59 ° 
THROUGH ASIA 
chewed them. At half-past nine we came to another 
tamarisk, and saw several more farther on. But our 
energy was paralyzed by the intense heat, and we dropped 
exhausted in the shade of the bush ; and as we had done 
the day before, dug a hole in the sand and buried our- 
selves in it naked. 
For nine mortal hours we lay as if dead. Kasim hardly 
had strength enough to cover me with fresh sand. At 
seven o’clock we started again in the twilight, at first with 
tottering limbs. After walking for three hours, Kasim 
stopped short again, exclaiming “ Tograk ! ” (poplar). I 
saw something dark looming up two or three dunes 
ahead ; and sure enough he was right. It was three fine 
poplar trees, with their leaves full of sap. But the leaves 
were so bitter that we could not chew them : we rubbed 
our skin instead until it became moist. 
We were so completely spent, that we lay for a couple 
of hours utterly incapable of making a closer examination 
of the locality. We began to dig a well close to the 
tree-roots. But we had to stop. We literally had not 
strength enough to do it ; the spade kept turning in our 
hands and falling out of them. The sand was scarcely 
damp at all ; the water was clearly a long way down. 
Nevertheless we hung about the place a little while, and 
tried to scratch the sand away with our hands ; but we 
soon found we could not do much that way, and gave up 
the idea of digging a well. 
Our next plan was to gather together in a heap all the 
dry branches we could find round about the poplars, and 
set fire to them, making a huge flaming bonfire, which 
flung its ruddy glare a long way across the dunes. Their 
tops, catching the murky gleam, looked like ghosts stalk- 
ing out of the darkness. Our object in making the 
bonfire was, partly to give a signal to Islam Bai, sup- 
posing he was still alive, which however I very seriously 
doubted, and partly to give the alarm to anybody who 
might chance to be travelling from Khotan to Ak-su, by 
the road that runs down the left side of the Khotan- 
daria. 
