Page:From Kulja, across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).djvu/92

Rh through withered canebrake, whose roots, as hard as iron, lacerate the camel's hoofs till they bleed. After crossing the Kiok-ala-daria, an arm of the Tarim, by means of a raft, we continued to make short marches, halting generally near the villages. Zaman Beg and his suite never left us at first; but at length, having convinced themselves that we had no particular object in view, they would generally ride forward to the next halting-place. The inhabitants on our line of march had evidently been instructed to deceive us in everything that we could not see for ourselves; and never before having set eyes on Russians, about whom they had probably heard marvellous tales, they fled as though we had the plague, and to the very last suspected us of dishonesty, seeing that we, "the valued guests" of their ruler, were treated as spies, and led by circuitous roads in charge of an escort; their suspicions too were heightened, owing to their not understanding the object of our journey. Just as it happened to us in Mongolia and Kansuh, so now on the Tarim, the semi-barbarous natives could not believe it possible that we should undergo the hardships of travel, spend money, sacrifice camels, &c., merely for the sake of seeing a new country, collecting plants and skins, &c., objects which from their point of view were good for little, if not absolutely worthless. Animated by this spirit, the eagerness