Wintry landscape in the immediate neighbourhood
of Faizabad.
— the gift of the late Miss Bäcklund. The Chinese, who did not know a word of Swedish, was very proud of his book and its illustrations, which included a picture of my uncle, the explorer A. E. Nordenskiöld, on some ice-floes with the s.s. »Vega» in the background.
The general direction of the road is E, with slight deviations to N and S. At first the country is densely populated and tilled everywhere, with innumerable small farms that indicate a great insufficiency of land. In about 3/4 of an hour we came to a fairly large village, Kushabad, also very scattered, though there were some groups of houses and a bazaar. Though it comprises some 2,000 houses, its tilled area does not cover more than about 5,000 mou. The soil is saliferous, in places the surface is white with salt. Wheat, maize, cotton and fruit are grown and wheat yields up to a sixfold crop and maize a r6-fold crop. A quarter of an hour later we entered upon a very saliferous plain, on which grows a bushy kind of grass, »kamgak», which the people collect for fuel. Iri some places the ground forms small mounds. Another half-hour brought us to the first houses of a modest village, Ahun langar, with a dozen houses — the ground having been tilled for the first time 7 years ago —getting its scanty supply of water from Jamanjar. The water is collected in a pond. The land yields up to a ro fold crop. Another quarter of an hour and we came to 3-4 houses called Chulak langar. Again a stretch of bare plain, ending in a line of young trees and bushes enclosing a rich farm, Kotkubek langar, with a large pond. Tilled land begins here again and the villages of Yangi Mähällä, about 20 houses, and Yangiabad, about 400 houses, form an unbroken chain. They obtain their water from the Jamanjar, but in such insufficient quantity that only about zoo mou can be tilled. The population goes in principally for cattlefarming and impresses one as being well-to-do. A little butter is made and is bought by about a dozen local Hindu usurers at 3o cop. per djin.
There is a good deal of traffic on the road. We met a couple of Chinese caravans with various kinds of goods from Peiping and endless processions of empty arbahs drawn by
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