CHAPTER VIII

CHINESE TURKESTAN: THE TEKKES TO KASHGAR

We found that there had been a great deal of friction between the Punjabi and Kashmiri elements in Cherrie’s caravan. Fortunately, matters did not reach too acute a point before we joined them. Upon going into the matter we learned that the Punjabis in coming with us had undertaken a separate mission that had become generally known, and it rendered their continuance with us impossible. They were excellent men and we parted with very friendly feeling on both sides.

Cherrie had been sick during the two months that had passed since we left Yarkand. A long-drawn-out bout of dysentery had dragged him down and greatly hampered him in collecting, but his usual pluck had pulled him through.

Suydam had done a great amount of work with his Akeley camera, and was particularly satisfied with what he had taken since coming into the Tian Shan, for he had made pictures of almost every phase of Kirghiz, Kalmuk, and Kazak life. The few days which he had put in hunting had proved amazingly lucky. On the second morning he came upon a she bear and two well-grown cubs—the adult he brought down, but the young ones disappeared into the forest. This gave us a male and a female bear for mounting in the museum. The following day he saw a large boar. His rifle had acquired a habit of hopelessly jamming, so that it could not be counted upon with any certainty for more than a single shot. In addition the rear sight had been knocked off and was only tied on with string. He took his Kazak shikarry’s rifle and fired a couple of times at the boar without result. The boar disappeared into a patch of jungle and after it hurried the Kazak. He killed it with a well-placed shot. Suydam said that he had never seen any animal so fat, and Cherrie estimated the weight at 400 pounds.

Ted and I were now preoccupied with the unromantic task of filling out the groups for the museum with the requisite number of females and young. When one is not hunting an animal, it always seems so much more common and easily attainable. You watch a female ibex and think how simple it would be to shoot one, without, of course, considering an actual stalk and visualizing the difficulties. Then when you are stalking a ram, and a herd of ewes intervenes, you say to yourself how easy it would be if only it were ewes that were in demand. When, however, you set off in cold earnest to shoot a ewe, it is not long before you begin to swing around, and wonder whether, after all, it isn’t just as difficult to bring in a female as a male. A long stalk after a female ibex seems much more wearisome, for there is not the same incentive that makes the hard work light. In the accepted ethics of the big-game hunter, there is quite rightly nothing to be proud of in bagging a female, but when you are engaged in scientific collecting the female is of equal importance.

We were much concerned over the prospects for shooting a hind wapiti. We had seen only two; they were running through spruce woods, and the bullets I sent after them were without effect. The upper Mointai was regarded as likely ground, and we planned to have as many strings to our bow as circumstances would permit. Many hunters, when they have wounded an animal and it makes off over particularly rough country, will give a gun to a native shikarry and tell him to follow and finish their quarry; this neither Ted nor I would ever do, so the men were much surprised when we not only did not object to their shooting the group females, but even offered them a reward for so doing. To begin with, they could not understand why we wanted females. We soon gave up trying to explain, and although we thought that Rahima had grasped the situation, our faith was somewhat shaken when he insisted that if we only waited until we were back in Kashmir we could without any difficulty secure several female barasingh which would serve admirably to fill out the wapiti group! Our first attempt after joining Cherrie and Suydam took the form of a very loosely organized drive. It was a lovely day, and the smell of the spruce woods took one back to distant lands and times. On the way out we caught sight of half a dozen black cock, and Ted brought one down with Cherrie’s shotgun. The only thing in the drive was a female illik which passed by Suydam’s stand and was bagged by Ted. We were in need of it, but there were many around and we had not been at all preoccupied over the difficulties of shooting one. We saw no recent wapiti sign, which was disheartening, for the local Kazaks had felt that they were taking us to their best hunting-ground.

We next went with them to a ridge in the heart of what they considered their best spying land, and we raked the ravine side with our field-glasses, without picking up anything save illik. Two buck were calling; Ted first heard illik calling at Khan Ayalik about the first of September. We had been told that wapiti started about the same time, but this the Kazaks denied, assuring us that they did not begin until the third week in September, and they certainly had not begun when we left the Tekkes around the middle of the month. Discouraged with our failure to find any wapiti sign, we decided to move to Akyas as our last chance.

