LAKE KARA-KUL 
165 
to take the soundings. By the time we had finished, it 
was dark ; yet not so dark but that we could see to follow 
the trail of the other men who had gone on to camp. We 
tracked them obliquely across the fjord ; but lost the trail 
when we touched the shore. We rode a long time across 
the peninsula which I have mentioned before, scrambling 
over sand and stones and other products of disintegration. 
In a little the crescent of the moon appeared above the 
horizon, and shed down its cold, pale beams upon the 
desolate scene. And desolate indeed it was — not a sound 
to be heard, not a vestige of a living creature to be seen. 
Every now and then we stopped and shouted — no answer. 
Once we came across the trail in a scanty snowdrift. But 
the next moment the moon was shrouded in the night-mist, 
and we lost it again. After riding for fully four hours, we 
came to the shore of the eastern basin. But we saw no 
sign of horsemen, no signal fire, no appearance of a camp. 
The other men had, it was evident, travelled another 
way. The question was — which way? We rode on 
another hour, trusting to chance to guide us. But it 
was all to no purpose : we could not find those we sought. 
We determined therefore to halt for the night. The spot 
where we came to this resolve was a level expanse of 
sand, dotted with thin patches of snow. We tethered 
the horses together by a halter to prevent them from 
running away. The poor creatures, which had had no 
food all day, hungrily scraped at the sand wdth their hoofs ; 
but they found nothing except the tough, hard roots of 
teresken. At these they tugged greedily. Having made 
the best preparations for spending the night that our re- 
sources admitted of, we sat close together, and talked till 
an hour after midnight, firing one another’s fears with 
gruesome wolf stories. Shir said however that, if danger 
threatened us from tKit quarter, the horses would be 
our best protectors, as they would be certain to give us 
warning. 
Having thoroughly tired ourselves with talking, we 
squatted down Kirghiz-fashion in our sheepskins, t.e.., on 
our knees with our backs to the wind. I made a pillow 
