A CHINESE DINNER-PARTY 
249 
with which I left Europe. Instead of exploringr all the 
regions I had set my mind upon in one continuous and 
unbroken journey, as I had at first intended, I decided 
to carry out my purpose in a series of longer or shorter 
expeditions, all starting from Kashgar as a centre. By 
that means I should be able to carry my observations 
to a place of safety as I made them, to develop my 
photographic plates, pack and send off home my collec- 
tions, as well as have an excellent base at which to make 
preparations for each fresh expedition. 
I intended my first journey to be to Lop-nor, that 
being the object upon which my heart was most set. 
But in the beginning of J une the weather underwent 
a sudden change. Summer — the Asiatic summer — was 
upon us almost before we were aware of it. The sky 
glowed like a gigantic furnace. The temperature rose to 
ioo°4 bahr. (38° C.) in the shade; the black-bulb insola- 
tion thermometer showed i50°8 (66° C.). The queen of 
the night was powerless to infuse coolness into the super- 
heated atmosphere of East Turkestan. And every 
afternoon the desert wind blew in across the ancient 
capital of Yakub Beg, dry, burning, impregnated with 
fine dust, filling the streets with a stifling, impenetrable 
haze. And as the summer advanced, the heat w'ould 
increase, as well as grow more intense the nearer we 
travelled towards the middle of the continent. I thought 
of the superheated atmosphere, heavily charged with dust, 
vibrating above the dunes of drift-sand ; I thought of the 
whirlwinds which every afternoon drive up and down 
the banks of the Tarim ; I thought of the 1000 miles 
of long, difficult marches across the unending waterless 
deserts, and — I shuddered. It was only the other day, 
as it were, that I had been living in nearly forty degrees 
(Fahr. and C.) of frost high up on the Pamirs. I should 
be all the more sensitive to the burning heat of the desert. 
At the eleventh hour therefore I resolved to spend the 
summer in the higher regions, and continue my observa- 
tions in the eastern Pamirs, and wait for the winter or the 
spring before starting for Lop-nor. 
