FROM KULJA TO KUMUL 437 



newly built houses and bazaars ; an exploration of the 

 surrounding country, however, showed that there were not 

 only large areas of an earlier cultivation now overgrown 

 with reed-beds, but the remains of many old irrigation 

 canals. For six or eight miles to the east of the village 

 I noticed disused canals and fields overgrown with reeds 

 and scrub showing no traces of recent cultivation. There 

 was ample water in this locality ; the present state of 

 the country being probably an example of what it must 

 have been formerly, before Dungan rebellions and Chinese 

 massacres swept away prosperity and left the land 

 destitute. 



It was difficult, at this season, to tell the amount 

 of water these settlements were dependent upon, for the 

 streams were frozen and the water-courses hidden under 

 snow. Even the largest rivers, which issued from great 

 valleys in the mountains to the south, could hardly be 

 traced where we crossed their wide beds on the plain. 

 The villagers depended on deep wells, and the nomads 

 used ice, which they cut out, in great blocks, from the 

 rivers and transported on camel-back to their " yurts." 



From Takianzi the road led us to Djinko, a town of 

 rather more than usual importance, situated at the 

 south end of Ebi Nor. It was a busy centre for the 

 Kalmuks from the Borotala district, and was inhabited 

 by about three thousand Chinese and Chant os, who 

 traded salt procured near Ebi Nor. Djinko was in a 

 well-watered region ; miles of reed-beds standing 10 to 

 15 ft. high, scrub, and small forests of gnarled and stunted 

 poplars showed that nearly all this country could be 

 brought under cultivation. As it was, the district only 

 supported a small population of Kalmuks, whom we 

 occasionally saw making use of the points of vantage 



