National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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Across Asia : vol.1 |
RECORDS OF THE JOURNEY
Tjesan (Tjemare) flows past it. wo arbahs with settlers have moved there, some this year, some last. Last spring 50o Chinese, armed like soldiers and under the command of an officer, and ioo Sarts were sent there. They are to build the fortress walls. It is said that a similar town is to be founded at Sarrykol.
After much worry and trouble I left Urumchi at last to-day. The actual start was made August 26th. yesterday, but in harnessing the horses my newly repaired arbah got damaged, and on Kuo Mudi my reaching the fortress the damage proved so serious that there was nothing to be done village.
but put up at a sarai and go to bed after a journey of i mile. Being tired of it, I decided to sell the arbah, horses and harness and hire a larger one as far as Lanchow. I sold 3 horses
for 43 lan, the arbah harness and equipment for 45. It could not be called a brilliant business
deal, but at all events it relieved me of a great deal of trouble. For 95 lan I hired a large arbah for my own and my men's luggage. We began to load up at 6.3o this morning,
but I had to wait for the horses until r.3o p.m., and when they were harnessed the driver
disappeared and we had to put in another wait. No doubt, we should not have got away before to-morrow if I had not taken matters into my own hands, placed my former driver
on the box and given the order to start. This manoeuvre succeeded; a few miles beyond the town the owner of the arbah caught us up on horseback and we definitely got under way
The road went northwards. r /3 of a mile from the wall of the fortress we reached the hills in the N and the road led across them past a tower on the right. The bodies of poor Chinese are said to be burnt there. All over the bare hills small stone columns indicate the sites of
Dungan graves. Some of them were apparently very old, for the wind had hollowed out the small columns and reduced the signs of humble ornamentation on them to an indistinct blur.
Beyond the hills, which were scarcely ï /3 of a mile in width, we entered a cultivated belt
again with houses scattered about and trees or large bushes. Here, immediately on the left of the road, lay the village of Liu do van with 20 houses. The road passed on the right
of it along the foot of the hills, but soon it turned slightly to the W and led us into tilled
fields. After winding for about a mile between trees and patches of field we passed a couple of hills of löss devoid of any kind of vegetation. r r /2-2 miles further on we were again
among tilled fields, through which two small rivers flowed, at times receding from, at
others coming close up to the road. At the beginning of this stretch we rode through the village of Pkho tchanza with 20 houses built inside the wall of an old, abandoned
impanj. On the right, at a great distance, the magnificent, white-topped head of Bogdo Olo rose like a giant among a group of mountain ridges that descended slowly in ledges towards Urumchi. Across the river there is a chain of hills stretching far to the N, where it finally disappears in the plain. The view was magnificent and this part of the mountains imposing. The uneven ground that we had just crossed, continued in the form of two stretches of insignificant hills along either side of the road.
We rode through another small village, Tchadzvan, of 6-7 houses. The road retains the same characteristics all the way, running between fields shaded by thick trees, and, as it were, bounded by low hills, beyond which, on the right, great mountains ascend towards
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