THROUGH ASIA 
536 
voraciously. W hen his saddle was taken off, we perceived 
he had an open sore on his back, where a rough piece 
of the saddle had chafed his unhealthy yellowish flesh. 
His legs trembled ; his tongue was white. It was painful 
to see the poor creature. Leaving Mohammed Shah to 
look after him, the rest of us went on. For a long time 
we heard the sick animal crying after us. 
The highest dunes now rose 150 to 200 feet above 
their bases. Further on again they sank to too to 120 
feet. 
Karga! karga!" cried Islam Bai, as he pointed to a 
raven, which circled two or three times round the caravan, 
hopped about on the summit of a dune, and finally 
disappeared. 1 his incident awakened universal joy. 
We looked upon it as an indication that the Khotan-daria 
was not far off The raven was hardly likely to have 
sought the depths of the desert for the mere pleasure 
of the thino-. 
o 
After we had gone 12L miles, Chong-kara, the big 
black camel, refused to go farther. This obliged us to 
make camp No. XIII. We gave the camels what was 
left of Babai s saddle to eat ; for we had a good reserve 
supply in the saddles of the other seven, which were 
all stuffed with hay and straw. 
My dinners grew gradually simpler; till at last I was 
forced to content myself with tea, bread, and tinned foods. 
The men lived on tea, bread, and talkan (toasted flour). 
Our fuel had pretty well run out. The small supply 
we had started with was all done, and we had no resource 
left but to sacrifice some of the less valuable packing- 
cases. In the evening we again took counsel together. . 
We considered that, at the most, we had only three 
days to the Khotan-daria, but hoped before then to 
come to a belt of poplars, where we should be able 
to obtain w'ater by digging for it. A couple of gnats 
came and kept me company in the tent. The question 
was, had they travelled with us or had they been 
blown to that spot by the wind from some wood in the 
vicinity ? 
