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0594 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 594 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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the bed was nearly three miles, attesting the enormous
volume of the summer floods. After a few miles along the
right bank lined with fine Toghrak jungle, we halted for
the night at the few scattered houses of Peres where some
graziers live in comparative comfort. These homesteads,
the last I was to see before Keriya, seemed a good illus-
tration of the difference in economic conditions prevailing
north and south of the Taklamakan. The sheep-farmers
here had adopted an almost settled mode of life, while the
nomadic herdsmen in the south had scarcely as yet learned
to seek shelter in reed-huts. I did not grudge my servants
their warm quarters in the head-man's best room, fitted with
plentiful felts and quilts, and boasting even of a tasteful
cotton-print dado. But for my own part I found pleasure in
the thought that it would be more than 300 miles to the
nearest house south.

From there we marched on January 29th under old
Khalil's guidance south-westwards, and after moving all
day through a belt of luxuriant Toghrak jungle and reed-
beds reached after nightfall the shepherds' camp known as
Samsak-daryasi, which was to serve as our starting-point.
Wild as the place looked in the light of our bonfires, it
offered a welcome supply of dried green reeds for the
camels and ponies, the last treat of any sort they were to
enjoy for a long time. The purchase of four sheep, by no
means as fat as one might have expected in such fine
jungle grazing, completed our commissariat arrangements.

Next morning we began the journey southwards; but
the time had not yet come when we should have to steer by
the compass only. A broad belt of jungle watered at times
by floods from the Tarim still separated us from the desert,
and here we had to take the supply of ice which was an
essential safeguard for the crossing before us. After cover-
ing about ten miles through forest and strips of tamarisk-
covered sand, Tokhta, Khalil's thick-headed son, who was at
this point acting as our guide, turned off to the south-west,
and by nightfall brought us to the promised pools in a net-
work of deep-cut dry river beds. The spot was called Luk-
chikte by the shepherds who, as broad sheep tracks showed,
resort to it regularly while grazing flocks in these arid jungles.