— real spring weather. The ice on the river beneath my windows has grown so thin that a couple of Cossacks have had to give up skating. The nights, however, are still very cold and you really suffer most from the cold indoors in this country, where there are scarcely any winter storms. It is strange that the Sarts are so inured to the cold. It is as if the great heat of the summer gave them sufficient internal warmth to endure any degree of cold. I say nothing about their clothes which mostly leave their necks and a good part of their chests uncovered, but you see naked children running about in the streets and on the roads in the severest cold, and if you catch hold of one of these urchins, his skin is so hot that you can warm your frozen fingers on him. The poorer people, especially the beggars, are extremely inadequately clad, the latter often being half-naked. If you consider that they scarcely ever have a chance of warming their stiff limbs, it is incomprehensible how they can stand it. From the miserable mud hovels of the poor to the frequently large and pretentious halls of the Begs, everything is ice-cold, and it is rare for a log to be burned in a large open fireplace. To give an idea of the cold indoors I can mention that one of Dr Raquette's patients had his feet frostbitten while lying ill in his own house. Another man got frozen to death riding his donkey, and his wife, who went out to meet him, found a corpse sitting doubled up on the donkey's back.
I experienced a certain feeling of elation as I rode through the streets of Kashgar to-day. I look upon this start as the actual beginning of my journey. All the luggage, including 4 enormous pack-saddles, was loaded on to the arbah, the men and I riding. It was some time after io before we were ready to start, but as I could not leave until after a luncheon that the Russian consul had had specially prepared for me, I let the arbah and the men go on ahead. The natural result was that, after enjoying his hospitality and leaving at
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