192 CHINESE TURKESTAN 



After twenty-two miles more of gravelly plain 

 comes the large village of Zangawa, where there 

 lives a most attentive beg. He is rather a big 

 man, being the head of several villages, and did us 

 like princes, apparently thinking that nothing could 

 be too good for the sahibs travelling through his 

 district. When we rode up in the middle of the 

 night we found the camping-ground under some 

 trees all ready, swept, and garnished with carpets 

 and numnahs, the trees hung with lanterns, and in 

 the middle two cushion-covered divans, and 

 Chinese tables, while the beg himself was there 

 ready to pay his respects and give us the tea of 

 welcome. From him we learnt that though the 

 Kilyan Pass was still blocked with snow the 

 Sanju was open, but that the route to it by Sanju 

 village being almost impassable, owing to high 

 water, we should have to take the alternative route 

 by Poshki and the Chuchu Dawan (daw an is any 

 pass or hill over which there is a road). 



Accordingly next day we turned our faces south, 

 and escorted by the beg, rode twenty-one miles to 

 the long and straggling strip of cultivation which 

 forms the village of Poshki. The way was over a 

 gently but steadily rising gravel plain to within five 

 or six miles of our destination ; then the foot-hills 

 begin, and our road was mostly up the bed of a 

 stream, a rough path in the dark. 



It amounts to something to travel with a really 



