BOATING ADVENTURES 
405 
Swedish boat -building, being entirely wanting in the 
noble lines and beautiful proportions for which our cutters 
are famous. On the contrary, she was everywhere as 
warped and angular as an empty sardine-box. As our 
brave craft, in which I was going to navigate the Kara- 
kul for a whole week, lay bobbing up and down near the 
shore on her inflated goat-skins, she put me strangely in 
mind of some unknown antediluvian creature hatching 
its eggs. 
Togdasin Beg turned up early the next morning to 
inspect the monster. He pulled up at a respectful dis- 
tance. His expression was indescribably comical, and 
seemed to say : “ Why, you don’t mean to tell me a boat 
looks like that? I never could have imagined such a 
thingf ! ” Then, the next moment an ironical smile crossed 
his lips, and he seemed to be thinking to himself — “ What 
a crazy-looking affair ! ” But he had the tact not to say 
anything, and I bit my lip to keep a straight countenance. 
Meanwhile I invited him to go for a sail later in the day. 
After some demur, he accepted the invitation. When it 
came to the point, he was far less afraid than his fellow- 
tribesmen. 
On the day our boat was launched, the Kirghiz assem- 
bled from far and near; and there were even a score or 
so of women, with their big white turban-shaped head- 
dresses, peeping from behind a moraine-mound. I asked 
the old men, if they thought Jan Darin would be able 
to keep from laughing if we put him on board, and sent 
him out on the lake. The idea tickled them so, they were 
ready to split with laughter. 
In a word, the whole thing was a sensational event, a 
very uncommon tamashah (spectacle) ; and reports of it 
spread like wildfire over the whole of the eastern Pamirs. 
On our way back to Kashgar we used to be asked at 
the Kirghiz auls where we halted for the night, even at 
great distances from the Little Kara-kul, if it were true, 
that a stranger with wings had flown up Mus-tagh-ata, and 
later had flitted backwards and forwards across the lake ? 
Mollah Islam even went so far as to compose a song, 
