854 
THROUGH ASIA 
barren sandy desert. This detached piece of desert, which 
extends to the neighbourhood of the Koncheh-daria, con- 
tracting however to the south of Kucha, enjoys no special 
name, but is generally called simply Kum (Sand Desert) 
or Choi (the Desolate Plain). Here too there were 
rumours of ancient cities ; but the reports were as usual 
vague. All 1 was able to discover were the blade of a 
O 
flint knife and some fragments of vessels of burnt clay. 
Carrying with us a tuhmt (inflated goat-skin) full of 
water, we encamped in a very ancient dried-up river-bed, 
overhung by dunes twenty to twenty-five feet high. This 
channel made numerous abrupt turns, whilst preserving a 
general easterly direction. It had formerly served as an 
outlet for one or other of the streams which we had now 
left behind us ; thus furnishing another proof of the 
great changes to which the drainage channels in those 
level regions are subjected. 
The following day we traversed what remained of the 
desert, and once more entered the dense poplar forest. 
There by means of a bridge we crossed the Char-chak, an 
arm of the river, some thirty feet broad and ten feet deep. 
The bridge was constructed of elastic planks, and was ten 
feet above the surface of the water. The two bigger 
camels walked across with their usual calm confidence ; 
but the youngest, which very often made a fuss, could not 
be induced either by fair means or by foul to set foot on 
the bridge. He stood like a log, utterly heedless alike of 
the rope in his nose and of the thick sticks which played 
upon his ribs. We were obliged to go another way round, 
and crossed the river at Uiyup-serker; there the refractory 
beast took a less precarious bridge in a couple of awkward 
bounds. 
