National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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Overland to India : vol.2 |
262 OVERLAND TO INDIA
CHAP.
distinguish between the bad-i-Khorasan or north wind, and the bad-i-Keble or west wind. Both these bring rain,
while the south wind, it seems, is clear. They have also observed that a continuous wind exercises a strong influence
on the extent and depth of the lake, for the water falls
to windward and rises to leeward. The country we had traversed this day would, in such case, stand under water
for twenty days, and the depth at our camping-ground would be as much as 2 feet. Such parts of the ground as are never flooded, being a little higher than the rest of the country, are called lung. In ten days the water would reach to Mil-i-Nadir and Burch-i-Abbas-Rehan, but as these places stand on terraces they are not flooded.
The lake, then, is variable, like Lop-nor, but within narrower limits ; and while alluvial deposits and wind
erosion, as well as the extraordinary flatness of the country,
are the true causes of the wanderings of Lop-nor, it is really only the distribution of atmospheric pressure and
the supply of water which determine the changes of the
Hamun. To the south " the water is lost in the sand," as the people expressed it, and by a southerly détour Nasreta-
bad can be reached. To the north, on the contrary, there is no way round for Europeans, for the Afghans close the road to them.
In the evening we had a visit from some natives who offered us sweet and sour milk. But we took the Hindu
doctor's advice and came as little into contact with the people and their wares as possible. They said that if it did not blow so hard we should be quite killed by gnats. For themselves they were almost insensible to the bites of insects, but strangers suffered severely.
It felt quite cool with 61.7° at nine o'clock, and an hour
later I lay on my tent-bed watching the diffused moonlight playing on the fluttering canvas. At midnight I was
awakened by a strange noise. The two boxes which were placed on the hem of the tent on the windward side to keep all close and steady had been blown over by the wind, and all the things, the candlestick with its glass shade included, which stood on my improvised table, lay scattered on the ground. The wind blew right in, and the tent
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