IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927-1935 : vol.3 |
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Citation Information
claim vigorously. The Ministry of Railways at Nanking granted us a new car like the one that had been destroyed.
The strangest part of it all was that GEORG was still alive. He had been sitting screwed up in the car with a railway engine on his lap, so to speak. As it happened, it was lucky for him that he could not budge. His bruises kept him in bed for a day. If DONGORA had kept calm, or failed to open the door, he would have escaped without a scratch.
We now needed a new driver, so we telegraphed to KARL EFRAIM HILL, a Swedish missionary's son of twenty in Feng-chen, who had received the highest testimonials as a motor mechanic, but had been prevented by other obligations from joining our party. Now, however, we bought his release and took him into our service, where he was a universal favourite from the first day. We never called him either Karl or Efraim, but simply EFFE.
PREPARATIONS IN KUEI-HUA
In Kuei-hua GEORG'S house was our headquarters. Here the »Sui-yüan — Sinkiang Highway Expedition » was to be finally organized. The yard was turned into a combined depot and workshop, where work went on unceasingly. Five white Mongolian tents were made there and lined with felt; and there sat eight Chinese tailors making us sheepskin sleeping-bags and big coats that reached to our feet. In short, we were equipping ourselves to meet a Central Asiatic winter, with snowstorms and bitter cold.
It was of great importance to send a petrol caravan in advance to the Edsen-gol, as we could not carry with us anything like all the petrol we should need. GEORG made the arrangements for this. A supply of 1,26o gallons of petrol in 42 solid iron-plate cylinders was bought, to be sent on to our first important halting-place, the Edsen-gol, on forty camels hired from the merchant NOGON DELI. Our luggage was stacked up in the yard, so that the things we should not be needing till we reached the Edsen-gol could be taken on ahead by the camels. All this was loaded onto the lorries and driven by GEORG to the monastery-town of Batu-khalaghsume (Beli-miao), 16o km north-west of Kuei-hua, where NOGON DELI'S camels were waiting. In order to enable us to negotiate the Kuei-hua pass more easily, Governor Fu Tso-YI lent us two extra lorries.
POLITICAL CONDITIONS
Meantime, we paid visits to the pleasant Governor-General of Sui-yüan, General Fu Tso-YI, the Swedish missionaries and the Catholic Mission, and the Minister of the Interior, HUANG SHAO-HSIUNG. The latter had come up from Nanking on the
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