Cherrie went down to the junction of the Mointai and the Tekkes rivers to put in his last few days collecting in the valley, while Ted, Suydam, and I rode across the rolling prairie to Akyas. Somewhere about half-way we dipped down into a grassy ravine apparently quite like any one of a dozen others through which we had passed. We noticed that the drop was more abrupt, and caught the sound of falling water. We found ourselves in a fairy dingle. A profound and cool cavern, rock-walled and partly screened by tall trees, concealed a deep, clear pool of water, fed by a sizable stream that descended in a shimmery mass through a hole in the rocky roof. Through the hole we glimpsed a patch of blue sky, but within the grotto all was cool and dark. On the grass beneath the trees was charred wood remaining from Kazak fires. We hoped it would be many a day before civilization invades the country and the cavern is strewn with papers and empty sardine cans. What served to make the whole scene particularly refreshing was the unexpectedness of it as we rode unsuspectingly over the plains. The natives call the place Keerkool-douk.

At Akyas we renewed acquaintance with the Russian family and the cheerful small baby, upon whom we bestowed more of the great, gaudy buttons we bought in Paris.

We found that most of the men were down in the valley, making ready the winter supply of hay, a primitive process with sickle and scythe. We managed, however, to gather together a few hunting Kazaks and Kirghiz, among them the two men who had been with Suydam when he shot his bear. Next morning early, taking supplies for a few days, we set off up the Akyas valley, crossing a rough mountain shoulder, where the river had cut its way in a deep and lovely canyon. Above, we followed the widened valley until we came upon a rocky stream which tumbled down into the Akyas from its left bank. A short distance up this tributary we pitched camp amid some tall spruce-trees. Rousslia picked a lot of red berries with a leaf very much like our strawberries. He made them into an excellent shortcake for dinner.

We had no feeling at all about who should shoot the female wapiti. It was a very necessary part of the museum group, but it was essential that we should make all speed possible in order to reach the Pamirs before it became too cold to hunt ovis poli, and we were quite ready to have the maral bagged by Kazak or Kirghiz. We therefore divided up into four groups for the hunting. Suydam took a Kazak; Khalil, to whom I lent my second rifle, went with another Kazak, two more went by themselves, while Ted and I went with Rahima and one native. In addition we offered a reward of about ten dollars to any one who would bring in a maral.

The first hunt proved blank, for although Ted and I saw a couple of wapiti, the wind was gusty, and they were off before we had any chance for a stalk. One of the other groups saw a wapiti but got no shot.

Next morning we were away before daylight, and rode our ponies up toward the mountain tops rimming the valley. Leaving the horses for the long day’s doze, we climbed from one vantage-point to another, conning the hillsides and valleys with our field-glasses. Except for a few illik, we saw no game. At one spot an interesting engagement took place close to where I was sitting. A magpie was perched in the top of a tall spruce-tree, chattering away and admiring itself in the usual jaunty manner, when all of a sudden its tone changed and it fluttered hastily over to another dead spruce whose whitened branches were closely matted together. Simultaneously the shadow of a hawk flashed across the rocks. He was a brown fellow but little larger than the magpie. Down he swooped toward the magpie’s refuge, but the branches were too thick. The chattering magpie hopped through them to the other side of the tree. Round went the hawk, and another fruitless dive followed. This went on for some time; the hawk circled about in the most graceful of curves; now head down, now banking, now shooting up. He must have stooped more than a dozen times, and twice he made a pretense of leaving in order to entice out the magpie. The latter did not seem particularly frightened; its cry was not one of alarm, and as soon as the hawk had really left, he returned to his original perch upon the solitary tree. He was not destined to enjoy it long, for almost immediately two brother magpies came and drove him incontinently away.

The long noon hours when no game was stirring I passed in reading I and II Samuel.

