| | | | | | | | 76 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP. IV. careful about the date of starting. The 23rd, 24th, and 25th of April were all in turn rejected, for one reason after another, and the 26th was finally settled upon as being suitable in all respects. In the meanwhile there was plenty of work to be done, laying in provisions and providing ourselves with every possible necessary. Nothing would be procurable on the way except perhaps a sheep here and there, so we had to buy up supplies of all kinds sufficient to last the party for two months. Some people think that on a journey it is absolutely necessary to make themselves as uncomfortable as possible. But I had learnt by experience to think otherwise, and determined to treat myself as well as circumstances would permit, so that, when it should become really necessary to rough it (as it afterwards did during the passage of the Himalayas), I should be fit and able to do it. So, besides a couple of sacks of flour, a sack of rice, and thirty tins of beef, which were to be our main stand-by, I had also brought from Peking such luxuries as a few tins of preserved milk, butter, and soup ; and here in Kwei-hwa-cheng I procured some dried apricots and raisins, a sack of Mongolian mushrooms, which gave a most excellent relish to the soup, another sack of potatoes, a bag of dried beans, which Mr. Clarke gave nie, and lastly some oatmeal. All these luxuries added very little really to the total amount of baggage, and even if they had made an extra camel-load, it would not have hindered the journey in any way, while they added very considerably to my efficiency. A tent was made up in the town on what is known in India as the Kabul pattern ; but, as it afterwards turned out, this was, for travelling in the desert, about the very worst description of tent possible. The violent winds so constant there catch the walls of it and make it almost impossible to keep the tent standing. What I would recommend for future travellers is a tent like my guide's, sloping down to the ground at the ends |
IIIFカラー高解像度
