Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 181 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

0181	Among the Celestials : vol.1

CHAP. vi.] HAM I. 145

exasperated to find that, instead of having ten

or twenty miles more to accomplish, there was

still a good fifty. So on striking camp at two

the following afternoon, I told my men that my

tent would not be pitched again till Hami was

reached, and they had better prepare themselves

therefore for a good march.

We travelled on all through the afternoon

—

a particularly hot one ; then the sun set before

us, and still we went on and on through the

night till it rose again behind us. We halted

for a couple of hours by the roadside to ease

the camels, and then set out again. At eight

o'clock the desert ended, and we began to

pass through cultivated land. At last we saw

Hami in the distance, and after traversing a

tract of country covered with more ruined

than inhabited houses, we reached an inn at

I I A. M.

With unspeakable relief I dismounted from

my camel for the last time. The desert

journey was now over, and I had completed

the 1255 miles from Kwei-hwa-cheng in just

seventy days ; in the last week of which I had

travelled 224 miles, including the crossing of

the Tian-shan Mountains. One great stage

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