dark blue or green, otherwise the

reflexion of the sunlight from the ground would be too dazzling. On

either side two windows have, instead of glass, a lattice of root

fibres which are kept wet automatically night and day. Outside the

window is a ventilator, which, set in action by the motion of the train,

forces a rapid current of air through the wet network of fibres. Thereby

the air is cooled some eighteen or twenty degrees, and it is pleasant to

sit partly undressed in the draught.

Look a moment at the map. South of the Himalayas the Indian peninsula

forms an inverted triangle, the apex of which juts out into the Indian

Ocean like a tooth, but the northern part, at the base, is broad. Here

flow the three large rivers of India, the Indus, the Ganges, and the

Bramaputra. The last mentioned waters the plains of Assam at the eastern

angle of the triangle. On the banks of the Ganges stands a swarm of

famous large towns, some of which we shall visit when we return from

Tibet. The Ganges and Bramaputra have a delta in common, through which

their waters pass by innumerable arms out into the Bay of Bengal.

At the western angle of the triangle the Indus streams down to the

Arabian Sea. The sources of the Indus and Bramaputra lie close to each

other, up in Tibet, and the Himalayas are set like an immense jewel

between the glistening silver threads of the two rivers. On the west the

Indus cuts through a valley as much as 10,000 feet deep, and on the east

the Bramaputra makes its way down to the lowlands through a deep-cut

cleft not less wild and awesome.

The Indus has several tributaries. In foaming waterfalls and roaring

rapids they rush down from the mountains to meet their lord. The largest

of them is called the Sutlej, and the lowlands through which it flows

are called the Punjab, a Persian word signifying "five waters." The

Indus has thirteen mouths scattered along 150 miles of coast, and the

whole river is 2000 miles long, or somewhat longer than the Danube.

In the month of July, 325 years before the birth of Christ, Aristotle's

pupil, Alexander, King of Macedonia, floated down the Indus with a fleet

of newly built ships and reached Pattala, where the arms of the delta

diverge. He found the town deserted, for the inhabitants had fled

inland, so he sent light troops after them to tell them that they might

return in peace to their homes. A fortress was erected at the town, and

several wharves on the river bank.

He turned over great schemes in his mind. Had he not at twenty years of

age taken over the government of the little country of Macedonia, and

subdued the people of Thrace, Illyria, and Greece? Had he not led his

troops over the Hellespont, defeated the Persians, and conquered the

countries of Asia Minor, Lycia, Cappadocia, and Phrygia, where with a

blow of his sword he had severed the Gordian knot, a token of supremacy

over Asia? At Issus, on the rectangular bay facing Cyprus, he had

inflicted a crushing defeat on the great King of Persia, Darius

Codomannus, who with the united forces of his kingdom had come to meet

him. At Damascus he captured all the Persian war funds, and afterwards

took the famous commercial towns of the Phoenicians, Tyre and Sidon.

Palestine fell, and Jerusalem with the holy places. On the coast of

Egypt he founded Alexandria, which now, after a lapse of 2240 years, is

still a flourishing city. He marched through the Libyan desert to the

oasis of Zeus Ammon, where the priests, after the old Pharaonic custom,

consecrated him "Son of Ammon."

He passed eastwards into Asia, crossed the Euphrates, defeated Darius

again at the Tigris, and reduced proud Babylon and Shushan, where 150

years previously King Ahasuerus, who reigned "from India even unto

Ethiopia over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces," made a feast

for his lords and "shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the

honour of his excellent majesty." Then he advanced to Persepolis and set

on fire the palace of the Great King to show that the old empire had

passed away. Pursuing Darius through Ispahan and Hamadan, he afterwards

turned aside into Bactria, the present Russian Central Asia, and marched

northwards to the Syr-darya and the land of the Scythians. Thence, with

an army of more than a hundred thousand men, he proceeded southwards and

conquered the Punjab and subdued all the people living west of the

Indus.

Now he had come to Pattala, and he thought of the victories he had

gained and the countries he had annexed. He had appointed everywhere

Greeks and Macedonians to rule in conjunction with the native princes

and satraps.[10] The great empire must be knit together into a solid

unity, and Babylon was to be its capital. Only in the west there was

still an enormous gap to be conquered, the desert through which we have

lately wandered on the way from Teheran through Tebbes and Seistan and

Baluchistan.

In order to reduce the people living here he despatched a part of his

host by a northerly route through Seistan to north Persia. He himself

led forty thousand men along the coast. Twelve thousand men were to sail

and row the newly-built ships along the coast of the Arabian Sea,

through the Straits of Hormuz, and along the northern coast of the

Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Euphrates. No Greek had ever navigated

this sea before, and with the vessels of the period the enterprise was a

most dangerous one, as absolutely nothing was known about the coast to

be followed. But it was necessary, for Alexander wished to secure for

himself the command of the sea route between the mouths of the Euphrates

and Indus, so as to connect the western and eastern parts of his

kingdom. It was to supply the fleet with provisions and water that he

chose for himself the dangerous desert route along the coast. Of the

40,000 men who accompanied him on this march, no less than 30,000 died

of thirst! The high admiral, Nearchus of Crete, performed his task with

brilliant success. His voyage was one of the most remarkable ever

achieved on the oceans of the globe. The chart he compiled is so exact

that it may be used at the present day, though the coast has since then

undergone changes in some places and has been further silted up with

sand and made shallower.

Alexander would not let his fleet start on its adventurous voyage before

he was himself convinced of the navigability of the Indus and had

acquainted himself with the aspect of the great ocean. Accordingly he

sailed down the western arm of the Indus with the swiftest vessels of

the fleet--thirty-oared boats, and small triremes, or vessels whereon

the 150 naked oarsmen sat on three tiers of benches above one another

with oars of different lengths projecting through port-holes in the

hull. The vessels were protected by troops which followed them on the

bank.

