THROUGH ASIA 
850 
road. But we outwitted him. There is a wonderful magic 
in Chinese silver! In the environs of the town are culti- 
vated rice, wheat, maize, barley, apricots, peaches, grapes, 
apples, pears, melons, cotton, and some silk. The products 
of greatest commercial importance are however sheep, 
hides, and wool, which are exported to Ak-su. Ten 
Chinese merchants and five from West Turkestan traded 
in the bazaar ; also merchants from Kashgar, Ak-su, and 
Khotan. The only buildings in any way distinguished 
from the everlasting low clay houses were a khanekah 
(prayer-house), two madrasas, and a few caravanserais. 
I need not dwell at length upon our journeying through 
the forest of Tarim, but will confine myself to one or two 
episodes, which to some extent illustrate the character of 
the resfion. I and the four men, with the three camels, left 
Shah-yar on February 26th. After passing the cultivated 
fields of the town, we travelled across boundless steppes, 
grazed by multitudinous flocks and herds. At first our 
course was to the south-east ; and eventually we approached 
the Tarim. At the place where we struck it, the river was 
called the Ughen-daria. From that point we steered due 
east for several days, keeping between the Ughen-daria and 
the Inchickeh-daria. 
February 27th. We were .sometimes journeying through 
the forest, sometimes across the open steppe, dotted with 
shepherds’ camps. We encamped In a sattma in the 
wooded district of Yollbars-bashi (the Place where Tigers 
Begin to Show themselves). A shepherd told me, that the 
Achick-daria was in that region called the Arka-daria (the 
Further River), that it only flows in the summer, and then 
several days’ journey to the east disappears In the sand. 
South of that river, he said, the wild camel was not at all 
rare, and a long way in the desert there were ruins of a 
town which nobody had ever seen, but which everybody 
had heard speak of. Its name was Shahr-i-Kdttek, i.e. the 
Town in the Dead Forest, or else Shahr-i-Katak — a place 
which likewise haunts the desert between the Yarkand- 
daria and the Kashgar-daria. 
The same shepherd also gave me information about the 