In the afternoon we separated, Ted and Rahima going one way, while I took the Kazak Zeytoon and went in the other. We climbed cautiously along an accidented wooded ridge, and had not gone far when, upon reaching the top of a small hill, we saw an illik doe taking her siesta on the far side. We watched her for some time before she even became suspicious. As she jumped to her feet, every motion was an epitome of grace. A few bounds and she stood stock-still. We were careful not to frighten her, for she might alarm whatever was ahead. When she was out of sight, we heard several loud, sharp barks. “Maral, maral,” whispered Zeytoon. I thought it was the illik, but Zeytoon insisted it was a wapiti. Topping another rise we again sighted the illik, this time in the act of barking. It seemed a very loud noise to come from so small an animal.

For an hour we held on along the ridge; I had dropped ten yards behind, studying some tracks, when I heard Zeytoon hiss; simultaneously there was a crashing below him on the mountainside. Running on, I caught a glimpse of a wapiti through the scrub willow and spruce. I opened fire immediately, but it was difficult sighting at the maral’s fleeting shape through the trees. I was able to get in six or seven shots before she got where I could no longer see her. I felt that I had scored one hit, at least, but Zeytoon was certain I had not. He was so positive that my own belief was badly shaken. Nevertheless, I determined to take a chukker to where I had last seen the wapiti. Before doing so I went on to a lookout point that I had picked out before Zeytoon stirred up the wapiti. Seeing nothing, I returned and dragged a very reluctant Zeytoon down through the fallen timber and the débris of landslides. It was bad going and took time. Farther down we separated to better pick up the trail. Not long after this Zeytoon shouted “She is hit!” and almost simultaneously “Here she is!” I was as much pleased as if it had been a stag. The man who has done all his shooting as a sportsman only, thinks of shooting females much as a man in a fox-hunting country feels regarding any one shooting foxes. But if you have done much scientific work for museums, you come to feel very differently about the distaff side of the groups, and when after a long stalk you bag a female, you have a genuine feeling of satisfaction. I set to work on the measuring and skinning, while Zeytoon went to try and find Ted and Rahima, near where they had agreed to meet us. When he came back with them they were almost as pleased as I had been. To Rahima in particular it spelled a speedy termination of the Tian Shan hunting, and a chance to get into the Pamirs before it became too desperately cold.

Zeytoon set to work with a will to help in the skinning. First he grabbed my rifle and dipped it into the bullet wound, a primitive custom that I had met with among the natives in Africa and Brazil. In pulling off the skin from the back, he seized a fold in his teeth while working with both hands. With such measures we were soon ready, but it was half past seven before we stumbled into camp. None of the other expeditions had seen wapiti, except for Ted. He would have had a shot at a maral had I not fired when I did. She was feeding slowly toward him and would have soon been within close range. On hearing my shooting, she disappeared in a moment. He also saw a male wapiti, an eight-pointer, and could have had a good chance at him had he wished. We had had amazingly good luck with our wapiti. Ted had seen three male and five female wapiti; I had seen one male and five females. Four of the females we had seen while hunting together, so all told we had seen ten wapiti during the week we had been hunting them.

[Illustration: A KALMUCK WEDDING]

Next morning early we marched back to Akyas, and, picking up the balance of our caravan, shoved on into Shutta, a long trek. On the way we passed through the Kalmuk encampment at Aksu. A wedding was about to take place, and all the inhabitants, gaily dressed, dashed out upon their ponies. The bride was shrouded in a sheet, and was riding double, held on the horse by a man whom we were told was her father. Two girls carried a red banner fastened on a couple of tall poles. The gaudy head-dress of the women, the brilliant coats and sashes of the men, the shouting and singing, the wheeling ponies, all combined to make a lively scene. Ted watched them through his field-glasses as they rode off down the plains toward the Tekkes. He saw the women and men divide into different groups, and then the carrying off of the bride was enacted, for her husband dashed in among the women and seized her and bore her away on his horse.

A group of Kazak graybeards whom we shortly afterward met amused us. There were six of them, and each held a small grandson in front of him on the saddle; the children were, some of them, scarcely more than a year old, chubby and solemn. We had seen similar cavalcades before; verily the children are brought up on horseback!

