ON PRZHEVALSKY’S LOP-NOR 907 
was told in Abdal that the river was in no sense 
navigable beyond Kum-chappgan, for at that place it 
split into a number of small arms and became lost in a 
multitude of lakes and marshes. Przhevalsky had rowed 
all the way to Kara-koshun along a chain of lakes. But 
these were now all overgrown with reeds, and the people 
who at the time of his visit dwelt on the shores of 
Kara-koshun had left it ten years ago. But at Kum- 
chappgan I found two men, who undertook to row me 
for two days towards the east-north-east, that is, as far 
as It was possible to get with a canoe. I was particularly 
anxious to have my map of these lakes as complete as 
possible, so I determined to make the journey ; but had 
first to go back to Abdal, for we had brought no pro- 
visions with us. 
I travelled back, not by the Tarim, but by the lakes 
of Abdal, which run parallel and close to its right bank, 
for they belong in reality to the class of side or riparian 
lagoons, which drain off the water of the river. Owing 
to the vast amount of sediment which the stream deposits 
m the course of the year, the river-bed has become raised 
above the level of the land immediately adjoining it on 
either side, and thus flows as it were in a raised channel. 
The water frequently takes advantage of weak spots in 
Its enclosing banks, and bursts through, and floods the 
low-lying tracts in the vicinity. Besides, the Lop-men 
purposely make breaches in the river-banks, so as to let 
the water out to form artificial lakes. Then in the spring, 
when the river falls to its lowest level, they stop up the 
gaps, and after the water in the artificial lakes has 
sufficiently evaporated, they catch the fish which have 
swum out through the breaches. During the winter the 
people live upon dried fish and bread. But the inhabitants 
u Kum-chekkeh were genuine ichthyophagi or fish-eaters, 
or they lived entirely upon fish all the year round ; 
t e only additions to their diet being the eggs of wild- 
ouck, the young shoots of reeds, and salt. According 
to Pievtsoff, the southern Lop-nor contains two species 
of mountain barbels {Schizostorax Biddulphi and Sch. 
