THE THRESHOLD OF THE DESERT 479 
fast, a man ate before the sun set. He was immediately 
seized, flogged, and with his hands tied behind his back 
was led in a rope through the bazaar, from every corner 
of which the following questions and answers w'ere re- 
echoed as the offender passed. 
“ Did you eat ? ” 
“ Yes.” 
“ Do you mean to do it again ? ” 
“ Never.” 
It is also customary to blacken the culprit’s face before 
he makes his penitential promenade through the bazaar. 
On March 21st I visited the bazaar. It was very 
spacious, and every trade and calling had a special alley 
allotted to it. Nevertheless there was no trading done 
e.xcept once a week, namely on the bazaar-day, when stalls 
and wares are brought out of the houses and arranged on 
platforms built in front of them. At the time of my visit 
there were a number of women sitting on the platforms 
sewing. The women were always unveiled, generally bare- 
headed, and wore their thick black hair in two long plaits. 
Sometimes, however, their heads were covered with a small 
round coif or calotte. A particularly popular occupation 
with them seemed to be the extermination of certain un- 
desirable parasites, and it was a by no means rare thing to 
see one woman with her head resting in her neighbour’s 
lap. 
Immediately outside the village there was a sand-dune 
25 to 30 feet in height, running south-south-west to north- 
north-east, as regularly constructed as though it had been 
built of set purpose. Its summit, which was crowned by 
the masar (tomb) of Chimdereh Khan, commanded a fine 
view over the village, with its flat-roofed houses surround- 
ing small square courtyards. 
At last, on March 22nd, Mohammed Yakub came back 
from Kashgar, bringing a bulky mail-bag, but no camels ! 
I was thus left precisely where I had been at the beginning 
of the month. Now I fell back upon my excellent Islam 
Bai, and on the next day sent him off to Yarkand post 
haste with peremptory orders, not to come back again 
