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
of the expedition to carry arms during the year 1934. The head of the Eurasia told us in confidence that according to information he had received there were a thousand Turki soldiers at Hami, and MA CHUNG-PING was at Turfan. Less reassuring were the words: »Hami is not quite safe; fresh disturbances are expected. »
That we Swedes received no letters was quite natural, for GEORG had taken them all with him when he left Peking quite recently.
What our two couriers had achieved was beyond all praise. The distance from Baller to Suchow is 40o km; so they had 800 km or 480 miles to cover, there and back, and had been away only ten days. But they had been detained for a day in Suchow, and one day had been lost by CHAGDUR's camel going through the ice in crossing a river branch; it had taken a whole day to get him out. So they had ridden 800 km in eight days, or loo km a day.
At Bayan-bogdo the two camels, that had been tethered at night, had for some reason taken fright, broken their nose-ropes and bolted for the nearest hills. This misadventure, too, had lost them some time.
The men were in splendid condition and had not suffered any harm from their fast ride. They received a dollar a day each, and four dollars extra for their board and lodging. They had actually not spent more than 2.45 on the whole journey. But what did the camels get for their trouble, they who after all had toiled the hardest? They had to fast and not drink one drop of water the whole way. They stood patient and silent, casting haughty, indifferent looks at us. Now they were to rest and graze. They would probably not be able to do any work at all for the next three weeks.
When we had got the mail from Suchow we had nothing more to wait for. We therefore decided to start as soon as possible, the whole convoy at once, making straight for Hami by way of Ming-shui — i. e. the same route had been taken by HAUDE, HASLUND and YUAN in the autumn of 1927. It is an advantage to travel at full strength when robber-districts have to be traversed.
But first CHEN made a trip back to Deresun-khuduk, in order to determine its longitude and latitude; and KUNG went to the Tsondol area to study the possibility of building a bridge over the Edsen-gol in that region.
LEAVING BALLER
On January 14th we left Baller for our mechanical workshop at Yamen-tsaghan, where we were all together again. Our neighbours came to say good-bye, but the pheasants did not show up amongst the noise of humming motors. It was really sad to leave a place where we had spent so peaceful an eighteen days.
We were awakened on the 16th at a few minutes past five. The cold, —32°, cut us to the bone; but we had a big open fire. We followed the road on the left bank
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