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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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were rising above me. There was still some hard and trying
work to be done, though. As the sun rose next morning a
breeze sprang up which drove away the sandflies, but the heat
became intense. In spite of it we had to start at 1.30 in the
afternoon, and march till three the next morning.
For nearly two miles we passed through a country well
covered with trees, and patches of coarse grass and bushes.
The soil was partly clay and partly sand. This ended as
suddenly as it had begun, and we passed over the gravel desert
again, where there was no vestige of grass or scrub. The hot
wind blowing off this seemed absolutely to scorch one up; but
yesterday's order of things were now reversed—we were
ascending while the sun was descending, and it gradually
became cooler.
About ten at night we suddenly found ourselves going
over turf, with bushes and trees on either side, and a shrill
clear voice hailed us from the distance. We halted, and the
guide answered, and the stranger came up and turned out
to be a Turki woman, who led us through the bushes over
some cultivated ground to a house, the first I had seen for
nearly a thousand miles.
It was the first sign that I had entered a new land—
Turkestan—the mysterious land which I had longed for many
a day to see. Flowing by the house was a little stream of the
most delicious water. It was scarcely a yard broad, but it was
not a mere trickle like the others we had passed in the Gobi,
but was flowing rapidly, with a delightful gurgling noise, and
was deep enough for me to scoop up water between my two
hands. I gulped down mouthful after mouthful of it, and
enjoyed such a drink as I had not had for many a long day, and
as I lay down on the grass on its bank while the water-casks
were being filled, I thought the trials of the desert journey were
nearly over. But they were not quite; hardly fifty yards from
the stream the vegetation disappeared, and we were again on
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