AKSU TO SHATTA, IN TEKKES 49 



than ever weary of these eternal plains, and looked 

 eagerly forward to a land of ups and downs again. 

 At Jom we, as usual, camped in an orchard clear of 

 the village, and much to our surprise a beg (a small 

 official) arrived in the evening from Aksu, bringing 

 the amban's cards and a present of tea, with a 

 message to say that the amban was sorry not to 

 have had the chance of entertaining us at dinner. 

 This was true politeness, but we were not sorry at 

 all, as, judging from the quality of the tea, the dinner 

 was better avoided. As our head man did not 

 arrive we had to stop here next day, when he turned 

 up all right, having hired fifteen ponies, which car- 

 ried a month's grain for us. 



On September 6th we were off again, turning 

 north from the main road and crossing a stony, 

 scrubby plain to Arbat, a hamlet of two or three 

 houses just at the entrance to the foot-hills. It is 

 in a valley where there is a small river, which must 

 at times be unfordable, as there were some old boats 

 on the bank. The plain was said to swarm with 

 jeron (Gazella subgutturosa\ but we only saw 

 three. 



To our great surprise, the people said that there 

 were big wild sheep of some sort close to us, so we 

 went out to spy the country ; but the sheep were 

 invisible, though I saw tracks of jeron and pig in 

 the valley and a leopard's pugs on the hill. We 

 saw a lot of chikor, a sort of red-legged partridge, 

 E 



