A RESCUE PARTY 
633 
asked Islam, whether he thought it could be Yollchi, who 
might have revived after we left the tent ; but Islam 
pronounced that to be impossible, because he had never 
seen a glimpse of the man since he left the Camp of 
Death. Was it possible, it was either of the three 
merchants who had fetched Islam some water, and 
lent me eighteen tengeh ? No; for they had travelled 
straight from Islam to Buksem, to look for me. Besides, 
how would they have been able to find the camel ? We 
were completely at a loss ; but were unable to do any- 
thing. If somebody had found Nahr alive, and had led 
him to the river, where he could get water and food, the 
finder, whoever he was, if he was an honest man, would 
have brought the animal to us. But if he had stolen the 
camel, together with his load, he must surely have left a 
trail of some kind behind him, and there were only two 
routes to choose between ; either he must have gone 
northwards to Ak-su, or southwards to Khotan. But 
my shepherd friends always kept a sharp look-out upon 
the latter road, and they had seen no camel answering to 
our description of Nahr. There only remained therefore 
the route to Ak-su ; and we gradually became convinced 
that the camel had been stolen, and his trail deliberately 
obliterated. 
Ahmed Merghen then said, he had seen the trail of a 
camel in the forest, and had followed it. But it brought 
him to the young camel, which had broken loose at the 
three poplars and run away into the woods by himself 
without his load. He had evidently found water some- 
where, and after his ten or twelve days’ free grazing in the 
forest was in excellent condition. But he had become 
so shy, that he fled as though he had never seen a man 
before, and Ahmed had the greatest difficulty in catching 
him. I shall return to this point again later on, when I 
speak about the wild camel of Central Asia. 
It may possibly occasion surprise, that I relate all this at 
such length and in such detail ; but I do it for two reasons. 
In the first place, in consequence of my loss my plans were 
entirely upset, and altered ; and in the second place, these 
