462 
THROUGH ASIA 
March 8th. I walked through the young forest as far 
as the river in order to take some observations ; and 
found a ferry-boat, which was punted across in seventy 
seconds, and which could carry seven horses, six donkeys, 
and twenty men at once. 
The two banks were very dissimilar. The left bank 
was low, Bat, and bare, with many sandbanks. The right 
bank was worn perpendicularly by the current, which ran 
immediately unclerneath it ; and was luxuriantly wooded 
with poplars and tamarisks, whose roots stuck out of the 
fine alluvial soil of which it was composed. The river 
thus showed a marked tendency to press against the right 
bank, and eat it away. But the current meandered so 
much that in other places it was the left bank which was 
eroded, although on the whole to a much less extent than 
the right bank. 
The forest on the right bank was six feet above the 
level of the stream ; nevertheless it is overflowed in July. 
The breadth of the river was 200 feet, the maximum 
depth 6 feet 3 inches, velocity of the current 2 feet 
8 inches in the second, and its volume 3060 cubic 
feet in the second ; a volume which must be incon- 
siderable when compared with the masses of water 
which in the height of summer pour down towards Lop- 
nor. The temperature was 46°9 Fahr. (8°3 C.), and there 
was no ice anywhere. The water was however only 
transparent to a depth of barely two inches. 
