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
blood-poisoning. It kept me in bed for a fortnight, and I couldn't do any work. I operated on myself, and now I've almost recovered. I shall be perfectly well again in a few days. »
He seemed so well and full of life that I never for a moment thought of any danger; and no-one could judge of his condition better than himself. How bitterly I regretted, just a month later, that I had not taken him to Urumchi in the car and sent him home to be properly treated! He suffered no permanent harm, thank Heaven! But if he had come with us we should have been spared much anxiety and he himself much suffering and overstrain. Unhappily, however, we did not even speak of such a solution.
The doctor's »study » on board bore the stamp of learning and activity; and although his work had been so unfortunately delayed by the pig-bite he had a fine collection of prepared birds' skins and of plants from the banks of the Qumdarya. He had found both flora and fauna along the river poor.
LEAVING FOR KORLA
But it was getting late, and I had to drive to the broken-down lorry we had passed the day before, that YEW, EFFE and their men were now busy repairing. I bade a cordial good-bye to our doctor and the others who were remaining behind, and got in. In a moment they had disappeared, hidden by the clouds of dust thrown up by the car.
It was 7.30. TSERAT drove at a tremendous speed. The dusk was deepening, and the reflection of the afterglow died away. I was leaving the whole expedition behind me, and setting out on a journey whose outcome was more than uncertain. I had to obtain the resources without which our cars were paralysed, and the expedition held as rigidly captive as it had been in Korla.
CHEN's WORK ON THE QUM-DARYA
Before leaving the chapter of the Qum-darya I will tell something of the work of those left behind on the river, even if this interrupts the chronological order of events. Especially do I here wish to touch upon CHEN'S work along the river and in its delta. BERGMAN has elsewhere given a survey of the archaeological and geographical researches that he carried out from base camp No. 70.
After YEW'S and my arrival in Urumchi month followed month without our being able to go to the rescue of the car-caravan with the necessary oil, without which it could not leave the base-camp at the Qum-darya. Our patience was very severely tested in Urumchi; but for the others, who in the meantime had to
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