CENTRAL ASIA 
the date of arrival and point of entry should be made clear. The route 
intended to be followed should be stated and adhered to. 
It is advisable to take tents and ordinary camp kit, none being obtainable 
in the country. Wet weather is sure to be experienced as well as snow. 
Hard usage on pack animals demands good material and sound kit. All 
food supplies can be left until the last town, Kuldja, where one can outfit 
in every detail of caravan, transport and supply. The distance is so great 
and the cost of transport so heavy that the rule should be to keep all outfit 
as small as possible and to take nothing unnecessary. The experienced 
traveller will gain an enormous advantage, for his pack animals will 
be able to go where heavily laden beasts with awkward packs will not 
only fail but come to grief. On one occasion I travelled for two months, 
covered 500 miles of more or less uninhabited country at a high altitude, 
and my total outfit was four horses, which carried my two men and myself 
as well as all kit and food. Cumbersome caravans composed of many 
horses add enormously to the ordinary difficulties, and may actually 
hinder the hunter from getting to the more impregnable regions, which 
are, of course, the best. 
This is still more important should the traveller approach the Tian 
Shan from the Indian side, for he will have a long, hard trek to accomplish 
by means of pack horse instead of “ posting ” with “ tarantass ” and 
changes of horses. He will have at the start a long difficult climb over the 
Himalayas in order to reach the plains of Turkestan. This stage of the 
journey can be accomplished in about forty days, i.e., from Kashmir, via 
Leh, over the Karakorum Pass to Yarkand. It is a long, tiring journey, 
and cannot be compared with the Hunza route from the point of view of 
interest, though it might attract some sportsmen on account of the oppor- 
tunities it grants of shooting specimens of the Tibetan antelope. The 
Karakorum Pass marks the most western range of this curious beast, the 
sole representative of its genus, which lives permanently at about 18,000 
feet above the level of the sea. 
By way of Srinagar and Gilgit the plains of Chinese Turkestan can be 
reached in about forty-seven days. Once on the northern side of Karakorum 
ranges there is nothing more formidable than an easily accomplished 
plain journey of about 350 miles to the fort of the Tian Shan. Travellers 
can go direct across the plains from Yarkand to Maralbashi and Aksu 
in about fifteen days, or should they have come to Kashgar it will take them 
only nine to twelve days to reach Aksu. From this oasis to the northern 
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