At Shutta our friend the Dauran came out to greet us. Cherrie had dressed the abscess in his back, cleaning it out and putting powdered calomel into it. The treatment, although both novel and drastic, had been most successful and he was now well. He did his best to persuade us to stay over a few days in Shutta, and when we with much difficulty convinced him of the impossibility of our doing so, he said that he would come on with us as escort next day. All the soldiers wished their photographs taken, and Loya brought out his two pretty wives and his roly-poly son. There was a young illik in one of the compounds, very friendly and wandering everywhere at will. He was, however, not so eager to pose for his portrait as were the soldiers.

We planned to complete the ibex group at Khan Ayalik. We did not have the same concern about our ability to do so as in the case of the wapiti. We felt reasonably certain that with some hard climbing and lucky shooting we could secure the female and young without unreasonable delay. It was on the 13th of September, Ted’s birthday, that we set off for the mountain tops—Ted, Suydam, and myself, with Khalil and two Kirghiz. Rahima stayed in camp to pack the skins and horns for the crossing of the Muzart glacier.

We went up along one of the side glaciers where Rahima and I had put in our first day after ibex. The elapsed six weeks had wrought great changes; there was more snow on the mountains and the flowers had almost completely disappeared. We were not long in picking up a herd of females; they were well up among the rocks and the wind was tricky, necessitating a long détour and a good deal of climbing. I had had an attack of fever hanging over me for the last three days; with the help of plenty of quinine I had managed to head it off, but I was not feeling up to much.

[Illustration: THROUGH THE MUZART GLACIER]

It was impossible to get within good range, and the nearest animals were 250 yards distant when at last we were in a position to fire. We had spread out behind a ridge, and though the range was long, fortune favored us so that when we came to count heads we had a half-grown male, two females, and two young. This topped off our big males and gave us a really admirable group. We got the measuring and skinning finished with all despatch, but it was well after dark before we reached camp.

We found Cherrie waiting for us; he had had a most successful few days collecting along the banks of the Tekkes. Ted now took over the small-mammal trapping, and until we again separated at Maralbashi, every night, no matter how late we got to camp, nor how rainy and cold it might be, he set out twenty traps. Often he would have to take with him a lantern when he was laying out the line, but in spite of it all he added much exceedingly valuable and interesting material to the collection.

Ted and I had worn shorts throughout the whole trip; they give free action for the knee and help immensely where there is much climbing to be done. Your knees soon become so tough that they are as impervious to cold, as is your face. We each had flannel shirts and leathern waistcoats, and I wore a canvas coat with many pockets, for I always carry a varied assortment of odds and ends with me when I am hunting. The best footgear for mountain work is the grass shoe; with it you can walk more noiselessly and surely than with anything else, but unfortunately its life is too short to make it practicable, except when you are in its home country. I wore Kashmir chuplies—a heavy sandal over a light leathern sock—a good deal, and found them satisfactory except when they got wet; then they slipped about from under your foot and were worse than nothing. They had another disadvantage in that small stones often became wedged in between the sock and the sandal. I had brought with me a pair of boots with corrugated rubber soles. Hitherto no rubber shoe had lasted me long when hunting, and I placed but little confidence in these. The soles usually ripped off before long. This time I was agreeably surprised, for these crepe-soled shoes stood up admirably under the roughest kind of treatment. They were noiseless and gave a good grip upon rock and hillside. In headgear we had made several shifts. From Srinagar the whole way to Aksu we wore helmets, for of course they are the only thing to wear when you have reason to fear the “sun overhead.” Thereafter for the marching we adopted the Kashmiri puggree, or turban; very comfortable and much more suited than a helmet for travel in an araba. While hunting, Ted wore a balaclava helmet, and I had an old corduroy cap which Mr. P. B. Van der Byl had given me in London. We had been indebted to him for much friendly advice and help drawn from his store of experience gathered in the big-game haunts of every quarter of the globe.

