THE KIZIL DAWAN. 119 



and again a pony, in sheer " cussedness," would 

 leave the path made for them in this way, and 

 perform a spread eagle on the ice! 



On passing through the portals of this gorge 

 we found ourselves in an open valley. Some 

 Kirghiz women, who were cutting blocks of ice 

 out of the frozen stream, told us that there was 

 no water below this point at this season, except 

 a few pools, which were so salt as to be unfit for 

 use. This decided our camping, as for forty 

 miles there was neither grass nor water, a bad 

 look-out for ponies in the condition ours were 

 reduced to. However, Barat said he had done 

 it before, and we should get through all right if 

 we started at twelve o'clock at night 



A caravan of camels coming in from Yarkand, 

 we went over to see them, and found they were 

 carrying rice, dried apricots, and peaches, to trade 

 with the Kirghiz in the neighbourhood. They 

 had been going from five o'clock of the previous 

 afternoon until 2 P.M., and said it was a terrible 

 long march to the karaol. 



As soon as the sun went down it became very 

 cold, at which we were surprised, having ex- 

 pected a pleasant change in the temperature ; but 

 the natives explained that it was on account of 



