National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

> > > >
Color New!IIIF Color HighRes Gray HighRes PDF   Japanese English
0338 History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927-1935 : vol.3
History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927-1935 : vol.3 / Page 338 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

New!Citation Information

doi: 10.20676/00000210
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

 

made in the garage in Urumchi, and had held out for 3,17o km. Luckily, a reserve spring had been manufactured at the same time. The repair took a full three hours. If this mishap had occurred on a dash to Altmish-bulaq, when the lorry was not there to lend help, both the small car and its passengers would have been done for.

At »Sui-Sin-bulaq » we collected the ice that had formed in the empty vessels during our absence. A little way off a wild camel had followed the tracks of the car for some distance, without daring to cross them. His own track formed a zigzag line. Time after time he had reached the car-tracks, sheered off again but returned to them, impelled by curiosity. He had evidently been afraid, and was unable to pull himself together and take one decided leap over the two deep ruts in the ground.

In the evening we reached »Kung-ching », where SAN WA-TZE and CHOKDUNG were anxiously awaiting our return. The former had driven a stake into the ground by the well KUNG had dug, and affixed to it a piece of board with the following announcement in Chinese characters: »Kung-ching, station of the Sui-Sin Motor Expedition. Ministry of Railways. »

During the following night we passed Lo-t'o-ching and Tao-tao-shui, and reached Ma-lien-ch'üan. The next day we drove past Ta-ch'üan on the Hami road and encamped for the night on the north bank of the Su-to-ho.

On the last morning, that of December 14th, we were awakened by an east-north-easterly storm. It was driving dense clouds of dust and sand over our tents at the rate of 16 m per second. The three arms of the river were frozen. We crossed on the firmer ice lower down and were soon at the town gate of Anhsi, where we were stopped by half-a-dozen soldiers in sheepskin coats and high »fur » caps. A few minutes later we were sitting talking to the pleasant mayor. Presumably YEW had initiated him into our mysteries; if not, it must be owned that he showed extraordinary delicacy and tact in not even asking us what we had been doing in the western deserts for six long weeks.

264