Page:Across Thibet Vol. 1.djvu/25

Rh authorisation of the Chinese governor of the province. This was granted us after a visit in which etiquette was very carefully observed, insomuch that we were offered three cups of tea and a bottle of champagne; and the Governor gave us two safe-conducts to take us to the frontiers of the province of Ili.

September 12.—To-day the small European colony kindly escorts us to the gate of the town, and cordially wishes us a safe journey and happy return home.

And so at last we find ourselves in the saddle. We first make in an easterly direction, but change our course as soon as we have crossed the Tien Shan, as it is Tonquin that we have in view. Shall we ever get there, and if so, by what route? There is all the old continent to cross, the least known portion of China, Thibet and its highlands, the deserts, and the deep rivers, to say nothing of the human beings who look upon every stranger as an enemy. All this I might have said to myself, and to these reflections might have added that we were only five or six to face an unknown situation, before which so many others better equipped and prepared had quailed. But I must confess that I had not one of these rhetorical thoughts in my head when once I found myself fairly started, abandoning myself to the pleasure of being in the open and looking about me with the eager curiosity of the traveller whose eyes, almost starting from their orbits, scan the horizon like a hungry hawk in search of prey.

After getting quit of the dust which reminds me of Turkestan, the soil, the landscape, and the cultivation of the plain recall the neighbourhood of Samarkand and Tashkend. The beardless faces, the sunken eyes, and the long dresses of the men show that one is in China. The fertility of the valley of Ili is remarkable, so that for the last few years its population has been growing very rapidly. A great many of the Tarantshis who had fled to Russian territory are coming back to the places