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0063 Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1
Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1 / Page 63 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000231
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CHAPTER II

ANDIJAN TO KASHGAR—OVER THE HILLS AND FAR
AWAY

AN affectionate good-bye to the special car, and
we are off for a day's smart, hot drive to Osh.
We stop there at the post-house, in charge of a
simple Russian whose sick wife looks on while he
tries to cook for the travellers. That he can make
chai (tea) is incontestable. An all-comprehending
soup he also makes. As to anything else, we prefer
simple fare rather than watch his sloppy prepara-
tions. The stable is very near, the flies are nearer,
the smells are nearest, and the man's methods are
dirty. We do not like him. Even his just division
of labour between the cooking of our dinner and the
washing of his little child, insistent at certain critical
moments, could not disarm our hostility. But the
morrow shall bring a change, for we know there are
Russian officers at the sobranje, or club. To these
we make ourselves known and soon are invited to
make our beds in a comfortable room.
And now we must stir, for Osh is the limit of
wheeled transportation. A caravan must be organ-
ised. Colonel Saitseff, local governor at Natcholik,
looks at a letter which is addressed, not to him, but
to Consul-General Petrovsky at Kashgar. It is our
only authorisation, and was given me by the Minister
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