Satok Bogbra Khan. The hottest hours of the day, in the early afternoon, usually found me in the dark-room I had improvised in the Hospital Assistant's empty quarters, busy with the developing of the many photographs I had taken on the preceding part of the journey. Later on, after teatime, a walk with my hosts along the shady village lanes, or frequently a ride on my newly-bought Andijani mare would bring welcome recreation. But perhaps the pleasantest hours were those when after dinner we would sit in the mild evening air on the flat roof of my quarters adjoining the main house. From there we could watch the frequent picnic parties of Kashgar families which had gone out early in the day to feast on the profusion of fruit in the orchards owned by almost all respectable citizens in the environs, and which were now gaily returning in long cavalcades of men, women, and children. Their songs sounded to me very melodious, often strangely reminding me of airs I had heard long ago on road and river in Hungary.
As if to remind us of the West, which seemed so distant, there reached us at times as we sat in the evenings snatches of Russian airs wafted across by a breeze from the grounds of the Russian Consulate, half a mile away, while the men of the Cossack guard were singing in chorus. Frequently we saw the men on our rides in and about the city, but no opportunity offered for making the acquaintance of their ` Sahibs,' as we should say in India. M. Petrovsky, the Imperial Consul-General of Russia at Kashgar, to whom, in view of his scholarly interest in the ancient history and ethnography of these regions and his activity as a collector of Central-
Asian antiquities, I was particularly anxious to pay my respects, was indisposed and could not receive me. It was
not until my return from Khotan, nine months later, that I had the satisfaction of making the acquaintance of this accomplished official.
Apart from the small Russian colony gathered at the Con-
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