In the midst of summer, when the river is at its highest level and

overflows the banks for miles, it is no pleasure excursion to steer

ungainly boats between banks of sand and silt without pilots. On the

second day a strong southerly storm arose, and the dangerous waves in

the whirlpools of the current capsized many vessels and damaged others.

Alexander made for the bank to look for fishermen who might act as

pilots, and under their guidance he continued his voyage. The river

became wider and wider, and the fresh salt breeze from the ocean became

ever more perceptible; but the wind increased, for the south-west

monsoon was at its height. The grey turbid water rose in higher billows

and made rowing difficult, for the oars either did not touch the water

or dipped too deeply into it. It was the flood tide running up from the

sea which impeded their progress, but the ebb and flow of the sea was

new to them. Eventually Alexander sought the shelter of a creek, and the

vessels were dragged ashore. Then came the ebb, and the water fell as

though it were sucked out into the sea. The boats were left high and

dry, and many of them sank deep in the mud. Astonished and bewildered,

Alexander and his men could get neither forward nor backward. They had

just made preparations to get the ships afloat, when the tide returned

and lifted them.

Now they went farther down-stream and came in contact with the raging

surf of the monsoon, which advances in light-green foam-crowned waves

far into the mouth and changes the colour of the river water. The

collision of the Indus current with the rising tide fills the fairway

with whirlpools and eddies, which are exceedingly dangerous even for the

best of vessels of the present day. Several ships were lost, some being

thrown up on the banks, while others dashed together and went to pieces.

After they had taken note of the regular rise and fall of the tide, they

could avoid danger, and the fleet arrived safely at an island where

shelter could be obtained by the shore and where fresh water was

abundant. From here the foaming, roaring surf at the very mouth of the

Indus could be seen, and above the rolling breakers appeared the level

horizon of the ocean.

With the best of the vessels Alexander went out to ascertain whether the

surf could be passed through without danger and the open sea be reached.

The trial proved successful, and another island was found, begirt on all

sides by open sea. The ships then returned in the dusk to the larger

island, where a solemn sacrifice was made to Ammon to celebrate the

first sight of the sea and of the margin of the inhabited world towards

the south.

Next day Alexander rowed right out to sea to convince himself that no

more land existed, and when he had advanced so far that nothing but sky

and rolling billows could be seen from the uppermost benches of the

triremes, he offered sacrifices to Poseidon, the god of the sea, to the

Nereids, and to the silver-footed sea-goddess Thetis, the mother of

Achilles, father of his race. And he besought the favour of all the gods

in the great enterprise which had brought him to the mouth of the

Indus, and their protection for his fleet on its dangerous voyage to the

Euphrates; and when his prayer was ended he cast a golden goblet into

the sea.

[Illustration: PLATE VIII. SRINAGAR AND THE JHELUM RIVER.]

Alexander died at Babylon at the age of thirty-three. His

world-embracing campaign spread Greek enlightenment over all western

Asia, and his eventful life did not pass like a meteor into the night of

time without leaving a trace behind.

KASHMIR AND LADAK

When I arrived at Rawalpindi the first thing I did was to order a

_tonga_ for the drive of 180 miles to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.

A _tonga_ is a two-wheeled tilted cart drawn by two horses, which are

changed every half hour, for as long as the pair are on the way they go

at full speed. The road was excellent, and we left the hot suffocating

steam of India below us as we ascended along the bank of the Jhelum

River. Sometimes we dashed at headlong speed over stretches of open road

bathed in sunlight; sometimes through dark cool tunnels where the driver

blew a sonorous signal with his brass horn; and then again through

rustling woods of pine-trees.

Srinagar is a beautiful city, intersected as it is by the rippling

Jhelum River and winding canals (Plate VIII.). The houses on their banks

rise up directly from the water, and long, narrow, graceful boats pass

to and fro, propelled at a swift pace by broad-bladed oars in the hands

of active and muscular white-clad Kashmiris.

Kashmir is one of the native states of our Indian Empire, and its

inhabitants number about three millions. Many of them are artistic and

dexterous craftsmen, who make fine boxes and caskets inlaid with ivory,

mother-of-pearl, and ebony; beautifully chased weapons; tankards, bowls,

and vases of beaten silver with panthers and elephants on the sides,

chasing one another through the jungle. The saddlery and leather work of

all kinds cannot be surpassed, but most famous of all the manufactures

are the soft, dainty Kashmir shawls, so fine that they can be drawn

through a finger ring.

Round about the Kashmir valley stand the ridges and snow-clad heights of

the Himalayas, and among them lie innumerable valleys. Up one of these

valleys toiled our caravan of thirty-six mules and a hundred horses, and

after a journey of some 250 miles to the eastward we arrived again at

the banks of the Indus and crossed it by a swaying bridge of wood. Two

days later the poplars of Leh stood in front of us.

This little town is nearly 11,500 feet above sea-level. It contains an

open bazaar street, and a mound above the town is crowned by the old

royal castle. Leh, as well as the whole of the district of Ladak, is

subject to the Maharaja of Kashmir, but the people are mostly of Tibetan

race and their religion is Lamaism.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] A "satrap" was originally a governor of a province in ancient

Persia.

VII

EASTERN TURKESTAN (1895)

THE TAKLA-MAKAN DESERT

We are now on the high road between India and Eastern Turkestan, the

most elevated caravan route in the world. Innumerable skeletons of

transport animals lie there, marking where the road passes through snow.

