30 CHINESE TURKESTAN 



the best thing to do during- the summer. Here 

 the peaches were just ripe and very good. It is 

 wonderful what a lot of ripe fruit can be eaten by 

 men who have nothing else to do and really give 

 their minds to it. 



Speaking generally, the Yarkand country is 

 practically rainless, or at least the rainfall is not 

 sufficient for the purpose of cultivation. In conse- 

 quence of this all vegetation is in strips along the 

 streams, from which the water is diverted to irrigate 

 the fields, and the size of the villages and towns 

 depends entirely on the supply of water thus obtain- 

 able. At Yarkand, where there is plenty, a very 

 elaborate system of water-channels has been evolved 

 during the course of ages, and so a large tract of 

 land has been made fertile ; but most of the smaller 

 streams are taxed to the utmost, and the small 

 amount of water left in them is soon soaked up by the 

 sand of the Takla Makan desert, which is in many 

 places encroaching on the fields ; as in consequence 

 of the water being all used above, there is none to 

 support the strips of jungle which should fence out the 

 sand, and so the trees die and the desert supervenes. 

 Between the streams the country is a sandy waste, 

 with here and there a few straggling little bushes. 

 As the road to Yarkand runs roughly north and 

 south, while the streams there all run eastward, it 

 will be seen that the road is mostly over a barren 

 country with strips of cultivation at intervals. 



