courtyard, and went off to sleep as fast as I could. It is a great advantage being able to sleep at night in the open air without any fear of mosquitoes. Weather hazy and very hot.
July 17.— Started at 3.15 a.m., still passing over desert for four miles, and then, after crossing a small stream, we travelled through tracts of deserted houses and burial-grounds, with here and there an inhabited house and some cultivation. To the left the country was covered with trees, hamlets, and cultivation. Some three miles from Turfan we passed a mosque with a curious tower, which looked as much like a very fat factory chimney as anything else. It was about eighty feet high, circular, and built of mud bricks, and it was ornamented by placing the bricks at different angles, forming patterns. It was built at the southern and eastern corner of the courtyard of the mosque. The gateway was of the ordinary Indian pattern.
As I rode past a house, an old Turki invited me in ; but I could not delay the cart. We reached Turfan at 6 a.m., putting up at an inn just inside of the southern part of the Chinese town. As I passed through the street there was a murmur of " Oroos," " Oroos," and a small crowd of Turkis and Chinese collected in the inn yard to see me. My boy was told there was a Russian shop in the Turk city, so I went over there with a man to guide me. We dismounted at a shop, and I was received by a fine-looking man, who shook hands with me and spoke to me in Russian. I told him I was English. He then took me through a courtyard to another courtyard with a roof of matting. On the ground were spread some fine carpets, on which sat some fair-looking men in Turk dress. None of them looked quite like Russians. They spoke no language that I knew, and things were rather at a standstill, when I heard the word " Hindustani." I said at once, "Hindustani zaban bol sakta " ("I can speak Hindustani"), and they sent off for a man. When he appeared, I had a long
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