After a month's journey over the cold, lofty mountains we come to the

town of Yarkand, in the spacious, flat, bowl-shaped hollow, surrounded

on all sides except the east by mountains, which is called Eastern

Turkestan.

To the south stand the immense highlands of Tibet, where the great

rivers of India and China take their rise. On the west is the Pamir, the

"Roof of the World," where the two great rivers of the Sea of Aral begin

their course. On the north lie the Tien-shan, or Mountains of Heaven,

which are continued farther north-eastwards by the Altai and several

other mountain systems, among which the gigantic rivers of Siberia have

their origin. Within this ring of mountains, at the very heart of the

great continent of Asia, lies this lowland of Eastern Turkestan, like a

Tibetan sheepfold enclosed by enormous walls of rock.

In its northern part a river called the Tarim flows from west to east.

It is formed by the Yarkand-darya and the Khotan-darya on the south, and

receives other affluents along its course, for water streams down from

the snowfields and glaciers of the wreath of mountains enclosing Eastern

Turkestan. The head-waters of the Tarim leap merrily down through narrow

valleys among the mountains, but the great river is doomed never to

reach the sea. It terminates and is lost in a desert lake named Lop-nor.

Trees grow along this river, mostly small, stunted poplars, but the

wooded belts along the banks are very narrow; soon the trees thin out

and come to an end, steppe shrubs and tamarisks take their place, and

only a mile or two from the river there is nothing but deep sand without

a sign of vegetation. The greater part of Eastern Turkestan is occupied

by the desert called Takla-makan, the most terrible and dangerous in the

world.

[Illustration: MAP OF EASTERN TURKESTAN, SHOWING JOURNEYS

DESCRIBED ON pp. 89-110.]

A belt of desert runs through the whole of Asia and Africa, like a

dried-up river bed. This belt includes the Gobi, which extends over most

of Mongolia, the Takla-makan, the "Red Sand" and the "Black Sand" in

Russian Turkestan, the Kevir and other deserts in Persia, the deserts of

Arabia, and lastly the Sahara. In this succession of deserts extending

over the Old World from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic the

Takla-makan is, then, a link.

ACROSS A SEA OF SAND

In the beginning of April, 1895, I had reached the Yarkand-darya and had

encamped at a village, Merket, on its eastern bank. My plan was to

cross the Takla-makan desert, which stretches away to the eastward, and

to reach the river Khotan-darya, which flows northwards, the distance

being 180 miles. My caravan consisted of four servants and eight camels;

and we took provisions for two months--for we intended afterwards to

travel on to Tibet--and water for twenty-five days in four iron

cisterns.

We started on April 10. A white camel was led in front by a man we

called the guide, because every one said that he had often been in the

desert seeking for treasure. My riding camel was led by a white-bearded

man named Muhamed Shah. Kasim came at the end of the file, and the

faithful Islam Bay, who superintended the whole, was my confidential

servant. We had also two dogs, Yolldash and Hamra, three sheep, ten

hens, and a cock. The last did not like riding on a camel. He was always

working his way out through the bars of his cage, and fluttering down to

the ground with a loud crow.

For the first few days all went on quietly and satisfactorily. At night

we could always obtain water for the camels and other animals by

digging, and thus we saved the fresh river-water in our tanks. But the

sand became gradually higher and forced us to diverge to the north-east.

On April 18 we came to a morass surrounded by wood so thick that we had

to clear a way with the axe. Next day we encamped on the shore of a lake

of beautiful blue water where ducks and geese were swimming about, and

my tent was set up under a couple of poplars.

Another day's march led us along the shore of a long lake with bare

banks. We encamped at its southern extremity and rested a day, for here

nothing could be seen towards the south and west but yellow sand. The

guide asserted that it was four days' journey eastwards to the river

Khotan-darya, and this statement agreed approximately with existing

maps, but I took the precaution of ordering the men to take water for

ten days.

On April 23 we left the last bay of the last lake to plunge into the

high sand. All vegetation came to an end, and only in some hollow a

solitary tamarisk was still to be seen. The sandhills became ever

higher, rising to as much as 100 feet.

The next day we marched on in a violent storm. The sand swept down in

clouds from the crests of the dunes, penetrating into our mouths, noses,

and eyes. Islam Bay led our train and looked for the easiest way for the

camels. We noticed, however, that they were already beginning to get

tired. Sometimes they fell in the sand, and their loads had to be taken

off before they could get up again. When the tent was set up we had made

only eight miles. Now there was not a sign of life, not a moth fluttered

round my candle, not a wind-borne leaf was seen in the boundless yellow

sand.

On the morning of the 25th I made a terrible discovery: two cisterns

were empty and the other two contained only enough water for two days.

Henceforth Islam Bay was put in charge of the cisterns. The water was

treasured like gold and served out in driblets.

I travelled on foot to spare my riding camel and encourage the men. The

caravan moved more slowly through the murderous sands. One camel, called

Old Man, lagged behind. We waited an hour, and gave him a mouthful of

water and a handful of hay from his own pack-saddle. When we went on, he

was led slowly after us by Muhamed Shah.

With Islam I measured out the last drops of water on the night of the

26th. There were about two small cups daily for each of us for three

days. The next day we plunged again into terrible sand, the dunes being

200 feet high. In the evening we saw dense rain-clouds in the west, and

hoped that Heaven would have compassion on us. The clouds spread out and

came still nearer. All our vessels were made ready, and the tent was

stretched on the ground to collect the sweet water which was to save us.

We waited in vain, for the clouds dispersed and yielded us not a drop.

The two tired-out camels had been abandoned at the beginning of the day,

and we had thrown away a stove, a carpet, my tent-bed, and two empty

water cisterns.