[Illustration: THEODORE ROOSEVELT and KERMIT ROOSEVELT IN TIAN SHAN HUNTING-KIT]

On the 14th of September we crossed the Muzart Pass, a very different crossing from that we had made on the 2d of August. Now we had glorious weather, with the bright sunshine dancing on the snowy peaks and ice ridges. We were evidently in the height of the caravan season. On the way from Shutta we had wound through three great flocks of sheep, totalling 3,000 head. The buyers came from Aksu and bought on the hoof, hiring the wild Kalmuk and Kazak herdsmen to drive the animals over the passes. We also saw a big herd of ponies, and innumerable caravans of donkeys. These later seemed to have the preference as pack-animals on this route. The little beasts in the main were loaded with great bales of cotton and cloth and felt numdahs. We passed over the long glacier without incident, although there were a number of moments when it looked as if we would lose a pony; one in particular I made sure had fallen into a crevasse, but he recovered himself in miraculous fashion. A cold rain set in just as we reached the other side, but we soon had our tents up and could retire into them with the comfortable feeling that the Muzart Pass lay behind us.

Next day we continued down the Muzart River on the opposite side from that we had ascended, for all was changed here as well as on the pass, and we had no longer dangerous fords to deal with. We spent our first night at Khailak, where I was very busy going over the last lot of ibex skins and putting all the additional touches that you never seem to finish to your own satisfaction. We went on past the Chinese wall where we had previously pitched our camp and stopped at the little village of Kizil Bulak. As we arrived, a cheerful little Beg came up to greet us. He had come with us as a passenger from Yarkand to Aksu and brought us out our mail to Jam when we were going into the Tian Shan. Once again Sadi, for that was his name, appeared in the rôle of Mercury, and never was more welcome than when he produced a great packet of letters from the folds of his robes. According to invariable custom, everything else stopped happening as suddenly as it had in the palace of the sleeping Princess, while each took his letters and retired to the nearest shady spot to read them. When you are off on a hunting trip, especially in a far country, the really formidable fly in the ointment is your continuous anxiety as to how things are going with your family at home, and letters help immensely even if they do not bring you very close to date. We could not have been any farther away or more cut off from communication than we had been. I had tried using the Chinese telegraph-line, sending a message to a friend in Peking and asking him to relay it to New York. My telegram took eighteen days to get from Aksu to Peking!

Another old friend who rode in to see us was Ismail Bey, the big local landowner, who had helped us so greatly on our way over into the Tekkes. We were genuinely glad to see him again, for he is a fine fellow. Our men always pronounced Bey as Boy, and referred to Ismail as Big Boy, in contradistinction to a Bey from Khan Ayalik who had come across with us. The latter they called Little Boy. At first we were much puzzled as to whom they meant by Big and Little Boy. The confusion further increased when by a process of elision Ismail Bey’s name was made to sound as if it were Small Boy.

In the morning we rode over with Ismail Bey to his little oasis, where he lived in a true patriarchal style with a stalwart old father and numerous brothers and sisters. The buildings were many and well kept. We would like to have accepted his invitation and stayed a few days with him. He had a big hooded eagle which we would have been glad to see in action, but time pressed far too heavily to admit of delaying. Ismail gave us a very fine riding pony, for he did not approve of the one that I was riding, and when we parted we gave him Ted’s Springfield, for he was now using his Hoffman entirely.

The Bey came on to Arbat with us, in order to arrange a goitred-gazelle hunt. We were eager to get a group of the graceful little creatures for the museum, provided it did not entail too much time.

We had heard that there were a few sheep in the hills near by. Church, in his book, mentioned seeing three; we had not been so fortunate, but when Cherrie had come through he also had seen three and Cutting had gone after them. We would have given much to have had two weeks in which to hunt these sheep and determine just what they were. There is a most interesting field open in the study of the great Asiatic sheep. Some one should follow them straight down from where they are found near northern Mongolia not far from Peking to the Altai Mountains, the home of the ovis ammon typica, and then throughout the length of the Tian Shan range, where there are the Karelini and very probably one, or possibly two, undescribed species. Next he should go to the Pamirs, collecting Littledale’s sheep on the way, and after getting ovis poli finish with ovis ammon hodgsoni in Changchemmo and western Tibet. It would indeed be an interesting study to trace the intergradations, from the great wide-spreading horns of the poli to the heavy close-curled head of the ammon typica.

