io CHINESE TURKESTAN 



table, chairs, and aluminium cooking-pots, we got 

 nearly everything in Kashmir. These cooking-pots 

 are light to carry, and as they never want tinning 

 it is not so easy for the cook to poison one as it 

 is with the native copper article which he probably 

 prefers. 



Mosquito curtains and some spare gauze to make 

 veils with are absolute necessities, as during the 

 summer months the mosquitoes in the low country 

 are very bad indeed. 



Travelling with a caravan is in reality a very 

 simple business. Of course it is a good deal of 

 trouble getting things together. Once off, however, 

 it is easy enough, as things soon get into working 

 order ; but there are times when the monotony of 

 the daily routine and the impossibility of averaging 

 more than seventeen or eighteen miles a day become 

 rather trying to the temper. Eighteen miles a day 

 is very good going on a long journey ; often, of 

 course, much more has to be done owing to want 

 of water, grass, etc. ; but as after a few days this is 

 sure to result in having to rest the ponies, it will 

 not be found that one's speed is increased by 

 occasional efforts of twenty-five or thirty miles. 

 The afternoons after getting into camp are always 

 unnaturally long ; reading seems a simple way of 

 killing time, but books are very heavy to carry, and 

 so it is best to take pretty solid ones which will 

 stand reading more than once. 