On April 28 we were awakened by a north-easterly storm, one of those

"black storms" which stir up the drift-sand in dense clouds and turn day

into night. All the camp was buried in sand. Only the nearest camels

could be seen, and their track was immediately obliterated. We had to

keep all together lest we should lose one another. It was quite possible

to lose the caravan at a distance of a few paces, and that meant death.

We were almost suffocated by the volumes of sand which whirled about us,

and had to rest frequently to get our breath. The camels lay down with

their heads to leeward, and we thrust our faces under them that we might

not be choked with sand.

Then we went on with faltering steps. A camel fell and I sent two men

after him. They came back directly, saying that the track was smoothed

out by the wind and that they dared not lose sight of us. That was the

third victim. At the evening camp everything not absolutely

indispensable was sorted out to be left behind, and a stick was set up

on the nearest dune with a newspaper wrapped round it so that we might

find the place again if we obtained water soon. There was still a little

water left in the two cans, but next morning Islam came and told me that

one of them was empty. There can be little doubt that the guide was the

thief who had robbed us all. With failing steps we struggled on all day

among the high sand dunes.

On the morning of the 30th there was less than two-thirds of a pint of

water left in the last can. While the others were engaged in loading the

camels, Islam surprised the guide as he stood with the can to his mouth.

Islam fell upon him furiously, threw him to the ground, and would have

killed him if I had not come up in time. Only one-third of a pint was

now left. At mid-day I moistened the men's lips with the corner of a

handkerchief dipped in water. In the evening the last drops were to be

distributed, but when the time came the can was found to be absolutely

empty. Kasim and Muhamed, who led the camels, had drunk it all.

THE END OF THE CARAVAN

The night was cold, but the sun had not long risen on May 1 before the

heat spread over the dunes. The men drank the last of some rancid

vegetable oil which had been intended for the camels. I was tortured

with thirst, as I had not drunk a drop of water the day before, and

before that only a few mouthfuls. Thirst is a fearful thing, driving one

to despair, and almost depriving one of reason. As the body dries up,

the desire for water leaves one no peace. We had a flask of Chinese

spirits which were intended for a cooking stove. I now drank about a

tumblerful of it to give my body a little moisture, and then I threw the

flask away and let its dangerous contents run out into the sand.

The insidious liquor undermined my strength. When the caravan toiled on

through the dunes I could not follow it. I crept and staggered in its

track. The bells rang out clearly in the quiet air, but the sound became

fainter, and at length died away in the distance. The silent desert lay

around me--sand, sand, sand in all directions.

Following slowly in the footsteps of the others, I came at last to the

crest of a dune, where I saw that the camels of the caravan had laid

themselves down. Muhamed Shah was on his knees imploring help from

Allah. Kasim was sitting with his face in his hands, weeping and

laughing alternately. Islam, who had been exploring in front, came back

and proposed that we should look for a place where we could dig for

water (Plate IX.). I therefore mounted the white camel, after his

load--ammunition boxes, two European saddles, and a number of other

articles--had been thrown away, but the animal would not get up. We then

decided to stay where we were and wait for the cool of evening, and the

tent was set up to afford us shade. Even Yolldash and the sheep came in.

At mid-day a gentle breeze sprang up, and the air felt pleasant and

refreshing. We killed the cock and drank its blood. Then Islam turned

the head of the sheep towards Mecca, cut off its head, and collected the

blood in a pail, but it was thick and smelt offensively, and not even

the dog Yolldash would touch it.

We now sorted out all our belongings, taking with us only what was

absolutely necessary at the moment, and leaving everything else behind

in the tent. The guide had lost his reason and filled his mouth with

sand, thinking it was water. He and old Muhamed Shah, who was also

dying, had to be left behind.

At seven o'clock I mounted the white camel. Islam led the train and

Kasim urged the animals on. The funeral bells, now rang for the last

time. From a high sandy crest I turned a farewell glance at the death

camp. The tent marked out a dark triangle against the lighter

background, and then vanished behind the sand.

The night descended sadly and silently over the earth. We tramped

through loose sand, up and down, without seeing where we were going. I

jumped down from my camel, lighted the lantern, and walked on in front

to see where it was easiest for the camels to follow.

Then Islam reeled up to me and whispered that he could go no farther. I

bade him farewell, cheered him up, told him to rest and then follow in

my track, abandoning everything. The camels were lying half-dead with

necks stretched out. Kasim alone was fit to accompany me farther. He

took a spade and a pail and the paunch of the sheep. I had only my

watch, compass, a penknife, a pen, and a scrap of paper, two small

tins of lobster and chocolate, a small box, matches and ten cigarettes.

But the food gave us little satisfaction, for when the mouth, palate,

and throat are as dry as the outer skin it is impossible to swallow.

[Illustration: PLATE IX. DIGGING FOR WATER IN THE TAKLA-MAKAN.]

It was exactly twelve o'clock. We had been shipwrecked in the midst of

the desert sea, and were now trying to reach a coast. The lantern stood

burning beside Islam Bay, but the light was soon hidden by the dunes.

We were clad as lightly as possible. Kasim had a thin jacket, wide

trousers, and boots, but he had forgotten his cap, so I lent him my

pocket handkerchief to wind round his head. I wore a white Russian cap,

stiff Swedish shoes, woollen underclothing, and a white suit of thin

cotton cloth. I had changed my clothes at the death camp that I might

have a neat clean shroud if I died.

