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| 0287 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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Above my head the sky was still blue, and the higher cliffs
reflected bright sunlight; yet the gloom of these ravines and
their desolation were depressing. I also knew that my
baggage was painfully straggling, the yaks proving unmanage-
able with so few men, and knocking off their loads whenever
they found a conveniently projecting rock. So I was doubly
pleased when after a march of about eight miles from the
pass I emerged into the fairly open valley of Mitaz. There I
found still warm sunshine and a lively stream from which my
pony drank in long, long draughts. I enjoyed the splash and
sound of the water after those silent dead ravines, and sat
cheerfully by its side until my baggage appeared at dusk. It
was pleasant to read in the tiny seventeenth-century edition
of Horace, which always travels in my saddlebag, of the
springs that gave charm for the poet to another mountain
region far away in the West. And then the question touched
my mind: What is this vast mountain world in human interest
compared to the Sabine Hills? It has no past history as far
as man is concerned, and what can be its future?—unless
destiny has reserved the prospects of another Klondyke for
the auriferous rivers of Khotan.
On the 5th of November our start was late; for the men from
Nissa had to be paid off, and it took time before those of
Mitaz had got their animals ready and loaded. Mitaz is
a very small hamlet, and its eight or nine holdings lie
scattered higher up the valley. The latter after our previous
route, looked comparatively open, but in reality the only avail-
able track lay close along, or in, the river-bed. The water,
beautifully clear, was nowhere more than two feet deep. So
our continual crossings, necessitated by projecting rock spurs,
caused no great trouble except to 'Yolchi Beg,' who had to
be caught each time and carried across on horseback—a
procedure to which the little fellow never submitted in good
grace.
We marched this day some sixteen miles down the stream
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563
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573
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582
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