Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 126 (Color Image)

0126	Among the Celestials : vol.1

98 AMONG THE CELESTIALS. ;[CHAP. V.

route I proposed to follow, and to tell her

exactly what I hoped to do. Then, as I

traced out a pencil line along the map of

Asia, I first seemed to appreciate the task

I had before me. Everything was so vague.

Nowhere in Peking had we been able to obtain

information about the road across the desert.

I had never been in a desert, and here were

a thousand miles or so of desert to be crossed.

Nor had we any information of the state of the

country on the other side of it. The country

was held by the Chinese, we knew, but how

held, what sort of order was preserved, and

how a solitary European traveller would be

likely to fare among the people we knew not..

Lastly, at the back of all, looming darkly in

the extremest distance, were the Himalayas,.

to cross which had previously been considered.

a journey in itself.

All the terrible vagueness and uncertainty

of everything impressed itself on me as I

traced that pencil line on the map. I was

indeed about to make a plunge into the un-

known, and, however easy the route might

afterwards prove to future travellers, I felt

that it was this first plunging in that was the

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