WHERE IS THE TARIM ? 
841 
desert the donkeys lived chiefly on the dung of the wild 
camel. It was too late to dig a well ; but we still had 
some water left in our goat-skins. Having found some 
fuel, we sat round the fire talking, with a blue-black 
sky full of glittering stars above our heads. 
The men were in splendid spirits, looking forward with 
hope to the morrow. Kerim Jan looked after our five 
animals. Ahmed and Kasim collected a heap of dry 
roots and branches. Islam crouched over the cooking- 
pot, with a long spoon stirring the contents — rice-pudding 
with onions, raisins, and carrots, all boiling together in 
the fat from the wild camel’s humps. I myself lay on 
my stomach on my carpet, pipe in mouth, writing up my 
diary by the light of the fire. Round about us the 
sand-dunes arched their backs in weird silence. The 
poplars looked lonely and disconsolate in the gleam of 
the fire-flames. The stars seemed to fix us with their 
bright and penetrating glance, as if wondering whether we 
were some of the dwellers of the towns of ancient days 
mysteriously quickened into life again. And indeed who 
knows how many graves of the dead that have slumbered 
for thousands of years we trampled on In the countless 
footsteps we took over that eerie sand ? Everything was 
so silent and still. It would have been altogether un- 
canny, but for the fierce crackling of the dry firewood. 
In that wonderful country I felt like a king. Mine was 
the march of a conqueror. I had subdued the land. It 
was mine, it belonged to me. I was the first European 
who trod that unknown, long -forgotten region. It was 
a grand thought that came to me by my own fireside. 
I dozed off, and slept immoderately well. 
February 1 7th. The landscape still continued the same. 
The sand was high and heavy ; davans appeared again 
both in the east and the west. One or two poplars were 
always In sight ; although they were generally an hour’s 
distance apart. The lines which went from the one to 
the other still stretched north and south, parallel with 
the Khotan-darla and the Keriya-daria, not with the 
Tarim ; and no other sign indicated the proximity of this 
II.-I2 
