FROM KULJA TO KUMUL 455 



and the camels have to be taken out to graze in the 

 bitterly cold nights. There were generally twenty 

 camels to the charge of each man, an average caravan 

 being made up of a hundred and twenty camels, under 

 six cameleers and a caravan-bashi, who alone was 

 mounted and who rode at the rear, armed with an old 

 "blunder-buss." 



After the leading cameleer came the camels, slow, 

 stately and cynical, twenty in a string — tied nose 

 to tail, and carrying full loads of 500 lb. The 

 heavily built Bactrian, — the weight-carrier, the freight- 

 train, — compares poorly with the fast dromedary — the 

 desert-express ; yet amongst all the various means of 

 transport used in Asia the Bactrian camel holds first 

 place. You may find him from China to the Caspian ; 

 you may safely depend upon him for the crossing 

 of a terrible sand-desert, and you may meet him at 

 18,000 ft. above the level of the sea, on a Himalayan pass. 

 He is ubiquitous, adaptable, and, in fact, indispensable 

 to the traveller and merchant in Asia. The Bactrian 

 camel is in his true home in Mongolia. The finest breeds, 

 according to Prjevalsky, come from the Ala Shan district 

 in the south ; but I am doubtful whether equally fine 

 types do not exist in the excellent pastures of the north- 

 west, on the slopes of the Mongolian Altai. Heavy loads 

 and short stages is the order for caravans bound for far- 

 distant regions ; and whenever food is found in ex- 

 ceptional quantity a halt of several days is often made, 

 in order to rest and feed up the camels. 



I have diverged from my narrative, by describing 

 the ways and means of communication between Guchen 

 and the Far East, for it is the camels and the caravans 

 which are essentially the features of this town situated 