We pushed on with the energy of despair, but after two hours we were so

sleepy that we had to rest a while. The coolness of the night woke us up

at four o'clock, and we kept on the march till nine. Then we rested

again and walked on farther till twelve o'clock, when we were again

overcome by weariness and the burning heat of the day. In a sandy slope

facing northwards Kasim digged out cool sand in which we burrowed stark

naked with only our heads out. To protect ourselves from sunstroke we

made a screen by hanging up clothes on the spade. At six o'clock we got

up again and walked for seven hours. Our strength was giving way, and we

had to rest more frequently. At one o'clock we were slumbering on a

dune.

There we lay quite three hours, and then went on eastwards. I always

held the compass in my hand. The next day had dawned, May 3, when Kasim

stopped, caught hold of my shoulder, and pointed eastwards without

saying a word. A small dark speck was seen in the distance; it was a

green tamarisk! Its roots must go down to the water below the surface,

or it could not live in the desert sea. We thanked God when we came up

to it. We had now some hope of safety, and we chewed the soft needles of

the tamarisks like beasts. We tarried a while under its slight shadow,

and then walked till half-past nine, when we fell down with faintness at

another bush.

We again undressed and buried ourselves in sand, lying without speaking

a word for quite nine hours. At dusk we dragged ourselves on again with

halting steps. After three hours of march Kasim again stopped suddenly.

Something dark peeped out from among the dunes--three fine poplars with

sappy foliage. The leaves were too bitter to eat, but we rubbed them on

the skin until it became moist.

Here we tried to dig a well, but the spade fell out of our powerless

hands. We then lay down and scraped with our hands, but could not do

much. Instead we collected all the dry branches we could find and made a

blazing fire as a beacon for Islam, and to attract attention from the

east, for we knew that a caravan road ran along the Khotan river.

At four o'clock on May 4 we moved on again, but after five hours we were

utterly exhausted. We threw ourselves heedlessly on the sand, for Kasim

was unable to dig the usual burrow. I wriggled naked into the cool dune

and lay there ten hours without closing an eye.

When at last the shadows spread over the earth and I was ready to set

out, Kasim murmured that he could go no farther. I did not even remember

to bid him farewell when I went on my way alone through the darkness and

sand. Just after midnight I sank down by a tamarisk. The stars twinkled

as usual, and not a sound was audible. Only the beat of my heart and the

ticking of my watch broke the awful silence. Then I heard a rustling

sound in the sand. "Is that you, Kasim?" I asked. "Yes, sir," he

whispered back. "Let us go a little farther," I said, and he followed me

with trembling legs.

We were not troubled now so much by thirst, for our bodies had become as

dry as parchment and seemed to have lost all feeling; but our strength

was at an end. We crawled for a long distance on our hands and feet,

dazed and indifferent, as if we were walking in our sleep.

But soon we waked up into full consciousness. Dumb with astonishment we

stopped before the trail of men. Shepherds from the river must have seen

our fire the day before and have come to look for us. We followed the

trail up a high dune where the sand was closely packed and the marks

were more distinct. "It is our own trail," said Kasim in a despairing

voice. We had gone round in a circle, and now we could do no more for a

while. Sad and worn out, we fell down in the track.

It was May 5. We had slept half an hour. It was four o'clock, and a

vague light heralding the ruddy dawn rose up above the eastern horizon.

Kasim looked dreadfully ill; his tongue was swollen, white and dry, his

lips bluish. He complained of a spasmodic hiccough that shook his whole

body, a sign of the approach of death. The thick blood flowed sluggishly

in his veins. Even the eyes and joints were dry. We had struggled

bravely, but now the end was near.

But when the sun rose we saw a dark line on the eastern horizon. The

sight filled us with thankfulness, for we knew that it must be the wood

on the bank of the Khotan river. Now we exerted ourselves to the

uttermost, for we must reach it before we sank with thirst and

exhaustion. A number of poplars grew in a hollow. "Let us dig here; it

is a long distance to the woods"; but the spade again slipped out of our

hands, and we could only stumble and crawl on eastwards.

At last we were there. I seemed to be roused from a fearful dream, a

terrible nightmare. Green and luxuriant stood the trees in front of us,

and between them grew grass and weeds where numerous spoors of wild

animals were visible--tigers, wolves, foxes, stags, antelopes, gazelles,

and hares. The birds were singing their morning song and insects buzzed

in the air. Life and joyousness reigned everywhere.

It could not now be far to the river. We tried to pass through the wood,

but were stopped by impenetrable brushwood and fallen trunks. Then we

came to a path with plain traces of men and horses. We decided to follow

it, for surely it would lead to the bank, but not even the hope of a

speedy deliverance could enable us to keep on our feet. At nine o'clock,

when the day was already burning hot, we tumbled down in the shade of a

couple of poplars. Kasim could not last much longer. His senses were

clouded. He gasped for breath and stared with vacant eyes at the sky. He

made no answer even when I shook him. I took off my clothes and crept

down into a hole between the tree roots. Scorpions inhabited the dry

trees and their marks were visible everywhere, but the poisonous

reptiles left me in peace.

WATER AT LAST

I lay for ten hours wide awake. At seven o'clock I took the wooden haft

of the spade and went alone through the wood, for Kasim could not move.

I dropped down again and again on fallen trunks to rest; a few more

staggering steps and again a rest on a stump. When I could not hold

myself up, I crawled inch by inch through the brushwood, tearing my

hands and clothes. It grew dusk and then dark in the wood. I felt sleep

gradually creeping over me to rob me of life. For if I had fallen asleep

now, I should never have awakened again. My last struggle was, then,

against drowsiness.

Then the wood suddenly came to an end and the bed of the Khotan river

lay before me. But the bottom was dry, as dry as the sand in the desert!

I was at the summer margin of the river, where water only flows when the

snow melts on the mountains to the south. But I was not going to die on

the bank; I would cross the whole bed before I gave myself up for lost.

