vi CHINESE TURKESTAN 



the immense waste of the said time and trouble 

 which ignorance of the country and of where to 

 find the different sorts of game entailed upon us. 

 When I speak of ignorance of the country I do 

 not mean that Central Asia was unknown to us : 

 we had both on former occasions been all over the 

 Yarkand country and into the Pamirs, while I had 

 also made a journey into Western Thibet. Thus 

 we possessed the experience necessary to organise 

 a caravan, and some of our men had been with 

 us before ; also we could both speak Hindostani 

 fluently and Turki a little, so that our orders were 

 given directly to the servants, and not passed on 

 in a mutilated form by an interpreter. 



The interpreter difficulty is one of the most 

 fruitful sources of trouble in a caravan. A sports- 

 man fresh from England and unfamiliar with the 

 East is, from the nature of things, at the mercy 

 of his interpreter, who in ninety-nine cases out of a 

 hundred will have but a limited English vocabulary 

 and a vast conceit. He will frequently misunder- 

 stand what is said to him, but his own high opinion 

 of his linguistic talents will prevent his acknowledg- 

 ing this, and he will put his own interpretation on 

 what he hears rather than confess his ignorance. 

 The result of course in camp is generally worrying 

 and at times disastrous. 



