FROM KULJA TO KUMUL 429 



appointments or made their " pile " they return by 

 cart, thinking nothing of the time occupied by such a 

 slow method of transport so long as it does not entail 

 any undue exertion on their part. In Kulja we found 

 a useful adaptation of the Russian " telega," or springless, 

 four-wheeled cart, which was far more useful and con- 

 siderably lighter than the high, heavily built, two-wheeled 

 carts generally used by the Chinese. The Dungan 

 owners — for the Mohammedans appear to have the mono- 

 poly of the carrying-trade in Western China — ran these 

 ** telegas " from Kulja to Urumchi in eighteen or twenty 

 days. They charged 55 tael (about £6) for a winter's 

 journey when fodder was scarce and dear, but slightly 

 less during the summer months. The actual distance 

 between the two towns was 432 miles, divided up into 

 eighteen stages. The stages averaged 90 li each, which 

 corresponds to about thirty miles ; we found, however, 

 that the Chinese mode of reckoning distances was very 

 unreliable ; an easy downhill stage of about 90 li often 

 being found to consist ol 120, or even more ; whereas a 

 sandy track, without water, would be considered 90 li 

 because it felt like 90, when in reality it should have 

 been 60 li. 



On January 14th we rattled out of the famiUar old 

 bazaars of Kulja, and, to the " Hoa-hoa-hoa " of the 

 drivers, drove out across the melancholy, dreary land- 

 scape of the Hi Valley. In six hours we made the 

 Chinese town of Sweeting, a " rabbit-warren " of a 

 place, a maze of mud-walls, a city risen out of the 

 ashes of destruction, and repeopled after horrible 

 massacres. The history of the Hi Valley is somewhat 

 like that of the valley of the Hoang Ho. Periodically 

 nature has let loose floods, — either of water or human 