Ismail Bey had arranged a drive for gazelle in the foot-hills, so early in the morning we rode down to our stations. Four men did the driving. Three does came by me travelling like the wind, and I knocked one of them over at a very close range.

We tried another drive but nothing came through, so Ted and I separated and started off across the plains to hunt our way toward Jam, whither the caravan had preceded us. We each of us saw about a dozen gazelle, but they were exceedingly wary. I don’t believe I got within 800 yards of one of them. At that distance they would start moving off, with gradually increasing speed, and to follow them was but a vexation of the spirit. Unless for the luck of a chance shot, the most likely place to hunt them would be in the foot-hills, where you would have some hope for a stalk. The heat-waves shimmered and danced over the barren rocky floor of the desert, but as I got down to the oasis the twilight was coming on, and in its magical fashion lending an austere charm to even the bleak country through which I was riding.

Another day brought us to Aksu, where we were greeted by our friend the Dotai. He pressed us to stay over for four or five days, but we were adamant, and compromised on invitations by asking him to dine with us, and agreeing to breakfast with him in the morning, and leave immediately afterward on our trek to Kashgar. Both affairs were as pleasant as possible. The Dotai was much interested in the ibex and sheep heads, and we dispensed with interpreters as much as we could by using the sign-and-sound language, which Ted supplemented by drawing pictures of the events of the chase, to the great delight of all our friends. When we told of the bear-hunt the Dotai growled and waved his hands most dramatically. At another time, in order to explain the nature of the soup we were having at his breakfast, he flapped his hands and quacked. Altogether every one had a fine time, and the Dotai took particular pleasure before the breakfast in showing us over his flower-garden, where there was every imaginable flower, most of them in full bloom. In one corner of the garden there was a Yarkand stag in a pen, a handsome animal but distinctly short-tempered, in which it was quite different from another Yarkand stag that had been brought around to our camp in the hope that we might buy it. This last was tame and friendly, although its horns were just coming out of the velvet, and at that time stags are usually in bad humor. We were told of the different localities in which these deer had been caught, and our informants spoke as if they were in no way uncommon. Once more we wished we had a couple of extra weeks in hand.

Some of our Shutta bodyguard had accompanied us to Aksu. They were a far finer, more soldierly lot than any we met with on the plains. Our men referred to them as “Peking” men, although of the two best soldiers we had in the Tian Shan, one was a Kirghiz, and the other, although he called himself Chinese, his “father’s father knew it not.” Calling them “Peking” men reminded me of how Father found the Indians with whom he hunted in the Cœur d’Alene region in Idaho still calling Americans “Boston men,” in contradistinction to the Canadian trappers who were French.

We couldn’t get away from Aksu until one o’clock in the afternoon of the 12th of September, but the evening of the 24th found us at Maralbashi. If you load your arabas not too heavily, you get across the country surprisingly speedily. We had a fairly large assortment of books with us, but the only good araba books were Cumberland’s “Sport in the Pamirs” and Ted’s copy of “Omar Khayyam.” In all the other books the print was too fine. Naturally enough, when you select books for a hunting trip, size is a primary consideration, and size and large type rarely go together. I found Green’s Hindustanee Grammar a good araba companion, for in studying you do not read so closely and continuously. One can read and enjoy books in the wilds which at home would never occur to you to take on. In this class we put Meredith’s “Egoist,” a small pocket edition of which kept me in reading matter for a number of weeks. When in addition to hunting you are writing articles and preparing museum specimens, you have not very much time to read. Our library covered a large range of taste; in the Tian Shan I read, besides “The Egoist,” “Westward Ho,” “Pickwick Papers,” “Jorrocks Jaunts,” and the “Romany Rye.” We had brought two volumes of collected poems; one was Kipling and the other Edwin Arlington Robinson. Into them we would constantly dip, and they proved admirable companions. They never went back in the yakdans, but travelled in our bedding-rolls.

