IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP. VI.
duly 31.—Started at 2.30 p.m., passing through cultivated land for ten miles. Two small streams were crossed, their banks lined with fine pasture land. A desert was now crossed, and we halted at 11.3o p.m.
August 1.— Started at 6 a.m. The cultivation ended immediately, and we passed over a gravel desert, sandy in
places ; going heavy. We constantly saw oblongs of stones, with a big one at the head, facing towards Mecca. These are temporary praying-places in the desert.
Halted at 11.30 a.m. at an inn without a keeper, in a very small oasis, with only one other house.
Talking with a Turk, I found out that the people about here are chiefly Doolans, a branch of the Turk people. These
extend up to Turfan, but not to Urumchi. I can at present see no difference between them and other Turks. My informant said that at Urumchi there were Turks, but not Doolans.
Started again at 1.45 p.m., passing over a desert. Halted at 7 p.m. One inn was full of soldiers returning to their homes. My boy, and, in fact, everybody, has a dread of
s oldiers, who have the reputation of stealing everything they can lay their hands on. When a crowd collects round my
room or the cart, and he hears that there are soldiers among them, Liu-san shouts out to me in English, " Master ! look out ! Soldier man plenty steal !"
The oasis is some seven or eight miles in length from north to south, and from two to three miles in width, watered by streams running down from the mountains.
Weather fine and hot.
August 2.—Started at 2.10, crossing a desert again, watered however, at intervals by three streams running down the slope. At 8.3o we arrived at the Kuchê oasis, and for three miles passed through a country covered with trees and houses. The road also was lined with trees, and a good many houses, before we reached the actual town. The number of trees is
I 50
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