Page:Across Thibet Vol. 1.djvu/146

128 river, and we take some ice out of it. We shall not get any drinkable water at the place where we encamp to-night, and in future these lumps of ice will be our only drink.

We are in the bare and stony desert; to our right being a dark and indistinct mass looming out of the mist, which the aged Abdullah says is the Altyn Tagh, the gold mountains which have not before been visible in our approach to them. They appear to be lofty, but none of their details can be distinguished, and no peak is discernible. On the other side, he tells us, begins the land of ice, and we shall find it very cold.

Our troop is rather silent, and the men, instead of chatting cheerfully as is their wont, flick their horses in a mechanical sort of way, with a fixed look on their faces. The morrow of separation is always melancholy, especially when one is bound for the unknown, and neither physically nor morally is one up to the mark.

We approach some sand-hills on our left, the outposts of the Gobi. It is there that we are to encamp, our donkeys and the flock of sheep we take with us for food on the road following us very closely, and making a pretty picture as they are driven along by men wearing white frieze. From the sand we get on to takirs formed of fire-clay, and then again on to the sand, going up and down hillocks formed by the crumbling away of the mountain and the sweepings of the plain.

Abdullah Ousta, getting off his horse, begins to search for water, which he is not long in discovering, from its proximity to the salt on the surface; and when the donkeys have been unloaded, the men take their pickaxes and dig a hole, which is soon filled with salt water.

We make some tea, which we drink pending the arrival of the camels with the ice; and though it is not very nice, we must apprentice ourselves to the desert. I have often noticed that whenever one starts on a long expedition there are some cases of