350 
[Nov. 
Overland Journey to India. 
may be so when its mud has settled. In early spring this river overflows its 
banks, and the Turkmans sow Jawari 8 , and melon seed in the alluvial ground. 
We saw no tents here, and soon lost the good soil. With the exception of one 
hour’s halt, we travelled on all day till 5 in the evening, when we halted at a long 
pool of rain water, and collecting a heap of weeds, made a sort of fire, at which we 
boiled some rice and tea. At 8, we resumed our march, and kept on a northerly 
course over a bare country all night till 4 in the morning of the 
2Sth - — Halted one hour, and marched on. Passed in the morning over the re- 
mains of a town, once apparently of good extent, and as it seemed, systematically 
laid in ruin ; not a stone was upon another to mark the form of a building, but 
square well-burnt bricks lay in detached low mounds over a considerable space. 
At one, we came to 22 Yelgoi Yimut tents, and got some camel’s clidal, (butter- 
milk,) the acid of which was most refreshing in the heat. Six miles to the westof 
us were the ruins of a city called Meshid-i-Misredn ; two minarets and a mosque 
were seen hanging in air above a cloud of vapour. Here we altered our course to 
N. N. E. and travelled at a less quick rate that day, the 29th and the 30th, over the 
same sort of country, which I will here describe. 
The desart generally is of a light soil, white, and inclined to be sandy, yet 
so firm, that in dry weather camels barely leave the print of their feet upon it. 
Phis soil produces thorns and weedy bushes, much camel thorn, a root like 
the stem of a vine, called Takh, and stunted Guz bushes. Much of the ground is 
quite hard and bare, and in parts spring patches of coarse grass, doubtless when wa- 
ter is near the surface. A third feature is the sand : this is either spread loosely 
over the plain, or is gathered in broad ridges, which assume some consistency. In 
such spots the Turkmans love to encamp : the young cattle thrive, good water is 
found at no great depth, and the camp is more private and sheltered from the 
wind 9 . 
On the 30th April, in the afternoon, we came to the bank of a nullah, into the 
dry bed of which we descended. This after a while led us into deep ravines, and 
from thence we passed into what appeared to be the dried-up bed of a once very large 
river. We journeyed for two hours N. E. up this bed, and then halted to cook 
a lamb, which was roasted a la Tartare, on ramrods, over the trunk of a withered 
tree. My companion and I parting from the centre, walked each to a bank, and mea- 
sured about 500 ordinary paces each ; the soil differed from that above, having more 
stones and pebbles, and against the left bank to which I walked, and which was very 
high, many large stones were collected, and the earth near it was coned up as if 
by the strong force of water. For some distance the banks would run at a breadth 
about equal to that we measured, then they would be entirely broken into 
a succession of parallel deep ravines, each the size of a nullah. It must have 
been a great convulsion of nature which tore the sides of this river open. Mora- 
vief talks of an earthquake, which happened 500 years ago ; we heard of a 
gieat flood at that time, but the .Turkmans have no books, neither have they 
very positive notions about time or events. We set off again at 8 h . of a dark rainy 
ni 0 ht, in which not a star shone to guide us. After an hour and a half, we quitted 
ed, and got into a narrow path between rocks : we lost our way more than 
and T tr 7 J ?i , Ve thiS g, ’ ain t0 thdr h ° rses C though they chiefly feed them upon barley), 
Tor their 1 c-itfl 6 ^° UU ® ^ aVVar * sta * bs j which are very sweet and fattening, good food 
let -hs, and a sweet root called Koussuk, are found in such spots; a fin* 
53 ‘ " a S ° fiTOWS in the sund > but every blade is far from its neighbour. 
