CHAPTER XXXV. 
TO MARAL-BASHI 
A T eleven o’clock on the morning of February 17th, 
i V 1895, I, together with Islam Bai, the missionary 
Johannes, and Hashim Akhun, set off to travel eastwards 
to Maral-bashi. 
Our caravan consisted of two large arbas, or arabas, 
on high iron-rimmed wheels, each drawn by four horses. 
The straw roof of the first, in which I drove with Johannes, 
was lined on the inside with a kighiz (felt carpet), and 
the opening at the back was also closed with felts, to 
keep out the dust as much as possible. The bottom of 
the arba was covered with felts, cushions, and furs, to 
make a soft comfortable seat ; but over the bad roads the 
vehicle jolted to such an extent that we might as well 
have been on a rough sea, and the noise it made was 
deafening. The owner of the vehicles accompanied us ; 
and each team had its own driver, with a long whip, who 
sometimes walked by the side, sometimes sat on one of 
the shafts, and whistled. In the other arba were Islam 
and Hashim, together with all my baggage ; and our two 
dogs, Yolldash and Hamrah, were tied under my cart. 
The two arbas creaked and groaned along the highway, 
by the side of the west wall of the town, till we came to 
Kum-darvaseh (the Sand Gate), whence it was nearly two 
hours to Yanghi-shahr, the Chinese quarter of Kashgar. 
There we had a ridiculous adventure. 
A Chinese soldier rushed out on us, stopped the horses, 
and declared that Hamrah was his dog. A large crowd 
quickly gathered round the carts. 1 gave orders to drive 
on. But the man shouted and gesticulated, and finally 
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