142 CHINESE TURKESTAN 



and cooked in grease, a byword with Russian 

 travellers. Another nuisance is that though the 

 fire is supposed to be included in the contract, this 

 rule is in many places a dead letter, and it is no 

 great pleasure to sit and freeze in a room when one 

 expects to be warmed up again. Of course the 

 stove is lit if asked for, but it takes a long time to 

 get hot. 



When I was still three days from Kuldja the 

 weather suddenly turned quite warm, and I began 

 to doubt if it would be possible to get the 

 sledges there at all ; but they just did it, and I 

 arrived on February i4th, a pleasant sunny day, 

 which gave promise of an early spring and 

 encouraged the rooks to begin building operations 

 in some trees near our house. We ourselves 

 began to make arrangements for leaving our winter 

 quarters ; but unfortunately, the warm spell was 

 delusive, more snow was yet to fall, and even on 

 March i3th the thermometer managed to go down 

 to zero. 



Round about Kuldja are a lot of warm springs 

 and streams which never freeze. These were 

 frequented by a good many duck which had elected 

 to spend the winter there, instead of migrating 

 southwards, and Phelps had found his chief occupa- 

 tion shooting them, but said that it palled upon him 

 somewhat after a time. 



We had quite an excitement on March i4th. 





