290 The National Geographic Magazine 



entirely, nevertheless there are found on 

 the shore on our side many kinds of fish 

 more delicious and sweet-tasting than 

 are ever seen anywhere else." Other 

 wonders are related of the same region. 

 For instance, to quote Professor Lowes, 

 "Into the Sandy Sea itself flows, three 

 days of the week, a river of stones with- 

 out water, impassable while its flow con- 

 tinues. Beyond it lies another river, 

 whose sands are mere precious stones ; or 

 sometimes this River of Gems flows 

 through the Sandy Sea, and is indeed the 

 Sabbatic River, flowing six days and 

 resting the seventh, which keeps the ten 

 tribes of the Children of Israel from 

 crossing into the land of Prester John. 

 And in one part of the desert where the 

 sea lies is a people with round feet, like 

 horses' hoofs ; and in another part is the 

 land of Femenye itself," a land where 

 none but women dwell, and they are 

 "very stark and cruel;" and no man dare 

 bide more than an hour. 



THE SEA OF SAND 



Strange as these stories sound, they are 

 only slight perversions of the truth. 

 During a visit to the Lop Basin in 

 1905-6 the writer observed facts which 

 may perhaps explain all of them. For 

 instance, when first one sees Chinese 

 women of high class their diminutive 

 feet are strangely suggestive of the hoofs 

 of animals. As to the fable of the land 

 of Femenye, there is nothing now to give 

 rise to it directly. Marco Polo relates, 

 however, that in his day in the region of 

 Hami, not many hundred miles from 

 Lop-Xor, none but women were found in 

 the villages when caravans arrived. The 

 men departed in order that the travelers 

 might be more comfortable, and might 

 be the more ready to pay for entertain- 

 ment. Even today the people of Hami 

 possess customs which seem to be a 

 reminiscence of the ancient habit. 



Other portions of the old accounts are 

 equally explicable. The Lop Basin, in 

 the very center of Asia, is a great depres- 

 sion, 1,400 miles long from east to west 

 and 400 wide. Around it lies a ring of 



lofty plateaus from 10,000 to 20,000 feet 

 high. At their base is a ring of piedmont 

 gravel, almost destitute of life, and 

 sloping gently inward like a huge beach 

 from 5 to 40 miles wide. Then comes 

 another ring, the zone of vegetation, 

 where alone there are plants and an op- 

 portunity for human inhabitants other 

 than the few nomads of the plateaus. 

 Finally within the zone of vegetation lies 

 a vast desert area about 1,000 miles long 

 and 250 wide. Its western three-quar- 

 ters consist of a veritable Sea of Sand, 

 the Takla-makan desert, yellow or gray 

 on the edges, pink in the inner portions. 

 Row after row of almost impassable sand 

 dunes has been piled up by the wind to 

 heights of full 500 feet in places. The 

 smallest dunes often move forward 

 hundreds of feet in a year in the direction 

 of the prevailing winds ; the largest 

 scarcely move at all. The sand is most 

 beautiful, with its graceful sweep of wavy 

 dunes and ripples, but the natives hate 

 and fear it. It has proved the grave of 

 many a native gone mad with thirst in 

 the vain search for the gold supposed to 

 lie hidden in sand-buried ruins. 



A few rivers flow into the desert of 

 Takla-makan. Most of them soon wither 

 to nothing. All are very variable, and 

 some, such as the Vash Sheri, flow in 

 raging, impassable torrents during sunny 

 weather in summer, but dry up when 

 cloudy days among the mountains pre- 

 vent the melting of snow. The dry 

 beds of these "Sabbatic" streams form 

 veritable "rivers of stones." In certain 

 cases one might almost say with the old 

 chronicler that there are streams "whose 

 sands are mere precious stones." When 

 the Khotan and. Keriya rivers are low, 

 crowds of natives go out from the oases 

 to dig in the gravel of the river-bed for 

 jade, one of the most highly prized of 

 Chinese precious stones. Gold also is 

 found in the upper parts of the beds of 

 the Keriya and other rivers. 



THE SEA OF SALT 



East of the Sea of Sand there lies a 

 Sea of Salt, the bed of the ancient Lake of 



