Across tlic Roof of the World. 



above described, whilst those who inhabit a wooded country build 

 log huts for occupation during the winter, for even the best of auls 

 cannot keep out the terrific cold. The danger does not, however, 

 lie in the rise or fall of the tliermometer, but in the searching 

 wind which knows no obstacle and spares no man. The mere 

 fact of the ternperature sinking to 30 and 40 degrees below zero 

 is not in itself a great hardship. It is when accompanied by the 

 cruel and relentless winds that constitute it an element against 

 which all efforts are futile. 



The Kazaks informed me there was a karaul of Mongol soldiers 

 some distance to the east, which I should encounter on my wa}', 

 so in order not to miss it I pressed in two unwilling souls to act 

 as guides and pilot us thither. 



I crossed a low range of hills and then followed the course 

 of a river, which the Kazaks called the Ulungkor, until late in the 

 afternoon. The hills to the north were rounded and undulating, 

 those to the south being more rugged and serrated, forming the 

 outlying spurs of the Tarbagatai, while the width of the valley 

 was some four miles. 



At 5 o'clock it was quite dark, and one of the Kazak 

 guides told me the karaul lay to the south so I started off in 

 that direction to search for it. I might have known that the 

 karaul was probably a phantom one, and that it was asking too 

 much to expect a Kazak to tell the truth. It was freezing 

 hard, so that wandering about over the bleak steppe at night 

 looking for karauls was not at all to my liking. When we 

 finally brought up in a sheltered dip of the hills I decided to 

 camp the night there, and gave orders accordingly. 



There was a small stream close by from which, after breaking 

 the ice, we were able to get water for tea. The Kazak guide had 

 vanished in the darkness, having succeeded in stranding us in the 

 unknown, but we made tlie best of it though I think the night was 

 certainly one of the coldest I have ever spent. There was a good 

 deal of stunted scrub, and I amused myself by igniting it and pro- 

 ducing temporary warmth, by which the caravan was enabled to 



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