The bed was a mile and a quarter broad, a terrible distance for my

strength. I walked slowly with the spade-handle for a stick, crawling

for long distances and often resting and exerting all the force of my

will to resist sleep. Hitherto we had been always making eastwards, but

this night I walked involuntarily south-east. It was as though I were

guided by an unseen hand.

The crescent moon threw a pale light over the dry riverbed. I went

towards the middle and expected to see a silvery streak glisten on a

sheet of water. After an interval, which seemed endless, I descried the

line of wood on the eastern bank. It became more distinct. A fallen

poplar lay projecting over a hollow in the river-bed and on the bank

were close thickets of bushes and reeds. I rested once more. Was it

possible that the whole bed was dry? I felt that all my remaining

strength would be needed to reach the bank. Was I to die of thirst in

the middle of a river-bed? I rose painfully to walk the last bit, but I

had not taken many steps before I stopped short. A duck rose on whirring

wings, I heard the plashing sound of water, and the next moment I stood

at the edge of a fresh, cool, beautiful pool.

I fell on my knees and thanked God for my marvellous escape. Then I took

out my watch and felt my feeble pulse, which beat forty-nine. Then I

drank, slowly at first and then more freely. A deal of water was needed

to slake such a thirst; I drank and drank until at length I was

satisfied. Then I sat down to rest and felt that I was reviving quickly.

After a few minutes my pulse had risen to fifty-six. My hands, which had

just been withered and hard as wood, softened, the blood flowed more

easily through my veins and my forehead became moist. Life seemed more

desirable and delightful than ever. Then I drank again, and thought of

my wonderful deliverance. If I had passed fifty steps to the right or

left of the pool, I should probably never have found it, or if I had

crawled on in the wrong direction, I should have had to walk six miles

to the next pool, which I could not have done before sleep with the

death trance in its train came and carried me off.

Now my thoughts flew to the dying Kasim. He needed help at once, if his

life was to be saved. Dipping my waterproof boots in the pool I filled

them to the top, passed the straps over the ends of the spade shaft, and

with this over my shoulder retraced my steps. It was pitch-dark in the

wood and it was impossible to see the track. I called out "Kasim" with

all the force of my lungs, but heard no answer. Then I sought out a

dense clump of dried branches and brushwood and set it on fire. The

flame shot up immediately, the pile of dry twigs crackled, burst and

frizzled, the dried herbage was scorched by the draught from below,

tongues of flame licked the poplar trunks, and it became as light as in

the middle of the day, a yellowish red gleam illuminating the dark

recesses of the wood. Kasim could not be far off, and must see the fire.

Again I looked for the trail, but as I only got confused in the wood I

stayed by the fire, propped the boots against a root, laid myself down

where the flames could not reach me, but where I was safe from tigers

and other wild beasts, and slept soundly.

When day broke I found the trail. Kasim was lying where I left him. "I

am dying," he whispered in a scarcely audible voice; but when I raised

one of the boots to his lips, he roused himself up and drank, and

emptied the other one also. Then we agreed to go together to the pool.

It was impossible to turn back into the desert, for we had not eaten for

a week, and now that our thirst was quenched we were attacked by hunger.

Besides, we felt quite sure that the other men were dead some days ago.

Kasim was so exhausted that he could not go with me. As he was at any

rate on the right track, and it was now most important to find something

to eat, I went alone to the pool, drank, bathed, and rested, and then

walked southwards. At nine o'clock a violent westerly storm arose,

driving clouds of sand along the ground. After wandering three hours it

occurred to me that it was not wise to leave the beneficent pool. I

therefore turned back, but after half an hour only found instead a very

small pool with indifferent water. It was no use wandering about in such

a storm, for I could not see where I was going; the wind roared and

whistled through the wood, and I was half dead with fatigue and hunger.

I therefore crept into a small thicket close to this pool, where I was

out of reach of the storm, and making a pillow of my boots and cap,

slept soundly and heavily. Since May 1 I had had no proper sleep. When I

woke it was already dark, and the storm still howled through the wood. I

was now so tortured by hunger that I began to eat grass, flowers, and

reed shoots. There were numbers of young frogs in the pool. They were

bitter, but I pinched their necks and swallowed them whole. After eating

my supper I collected a store of branches to keep up a fire during the

night, and then I crept into my lair in the thicket and gazed into the

fire for a couple of hours while the storm raged outside. Then I went to

sleep again.

At dawn on May 7 I crept out of the thicket and decided to march

southwards until I met with human beings. This time I took water with me

in my boots, but after a few hours my feet were so sore and blistered

that I had to bind them up in long strips of my shirt. At length to my

delight I found a sheepfold on the bank; it had evidently not been used

for a long time, but it showed that shepherds must live in the woods

somewhere.

At noon heat and fatigue drove me into the wood again, where I ate a

breakfast of grass and reeds. After a rest I wandered on again hour

after hour towards the south, but at eight o'clock I could go no

farther, and before it became quite dark I tried to make myself

comfortable on a small space sheltered by poplars and bushes, and there

as usual I lighted my camp fire. I had nothing else to do but lie and

stare into the flames and listen to the curious mournful sounds in the

wood. Sometimes I heard tapping steps and dry twigs cracking. It might

be tigers, but I trusted that they would not venture to attack me just

when I had been saved in such a remarkable manner.

I rose on May 8 while it was still dark, and sought for a path in the

wood, but I had not gone far before the trees became scattered and came

to an end, and the dismal yellow desert lay before me. I knew it only

too well, and made haste back to the river-bed. I rested during the hot

hours of the day in the shadow of a poplar and then set off again. I now

followed the right bank of the river, and shortly before sunset stopped

dead before a remarkable sight--the fresh track of two barefooted men

who had driven four asses northwards.