We found many changes in the plains. Instead of the great heat at midday, it was now only pleasantly warm, and marching was more agreeable in consequence. There is a great abundance of fruit in Turkestan. The apricot season had passed, but in its place were peaches and grapes and delicious melons of many kinds. In addition to the red-fleshed watermelon, there was one with yellow flesh. I could detect little difference in taste. Then there were various sorts of muskmelon. Every one was eating melons; we saw one small boy clad in the altogether eating a huge slice. He was covered with a thick coating of dust, and down his whole length the trickle of the juice had ploughed deep furrows.

Along the roadside squatted melon venders, and our araba drivers were continually purchasing the fruit and sharing the slices among themselves. When we halted at some dreary little serai in the middle of the desert, we greatly enjoyed the big watermelons.

In some of the gardens where we camped there were walnut-trees. The nuts were now ripe, and our host would knock them from off the trees for us.

One march short of Maralbashi we left Cherrie and Suydam to spend a few days near some swampy lakes where we hoped they would add some interesting material to the birds and small mammals already forming the collection. This promised to be a long parting, for if all worked out as planned, they would return through Russia, and we would next meet in New York, a far cry from the swamps of Maralbashi.

In Maralbashi we changed a couple of our arabas and redistributed the loads. We got there on a Thursday, which is market-day, and as we rode in we passed swarms of peasants returning from the bazaar. One mother was holding a small child on the saddle in front of her, a larger one was astride the pony’s quarters, clasping his mother round the waist for support. An old couple were driving in a donkey-cart, the first we had seen, and built on the lines of an araba. Women were trudging along with children strapped on their backs, nodding and asleep after the excitement of market-day.

There was still a lot of life in the bazaar; it was just before the regular night life had started, and belated knots of country people yet lingered. Two old men were playing chess, with Chinese chessmen, which are just like checker-men, and are distinguished one from another by the ideographs carved on them. Sometimes you find fine ivory sets, yellowed with age and use. The moves are much the same as in the chess we play. An interested crowd of onlookers were offering voluble advice.

We were eager to get through to Kashgar in four days, and to do so called for daily marches of little short of forty miles. In the Orient stray individuals have a way of attaching themselves to caravans in the desire of making a journey with more security and economy; they also enjoy the advantages of companionship, and can sit up all night chattering and then sleep at odd moments during the day, a practice to which the Oriental is much addicted. We still had with us Sadi, the little Yarkandi; so far as we could find out he was travelling around with us for amusement; he understood a little Hindustanee and made himself useful in a thousand ways. He was invariably bright and cheerful at the end of the longest march. We had also a solemn Chinaman who had joined us at Shutta. He was evidently a humorist in his way and was a source of continual amusement. He had a very loud voice and would hop out of his araba when any wrangle started, and they were not infrequent; with many gesticulations and loud bellows he would champion whatever he took to be our cause; but his entering in served only to prolong the argument, so he would be hauled away and put back in his araba.

The trail from Maralbashi to Kashgar we found very hot and dusty. There was much desert, some of it barren and stony, and some of it covered with scrub-tamarisks. When you walked you sank ankle-deep in dust; it felt as if you were treading on sponge-cake. Hair and beard turned gray, and dust filled our bedding-rolls. We had a new moon and toward night we would begin to enjoy the march, for desert and jungle became mysterious and eerie by moonlight. We usually marched for twelve or fourteen hours, unspanning for an hour or two at noonday.

At Faizabad, our halt the night before reaching Kashgar, a pleasant, thin little Chinaman, the Amban, came to call, and greatly surprised us by addressing us in English. He knew but a few words which he had learned years before in Peking. He proved most considerate by staying only a few minutes, for it was ten o’clock when we reached town and we were ready for supper and bed.

