refused, but he agreed to sanction my travelling by Sorgak to Kara Sai, and obtaining the necessary assistance.
Before my departure from Kiria on June 27th, I had occasion to send a message to the Chow-Kuan, and he took that opportunity to request me to survey the frontier between Sin-Chiang and Tibet—accurately, but on no account to place it too far south. This request made it plain that he was quite aware of my intention to continue the survey operations, which, in fact, I never concealed from the Chinese or any others.
The season was now well advanced, and the thermometer indicated a temperature of 960 F. in the shade at two o'clock in the afternoon, the difference between the wet and dry bulb temperatures being about 300. To avoid the scorching heat and prevent needless distress to men and animals, I resolved to travel by night ; but this arrangement was displeasing to Raju, who, pretending not to have understood the order, was not ready to start at the proper hour in the evening. On the second day he followed a similar method but without the pretence of mistake, asserting that it was impossible to march at night, but that the desert journey of thirty miles to Sorgak could easily be accomplished in the daytime. I gave him the requisite orders as to feeding the animals and the supplies to be carried for the night's march. After much protestation and display of bad -temper, he began the preparation, and soon after six o'clock in the evening we set out. In about four hours we reached the low hills of loess and sand, called Awras, whither water for the men had been sent on donkeys. By the time we had refreshed ourselves and were ready to resume the march it was too dark to see the footprints on the sand, vaguely described as a road, and our halt had to be prolonged.*
The word " road " means any path. It may be applied, on the one hand, to the track of an expert mountaineer, or, on the other, to a wide cart-road.
IIIFカラー高解像度
