Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / 481 ページ（カラー画像）

0481	Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2

0481

Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2

中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2

of captured sheep. Ching Ta-lao-ye, the worthy com-
mander, now evinced a violent desire of making an
example, and as the culprits themselves prayed through
the indignant Chiang for instant punishment rather than
arraignment at the Ya-mên, I let the chief mischief-maker
play the avenging angel. It was a comical scene to see
the fat little man jump furiously up and down with his stick
behind the line of kotowing rebels. He was evidently
accustomed to the function, and as his dupes and victims
were all well equipped with thick wadded clothing, I could
watch the performance without feeling too acute a pity.
That I rewarded the three men who had kept with us,
whether willingly or otherwise, with pieces of silver,
seemed to impress the deserters.

It was a relief to see the whole caravan meekly move
off again, but there was fresh reason now for feeling
uneasy. The attempted rebellion had cost a delay of
hours. From above the Huo-ning-to Pass I had clearly
seen that the broad river bed leading, as I hoped, to a
depression in the range was absolutely dry. Possibly we
might have to approach the actual snow-beds before finding
water on the surface, and those I knew lay far beyond
a reasonable day's march. The Surveyor was urging a
halt by the river. But this would certainly have been
interpreted by our Chinese as a sign of indecision and
brought on fresh trouble for the morrow. So the risk of
not reaching water before nightfall had to be faced.

The gently rising steppe over which we were moving
was absolutely dry. Yet short grass covered it in plenty,
and the Kirghiz of the Pamirs would have found such
grazing luxuriant. Had the Yüeh-chih, the later Indo-
Scythians, once driven their flocks over these wide pastures?
Now the only sign of life was supplied by the abundant
droppings of kulans or wild asses. The difficulty about
water was brought home to us when after about six miles we
struck the right bank of the huge, but absolutely dry, river
bed descending from the pass. The vegetation on the grassy
slope above it, however, grew richer, and a couple of miles
higher up we discovered at the foot of a barren hill-spur a
small stream descending in a ravine. We pitched camp

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