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NARRATIVE. 
garding the King's movements, but that reinforce- 
ments were still being forwarded to the seat of war. 
The heat during the day was becoming daily more 
oppressive, being 80° F. at mid-day in the shade, and 
seldom under 65° F. during the night. 
On the morning of the 20th August we left Bora 
at 2 a.m., to avoid the heat, as we had before us a long 
march of twenty-four miles to Kargallik. 
At sunrise all the Yarkandis halted for morning 
prayers. I should mention, that along all the fre- 
quented routes in Yarkand there are small square 
spaces marked off by a row of stones. These spots 
are considered consecrated, and are used by travellers 
in place of mosques ; and in the absence of water, the 
ablutions which it is necessary to go through before 
prayers, are performed with sand, in place of water. 
During the morning devotions a number of the horses 
usually got loose, and we used to have very exciting 
hunts after them. The pace we usually travelled at 
was about five and a half or six miles an hour. The 
Yarkandi ponies go at a " ynlga" or ambling pace, 
which is so easy that one can go to sleep on horse- 
back quite comfortably. At times nearly the whole 
party went to sleep jogging along on horseback. 
About 7 a.m. we arrived at the village of Beshirak, 
and had to go through all the courses of the das- 
tarkhan, from melons to soup, at that early hour. 
Five miles further on we came to Kargallik, the 
largest town we had yet seen. On the outskirts of 
the town we passed the ruins of an old Chinese 
fort. 
The town itself did not differ from any large 
village in the Panjab, or I may say, the East generally. 
