DOWN THE KERIYA-DARIA 819 
the river was still 260 feet broad, and looked as if it 
would continue another 500 miles. It is worthy of note, 
that the powerful current of the Khotan-daria, which in 
summer conveys such large puantities of water right 
through the Takla-makan Desert, to pour them into 
the Yarkand - daria (which unites with the Ak-su-daria 
to form the Tarim), dies away during the winter to a 
narrow ice-bound ribbon, which fails to reach as far as 
Buksem, the point where I struck the river last year 
after that terrible march across the desert. This is^ due 
to the fact that the Khotan-daria is fed exclusively 
by the melting snows and glaciers of northern Tibet ; 
whereas in both autumn and winter the much smallei 
Keriya-daria receives important additions from springs. 
Nevertheless our river, which had hitherto been such 
a splendid guide to us through the desert, did come to 
an end, worsted in its fateful struggle with the deseit 
sand. For upon reaching the woods of Katak on 
February 7th we learned that the river only continued 
another day’s journey and a half to the north , beyond 
that stretched in every direction the eternal sand. 
At Katak we halted a day, with a forest-man Mohammed 
Bai, a comical old fellow, who had spent his whole life in 
the woods, and did not know whether the country belonged 
to Yakub Beg or to the Chinese. These people never 
pay any taxes, and therefore never come into contact with 
the Chinese authorities. Probably the Chinese^ have no 
idea, that the woods of the Keriya-daria are inhabited. 
Otherwise these natives would assuredly be taxed like all 
the rest. ^ 
The water which was then flowing past Katak was 
said to be only ten days old. It flowed underneath the 
ice as through a pipe, and froze on piece by piece, so 
that the ice stretched like a long tentacle towards the 
north. . , 
I w'as astonished to hear that three years previous ) 
a tiger had come up from the river to the sattmas 
(shepherds’ reed huts) at Katak, and carried off a cow. 
Mohammed Bai and his shepherds brought back the 
