Page:Across Thibet Vol. 1.djvu/97

Rh represented by small circular pools, which owe their sombre tints to the saltness of the water. These pools of water indicate the vicinity of a river, and it is not long before we regain the course of the Tarim, which is fifty feet broad, with a limpid but shallow current, flowing slowly between two sandy banks, which are covered in places with reeds.

Its course will guide us in future along our route, for we have to follow it pretty closely, putting to flight now and again herds of gazelles which have come to drink of its waters. But they are very wild, and we do not succeed in bringing any down.

The sun is rapidly sinking beneath the horizon, yet we see no trace of dwellings. The thirty versts which, as the guide told us this morning, separated us from the village of Abdallah, seem to us very long ones; we have covered, indeed, quite double the distance, and it is night when we reach four or five wretched reed hovels. Can this be the village of Abdallah? Where are the houses built of stone, or, at all events, of earth, which he told us about. Where, too, are the trees, the wood of which was to give us warmth? and why should he have dissuaded us from bringing our tents?

These are questions which we should have liked to put to Abdullah, but it is cold and late, and all that we can do is to content ourselves with what we have got, and settle ourselves in as comfortably as possible, taking care to be on our guard in future against the information supplied by our interpreter. While our people are unloading the horses and donkeys, the natives emerge from their miserable hovels, and with many salaams beg us to accept their hospitality.

We enter one of these huts, the earthen floor of which is covered in places with old bits of felt, while in the centre a cavity surrounded by flat stones serves as a fireplace. In the corner are sacks of corn and an old cartridge box, the latter being a souvenir of Prjevalsky's visit. This is all the furniture, and on the walls,