A CURIOUS SHEPHERD RACE 807 
Thus we had successfully crossed the strip of desert 
and reached the river, whose luxuriant vegetation was 
a delightful sight to eyes which for a full week had 
rested upon nothing but yellow, yellow sand. At the 
spot where we halted for the night, the river was 105 
feet broad, and covered with a substantial sheet of ice, 
through which we hacked a hole, that proved more 
prolific than the wells we had lately dug in the desert. 
The camels were given their fill of the icy cold river- 
water. We killed our last sheep, built up an enormous 
log-fire, and were all in the best of spirits, despite the 
fact that the dust-laden atmosphere obscured the view 
and shut out the stars above our heads. The hut had 
evidently been visited the day before, judging from the 
remains of a camp-fire, and the fresh tracks, which the 
wind had not yet obliterated. But we saw nobody. 
On the following day, January 27th, we directed our 
course northwards, keeping along the left bank of the 
Keriya-daria. Our chief concern now was to find some- 
one who could give us information about the river. It 
had never before been visited by a European, and its 
course north of the town of Keriya was merely marked 
on our maps with a dotted line. But not a soul was 
visible. We plodded on hour after hour, sometimes 
through thick poplar woods, sometimes through thickets 
and fallen branches, and dense beds of yellow, withered 
kamish ; sometimes making detours among the sand-dunes, 
wherever they approached so close to the river-bank as to 
completely supplant the forest. 
The glittering river of ice wound away to the north 
with innumerable sharp turns, sometimes spreading out 
into lake - like expansions, so that the opposite bank 
became lost to sight in the haze. We frequently crossed 
forest-paths, which disappeared again in the undergrowth, 
and saw innumerable spoor of wild boar, hares, foxes, 
roe-deer, red-deer, and the tracks of tame sheep, and 
sometimes even the imprint of a human foot ; but the 
forest was as silent as the grave — not a sound did we 
hear. All the sheep-tracks and footpaths of the shepherds 
