It was easy to keep the direction, but extremely difficult to estimate the distance traversed because of the continual zigzagging necessitated by the sand dunes. This was immaterial, I thought, because Ibrahim Beg would recognize our destination as soon as we came near it. On the afternoon of the second day from the river, we came upon fragments of pottery and traces of old canals. We were only twenty-two miles from the river, according to my estimate, though the distance to the ruins was twenty-six, according to Stein's excellent map. However, we were certainly near the ruins; so I told Ibrahim Beg that it was his turn to play guide. To my amazement, he said that he had never been to the Rawak portion of the ruins at all, and to the Dandan-Uilik portion only a single night. Then he arrived after dark and left before daylight. When the people at Chira all agreed that he was an authority on ruins, he had been ashamed, apparently, to confess his ignorance. Moreover, he wanted the good present which Sahibs are known to give. Accordingly he came along, trusting vainly that he might find a shepherd to guide us. His action was characteristic of the weak cupidity of the Chantos.
We spent the next twenty-four hours in hunting anxiously for the ruins. The five of us deployed widely in order to cover as much ground as possible. First we searched vainly to the northwest and north in the hope of finding Rawak; and later, to the south. There finally we found Dandan-Uilik, only a mile and a half from where we had first come upon pottery. We had no idea as to the location of Stein's wells, or as to the depth at which we might find water if we dug a new one. I dared not waste time in an
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