It was hopeless to try and overtake these wayfarers, and therefore I

followed their track in the opposite direction. I travelled more quickly

than usual, the evening was calm and still, twilight fell over the wood.

At a jutting point of the bank I seemed to hear an unusual sound, and

held my breath to listen. But the wood was still sad and dreary.

"Perhaps it was a warbler or a thrush," I thought, and walked on. A

little later I pulled up again. This time I heard quite plainly a man's

voice and the low of a cow. I quickly pulled on my wet boots and rushed

into the wood. A flock of sheep watched by its shepherd was feeding on

an open glade among the trees. The man seemed petrified at first when he

saw me, and then he turned on his heels and vanished among the

brushwood.

After a while he came back with an older shepherd, and I gave them an

account of my adventures and begged for bread. They did not know what to

believe, but they took me to their hut and gave me maize bread and ewe's

milk.

The best thing of all, however, was that three traders rode up next day,

and I learned from them that some days previously they had discovered a

dying man beside a white camel on the bank of the river. It was Islam

Bay! They had given him water and food, and the following day both he

and Kasim appeared in my hut. Our delight was great, though we mourned

for our comrades who had died of thirst in the desert.

VIII

THE DESERT WATERWAY (1899)

DOWN THE YARKAND RIVER

No doubt you remember the village of Merket, where we set out on pur

fatal march through the Takla-makan desert in 1895. In September, 1899,

I was again at this village with a large caravan and many servants, my

plan on this occasion being to travel through the whole of Eastern

Turkestan by water. The waterway I intended to use was the river which

in its upper course is called the Yarkand, and in its lower the Tarim.

At the village a great caravan route crosses the river, and flat

ferry-boats convey travellers with their animals and goods from one bank

to the other. I bought one of the ferry-boats, and had it converted into

a floating home for our journey of more than a thousand miles (Plate

X.). It was 36 feet long by 8-1/2 broad, and was like a huge trough

built of rough planks. A floor of boards was laid in the bow

sufficiently large to serve as a support for my tent. Behind this was

built a cubical cabin of thin boards covered with sheets of black felt.

Within it was furnished with a table and shelves, and window-frames with

glass panes were let into the felt walls. Here I had all my photographic

accessories, and here I intended to develop my plates.

When all was ready the ferry-boat was rolled down on logs into the river

again. The tent was set up and its folds were spiked fast to the edges

of the flooring. My bed and my boxes were arranged in the tent, a carpet

was spread on the floor, and at the front opening was placed my

writing-table, consisting of two boxes, whereon paper, pens, compass,

and watch, field-glass and other things always lay ready. For a stool I

had a smaller hide trunk.

[Illustration: PLATE X. THE AUTHOR'S BOAT ON THE YARKAND RIVER.

The man with the white turban at the stern is Islam Bay.]

Amidships our heavy baggage was piled up: sacks of flour and rice, boxes

of sugar, tea, and groceries, saddles, weapons, and tools. The kitchen

was at the stern, in charge of my faithful Islam Bay--for he was with me

again.

When the ferry-boat was fully fitted up and ready to sail, it drew nine

inches of water. We had also a small auxiliary boat to pilot the larger

and inform us where treacherous sand-banks were hidden below the

surface. Fruit, vegetables, sheep, and fowls were carried on the smaller

boat, which looked rather like a small farmyard. The heavy baggage that

we did not need on the journey was packed on our camels, and their

leader was ordered to meet me in three months' time near the termination

of the river.

Our voyage began on September 17, 1899, the crew numbering seven,

including Islam Bay and myself. Kader was a youth who helped Islam Bay

by peeling potatoes, laying table, and fetching water from clear pools

on the banks cut off from the river. In the bow stood Palta with a long

pole, watching to thrust off if the boat went too near the bank. At the

stern stood two other polemen, who helped to handle the boat. The small

boat was managed by one man, Kasim, and as I sat at my writing-table I

could see him pushing his vessel with his pole to right or left in

search of the channel where the water was deepest and the current most

rapid. Then we had two four-legged passengers on the larger boat, Dovlet

and Yolldash. Dovlet means the "lucky one" and Yolldash "travelling

companion." The latter had succeeded to the name of the dog which died

in the Takla-makan desert.

The boat floats down with the current, following obediently the windings

of the river, and the polemen are on the watch. On the banks grow small

hawthorn bushes and tamarisks, interrupted by patches of reeds and small

clumps of young trees, among which poplars always predominate. They are

not the tall, slender poplars which tower proud as kings above other

trees, but quite a dwarf kind with a round, irregular crown. When the

day draws near to a close I give the order to stop. Palta thrusts his

pole into the river bottom, and, throwing all his strength and weight on

to it, forces the stern of the boat to swing round to the land, where

another of the crew jumps out on to the bank with a rope. He makes it

fast round a stump, and our day's voyage is ended.

The gangway is pushed out and a fire is lighted in an open space among

the trees, and soon the teapot and rice-pan are bubbling pleasantly. I

remain sitting at my writing-table and see the moonlight playing in a

streak on the surface of the river. All is quiet and silent around us,

and even the midges have gone to rest. I hear only the brands crackling

in the camp fire and the sand slipping down the neighbouring bank as the

water laps against it. A dog barking in the distance is answered by

Dovlet and Yolldash.

