222 IN TIBET AND CHINESE TURKESTAN.I
heads to the ground implored me not to pass their village. They assured me that the road was bad, the inhabitants few, and supplies almost impossible to obtain. I told them that I was going to Nosh Tung at the junction of the Mariong and Yarkand Rivers, and hurried_past them as they asserted that this was Nosh Tung. I had gone some distance and was out of sight of the villagers when I found that I must wait fôr the caravan. So slow had been the progress of the animals that, in spite of my resolution to proceed, I had to go back and spend the night at the village. This, on the whole, was fortunate, for, as I afterwards found, the track leading down the valley was bad, in some places so bad as to be quite impassable in the dark.
Having made the usual astronomical observations, I renewed my effort to elicit information concerning routes towards Raskam, but again I failed, every one asserting that there were none. Then. I informed the 1`Iing Bashi that I was not to be baffled, but that I should remain at the village and draw on its inhabitants for supplies, fuel, and forage till I saw my way to success. In the morning, Ram Singh ascended a commanding peak a little • above the Sargon Pass, and obtained a wide view, including many points which had been fixed by me. Accompanied by Abdul Karim and one of the caravan men, who looked after the pony carrying the theodolite, I descended the valley to its junction with that of the Yarkand River. A little below the village we passed a hot spring, the temperature of which was over 1300 F., above which point my thermometer was not graduated. Below the springs the valley narrowed almost to a gorge with steep, barren mountains rising on either hand. The river was in some places half frozen ; near its mouth, on both banks, stood trees, apparently half dead ; altogether the country had a dismal look. A little further on the wide and now
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