114 
NARRATIVE. 
without any cultivation along their banks ; we halted 
about midday at the last of these, where there was a 
clump of bushes, consisting of wild liquorice, Tama- 
risk, Myricaria, IIippo])hae, and Elseagnus ; the last 
appeared to be wild ; it had smaller leaves and fruit 
and more thorns than the cultivated specimens, but 
possibly the plants had grown from seeds dropped by 
travellers. After this we passed over a waste of sand- 
hills. In some places I saw horizontal strata ol 
coarse red sandstone and conglomerate, appearing 
above the surface. Oi Tograk — oi, a house, and to- 
grak, a poplar-tree — did not differ from Sanju and 
Koshtak. In all these places there is a valley 50 to 
200 feet below the level of the intervening desert. All 
the water required is obtained from the streams, and 1 
only once saw a well in Yarkand — namely, at the oasis 
between Sanju and Koshtak. The water was at a 
depth of about six feet from the surface, and, from its 
filthy condition, I judged that the well was only re- 
sorted to during very dry seasons. 
Task Khoja now left us to go on to Bora, the next 
stage, and within the jurisdiction of his master, the 
Governor of Yarkand. Hitherto we had been enter- 
tained by the Governor of Guma, which is a town some 
miles to the north, and all the fruit we had received 
was said to come from that town, for, with the excep- 
tion of the Elseagnus and walnut, we had as yet seen 
no fruit-trees. 
The Kazi — i.^., judge — of Guma came to consult me 
at Koshtak about a large goitre. Every third man 
we met suffered from this disease, which was almost 
the only one I had to treat. It often attained an 
enormous size. Fortunately I had brought a large 