Next morning we hired riding ponies in order to ride into Kashgar ahead of the arabas, and while waiting for the horses to be made ready I strolled through the bazaar; there were many prosperous-looking shops. Hearing some singing, I loitered toward it. A sturdy fakeer in a white-and-gold embroidered robe, with his begging-bowl strapped to his waist, was striding along, followed by his three sons, ranging in age from six to twelve. They were well-set-up boys, cleanly dressed, and with snowy-white turbans. Father and sons had nothing cringing about them, nor were they, on the other hand, insolent; they appeared merely independent and self-respecting. At almost every shop something was put into the big bowl. What was most remarkable, however, was the singing; the father sang the verse and the sons joined in the choruses. It was totally unlike any Oriental music I have ever heard; indeed, the whole sounded more like what Meredith describes as “one of those majestic old Gregorian chants, that wherever you may hear them, seem to build up cathedral walls about you.” There was a glorious swing to it, which the father brought out, beating the cadence by the raising and lowering of a muscular arm. I would have liked to have known the history of the little band, but could learn nothing of it.

The muezzins were calling the faithful to prayer as we rode into Kashgar. We were greeted by the Dotai and other Chinese officials, who had a most elaborate tea prepared for us in a terraced garden where stood the Dotai’s summer-house. Thence we went on to the British Consulate, where Major and Mrs. Gillan welcomed us with an understanding hospitality. I had known Gillan in Mesopotamia during the war.

The bazaar in Kashgar proved far more interesting than that in Yarkand. Thursday being market-day, the country folk thronged in from miles around. The silk and cloth bazaar, all roofed over, was gratefully cool. One could not help being struck with the handsome features and dignified bearing of the venders as they sat among their wares. The twisting alleyways of the boot bazaar were dim and mysterious. Never have I seen so much footgear gathered into such a small compass. The sellers were pursuing customers through the crowd, endeavoring to persuade them to raise the purchase price which they had offered. The hat bazaar seemed to hold enough caps to cover every head in Turkestan; some of the caps were elaborately embroidered in gold and fur-trimmed.

In leisurely fashion, as befitted the occasion, I wended my way through the fruit and vegetable quarters and into the squares where squatted the kabab-sellers, with chunks of mutton strung on small skewers roasting over their charcoal fires. If you felt hungry you silently selected a skewer, and, buying a piece of unleavened bread, pulled off the meat and ate with the bread for plate. Roast ears of corn were also popular.

It was in the job-lot bazaar that I lingered longest. Here was spread out every imaginable thing: bits of broken iron, lovely jade snuff-bottles, old tin cans, altar ornaments of the Buddhist faith, long daggers with turquoise studded handles, empty cologne-bottles, old Chinese locks, copper jugs of every shape, and a thousand and one heterogeneous odds and ends.

At length I found my way to the Hukta, an enclosed garden in the centre of the town, not unlike a very large patio in a South American house. The sheltered platforms beneath the walls were crowded with sweetmeat sellers. Under the trees there were four or five groups listening to story-tellers. In the middle of one gathering two men were telling a story in dialogue with much gesticulation; near by a man was holding forth alone, but making up in vehemence for the lack of a companion. A venerable-appearing old man was reading aloud, and his listeners were mostly graybeards. He never raised his eyes as I and my native followers came up, and paid no attention whatever when one of my men peered over his shoulder to see what it was he was reading. The fact that his listeners showed much interest in us disturbed the tenor of his reading not a whit. Not far away another old man was entertaining a numerous group by reading from the “Elf Leila Wa Leila”—the “Thousand and One Nights.” In town we found copies of this classic in Arabic, Persian, and Turki.

Within hearing of the story-tellers and in the shade cast by a row of elms, half a dozen men were busy massaging clients. At the invitation of a cheerful old fellow I spread myself upon his quilt, and enjoyed an excellent massage, while a small naked child sat beside me, occasionally joining in with a thump in emulation of the work of his elder.

We were glad to leave Kashgar, for it meant that we were launched on the homeward stretch with our faces toward Kashmir, but I shall long remember the many pleasant hours we spent with our friendly and long-suffering hosts at the Consulate, and the careless rambles through the bazaar.

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