Across the Roof of the World. 



palings and brushwood. The Kazaks here told me it was only a 

 day's march to Shara Sumhc, the town in the foothills of the Altai, 

 and that I could reach there the following day before sunset. 



Although it was nine o'clock before I camped I resumed 

 the journey next day at eight, marching a couple of miles 

 before getting out of the bush, whence I entered on a plain 

 with gentle undulations, stretching away for a distance of 

 ten miles. The route then lay through low rounded hills and 

 across another plain for ten miles, beyond which I struck due 

 west by an indifferent cart road in tlie outer foothills to 

 Shara Sumbe, situated in a dip in the hills and somewhat 

 scattered. 



I rode on up the road leading to the town into the main 

 street, at the top of which I halted at the entrance to a house 

 and shop that appeared to belong to a native of Turkistan. I 

 enquired of him the address of one Ismail Bai, to whom I had 

 been recommended by the Kazak chief at Khurdia as being a 

 Kashgari merchant engaged in trade in the Altai. The man I 

 was addressing proved to be the Kashgari merchant I sought, 

 and was known in the town as the Shangi. 



Ismail Bai was a Mohammedan and hailed from Kashgar, 

 w^hither he had migrated some years before to Kulja and later to 

 Chuguchak. Thence he and his family had moved on to Zaisan, 

 in Russian territory, a town situated five marches to the north-east 

 of Chuguchak, and where, hearing of the possibilities of the 

 Chinese Altai and Mongolia from a trading point of view, he had 

 decided on transferring his headquarters. At the time of my 

 arrival he had been resident in Shara Sumbe five years, having 

 during that period opened a branch at Kobdo, the Mongolian 

 town on the north-eastern confines of the Altai, lying on 

 the direct road between the Russian frontier, Uliasutai, and 

 Urga. 



Ismail Bai's trade was mostly restricted to cloth, cotton 

 goods, and the purchase of skins from the Mongol trappers in the 

 Altai, though he also did a considerable business in brick tea 



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