A Trying March. 



and when installed therein I was as comfortable as could 

 reasonably be expected under the circumstances. 



During the night the wind abated considerably, and the 

 morning of December i6th dawned line and bright. I rewarded 

 the Mongol inhabitants for their hospitahty to us, and then set 

 forth again through the same low hills for three miles, whence 

 I turned east and continued along a narrow valley to the summit 

 of a small dawan. This was crowned by a cairn, to which my 

 Mongols added a few stones, I following suit, much to their delight. 

 They said it would bring luck, a commodity I was willing to go 

 to any lengths to obtain. 



There was a long and gradual descent through a narrow valley 

 bordered by low rounded hills, which impressed me as being good 

 wild sheep ground, and the Mongol soldiers who accompanied 

 me stated sheep were certainly to be found there, but in limited 

 numbers. The argah, according to their account, existed in 

 the Saur Mountains to the north, though the best places, they 

 said, were within the hmits of Russian jurisdiction. Eight or 

 nine miles up this valley I reached another karaul, halting there 

 for a frugal lunch and to take on fresh guides to a post said to 

 be about twelve miles across the plains to the east. 



From the karaul the route lay through the hills for a mile 

 and then led down on to a stony plain with mountains to the 

 north and south at a distance of ten or eleven miles. To-day's 

 march was destined to be one of the longest I had done since 

 leaving Kulja, for the next karaul was at a much greater distance 

 than I had imagined. 



Away across the stony plain I again struck undulating 

 country, a rolling prairie, of seemingly boundless extent. When 

 the shades of darkness closed in and I was still as far off as 

 ever I began to foresee the possibilities of another night in the 

 open without fuel for a fire, or indeed any such luxuries. 

 After several hours of forging alicad, numbed in the piercing 

 wind, and unable to see more than a few yards ahead, we heard 

 the distant barking of dogs, a sound that was as music to the ears, 



355 2A2 



