CHAP. XII.] RURAL ENVIRONS 197
colour was doubly cheerful. On the road the dust lay ankle deep. It was easy to realise the vicinity of a great trade centre from the lively traffic which passed us. I saw strings of donkeys carrying ` Zhubas,' the lambskin coats for the manufacture of which Khotan is famous. Few, indeed, were the passers-by that did not ride on some kind of animal—pony, donkey, or bullock. To proceed to any distance on foot must seem a real hardship even to the poorer classes. No wonder that the people see no reason to object to the ridiculously high heels of their top boots. When riding the inconvenience cannot be felt. But to see the proud possessors of such boots waddle along the road when obliged to use their legs is truly comical.
Some seven miles from Zawa I passed the stony bed of the Kara-kash (" Black jade ") Darya, the second main river of Khotan. Its bed, fully three-quarters of a mile broad, betokened thereat volume of water it carries down in the summer from the glaciers towards the Karakorum. But at this season the river, diminished no doubt by the demands of irrigation, finds room in a single channel, about 30 yards broad and 1 to 2 feet deep. I was delighted to come at a distance of about a mile and a half beyond upon a second river-bed, that of a branch of the Kara-kash known as the Yangi-Darya, " the New River." Whatever the age of the designation may be, the position of this bed agrees most accurately with the accounts which Chinese historical records give as to the rivers west of the old capital of Khotan. The site of " Borazan," which I knew to contain in all probability the remains of this ancient capital, lay too far off the road to be visited immediately.
In one of the hamlets of Sipa, east of the " New River," I found a garden that offered a quiet camping-ground. While
watching the unloading of my baggage I was not a little surprised by the appearance from a neighbouring house of a man chained by the neck to a heavy iron rod of almost his
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