Now steps are heard on board, and Islam Bay brings my supper. The

writing-table is converted into a dining-table, and he serves me up rice

pudding with onions, carrots, and minced mutton, fresh bread, eggs,

cucumbers, melons, and grapes. What more could a man want? It was very

different when we were wandering on the endless sands. If I want to

drink I have only to let down a cup into the river which gently ripples

past the boat. The dogs keep me company, sitting with cocked ears

waiting for a titbit. Then Islam comes and clears the table, I close the

tent, creep into my berth, and enjoy life afloat on my own vessel, where

it is only necessary to loosen a rope to be on the way again.

After a few days we come to a place where the river contracts and forces

its way with great velocity between small islands and great heaps of

stranded driftwood. Here Palta has plenty of work, for he has constantly

to keep the boat off from some obstacle or other with the pole.

Frequently we bump up against poplar trunks which do not show above the

water, and then the boat swings round in a moment. Then all the crew

jump into the river and shove the boat off again.

A distant noise is heard, and soon becomes louder. In a moment we are in

the midst of rapids, and it is too late to heave to. It is to be hoped

that we shall not turn broadside on or we shall capsize. "Let her go

down as she likes," I call out. All the poles are drawn up, and the boat

flies along, gliding easily and smoothly over the boiling water.

Below the rapids the river widened out, and became so shallow that we

stuck fast in blue clay. We pushed and pulled, but all to no purpose.

Then all the baggage was carried ashore, and with our united strength we

swung the boat round until the clay was loosened, and then the things

were brought on board again.

Farther down, the river draws together again. The banks are lined with

dense masses of fine old trees just beginning to turn yellow in the

latter days of September. The boat seems as though it were gliding along

a canal in a park. The woods are silent, not a leaf is moving, and the

water flows noiselessly. The polemen have nothing to do. They sit

cross-legged with one hand on the pole, which trails through the water;

and only now and then have they to make a thrust to keep the boat in the

middle of the stream.

Weeks passed, and the ferry-boat drifted still farther and farther down

the river. Autumn had come, and the woods turned yellow and russet, and

the leaves fell. We had no time to spare if we did not want to be caught

fast in the ice before reaching the place where we had arranged to meet

the caravan. Therefore we started earlier in the morning and did not

land until long after sunset each day. The solemn silence of a temple

reigned around, only the quacking of a duck being heard occasionally or

the noise of a fox stealing through the reeds. A herd of wild boars lay

wallowing in the mud on the bank. When the boat glided noiselessly by

they got up, looked at us a moment with the greatest astonishment, and

dashed like a roaring whirlwind through the beds of cracking reeds. Deer

grazed on the bank. They scented danger and turned round to make for

their hiding-places in the wood. A roebuck swam across the stream a

little in front of the boat. Islam lay with his gun in the bow ready to

shoot, but the roebuck swam splendidly and, with a spring, was up on the

bank and vanished like the wind. Sometimes we saw also fresh spoor of

tigers at our camping-grounds, but we never succeeded in surprising one

of them.

One morning, when we had not seen any natives for a long time, the smoke

of a fire was seen on the bank. Some shepherds were watching their

flocks, and their dogs began to bark. The men gazed at the ferry-boat

with wonder and alarm as it floated nearer, and no doubt thought that it

was something ghostly, for they faced about and ran with the dust flying

about their sheepskin sandals. I sent two men ashore, but it was quite

impossible to catch up with the runaways.

Farther down we passed through a district where several villages stood

near the banks. They had learned of our coming through scouts, and when

we arrived we were met by whole troops of horsemen. The village headmen

were also present, and were invited on board, where they were regaled

with tea on the after-deck.

THE TARIM

The farther we went the smaller became the river. The Yarkand-darya

would never reach the lake, Lop-nor, where it discharges its water, if

it did not receive a considerable tributary on the way. This tributary

is called the Ak-su, or "White Water," and it comes foaming down from

the Tien-shan, the high mountains to the north. After the rivers have

mingled their waters, the united main stream is called the Tarim.

The weather gradually became colder. One morning a dense mist lay like a

veil between the wooded banks, and all the trees, bushes, and plants,

and the whole boat, were white with hoar frost. After this it was not

long before the frost began to spread thin sheets of ice over the pools

on the banks and the small cut-off creeks of stagnant water, and we had

to press on as fast as we could to escape being frozen in. Breakfast was

no longer laid on land, but on the after-deck of the ferry-boat, where

we built a fireplace of clay, and round this the men sat in turn to warm

themselves. At night we travelled long distances in the dark. We had

persuaded two natives to go with us in their long, narrow canoes, and

they rowed in front of us in the darkness with large Chinese paper

lanterns on poles to show us where the deep channel ran.

The woods on the bank gradually thin out, and finally come to an end

altogether, being replaced by huge sand-hills often as much as 200 feet

high. This is the margin of the great sandy desert which occupies all

the interior of Eastern Turkestan. The people in the country round about

are called Lopliks, and live to a great extent on fish.

During the last few days of November the temperature fell to 28.8° below

freezing-point. The drift ice which floated down the river became

thicker, and one morning the ferry-boat lay frozen in so fast we could

walk on the ice around it. Out in the current, however, the water was

open, and we broke asunder our fetters with axes and crowbars. A

constant roar of grinding and scraping ice accompanied us all day long,

and during the nights we had to anchor the ferry-boat out in the

swiftest part of the current to prevent it being frozen in.

On December 7 broad fringes of ice lay along both banks, and all day we

danced among drifting ice as in a bath of broken crockery. At night we

had a whole flotilla of canoes with lanterns and torches to clear the

way, when suddenly the boat swung round with a bump, and we found that

the river was frozen over right across. This did not disturb us, for on

the bank we saw the flames of a wood fire, and found that it was burning

at the camp of our camel caravan.

THE WANDERING LAKE