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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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descending to a very low level, the sun was getting higher
and higher, and the wind hotter and hotter, until I shrank
from it as from the blast of a furnace. Only the hot winds of
the Punjab can be likened to it. Fortunately we still had
some water in the casks, brought from our last camping-
ground, and we had some bread, so we were not on our last
legs; but it was a trying enough march for the men, and much
more so for the camels, for they had nothing to eat or drink,
and the heat both days was extreme. We at last reached a
well among some trees. The guide called the distance two
hundred and thirty li, and I reckon it at about seventy miles.
We were twenty-seven hours and three-quarters from camp,
including the halt of four and a half hours. We had descended
nearly four thousand feet, and the heat down here was very
much greater than we had yet experienced. We were encamped
on the dry bed of a river, on the skirts of what looked like a
regular park—the country being covered with trees, and the
ground with long coarse grass. It was most striking, as on the
other bank of the river there was not a vestige of vegetation.
We had taken on a Mongol guide, and I had told him to
keep a look-out for Ovis poli. Shortly after we left our last
camp among the low hills, he gave a shout, and darted off at a
heap of sticks, and extricated two pairs of Ovis poli horns.
One a magnificent pair, which measured fifty-two and fifty-four
inches respectively. These I took on, and left the other pair,
which measured only forty-three inches. The large pair
measured nineteen inches round the base—as thick as my
thigh. The Mongol guide said this was a hiding-place for the
hunters. It was placed fifty yards from some water, where
the animals came to drink. I asked the guide if he had seen
wild camels about here; he said, "Any amount," and that he
had some young ones at his yurt, and also some skins.
What a chance I had missed! for his tent was only ten miles
off our camp at Ula-khutun. Further on in the desert of
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