A SUMMER IN HIGH ASIA. 



though as there was a breeze blowing my meal 

 consisted as much of sand as of anything else. 



These zaks are a curious and not unexciting 

 means of conveyance, more especially when the 

 river is in full flood, as it was upon this occasion. 

 They are formed of goat-skins with the heads and 

 feet cut off, and sown up with the exception of 

 one leg, which can be quickly opened for purposes 

 of inflation, and bound tightly up again ; this process 

 takes place repeatedly, even in mid-stream, as one 

 or another skin loses its buoyancy, and reminded me 





CROSSING THE SHYOK RIVER ON ZAKS (SKIN RAFTS). 



of blowing out a football. The skins are placed side 

 by side on their backs, presenting a ludicrously 

 helpless appearance as they lie swollen out with 

 four short legs sticking up in the air, and are bound 

 by the half dozen to a kind of hurdle ; the raft is 

 composed of as many of these hurdles as occasion 

 may demand. But more curious than the raft 

 itself is the means of propulsion. Six or four 

 stalwart mariners stand or crouch, an equal number 

 on either side, and in the hands of each one is, not 



43 



