DOWN THE KHOTAN-DARIA 645 
the caravan-leaders had erected poles and gallows-like 
arrangements to serve as sign-posts. 
That afternoon we encamped near some shepherds from 
Ak-su, who were comfortably installed in the forest in huts 
made of stakes and reeds. At first they regarded us with 
some suspicion ; but soon gained confidence, and offered 
us bread, milk, and eggs. They lived with their flocks in 
the woods all the year round. 
The Yarkand-daria, which we now saw a short distance 
ahead of us, is generally ice-bound for about four months 
in the year. The shepherds said, they expected the 
summer floods in about three weeks, and would then 
be driven by the overflowing of the river higher up into 
the forests. Just at that time however the river was at its 
lowest level. The next day we crossed the stream at 
a well-known ford. Its breadth was eighty-five yards, its 
greatest depth i^- feet, and its volume 265 cubic feet in 
the second. 
On the other side of the river we continued on towards 
the north by a path which led to the town of Avvat 
(Abaci), meaning “populous,” through a district that was 
in very ill repute on account of highway robbers and 
stealers of live-stock. The road lay sometimes through 
tangled underwoods and thorny bushes, sometimes through 
kamish (reed)-beds and open steppes, sometimes past 
shepherds’ camps and small villages, now close alongside 
the right bank of the Ak-su-daria, now at some distance 
from it. 
May 3 [St. Towards evening we approached the 
bazaars of Avvat, a place of about a thousand houses, 
with a beg, a Chinese tax-collector, and a Hindu trader, 
Parman, who hospitably placed a comfortable serai 
(guest-house) at my disposal. All the same he was an 
arrant rogue. He lent money to the peasantry at 
usurious rates of interest, and whenever they were unable 
to pay what they owed him, took from them their wheat 
and maize and wool. The wool he sold in Hi (Kulja) ; 
the corn in the neighbouring towns and villages. He 
confessed to me, that he laid by 15,000 (Kashgar) tengeh 
