THROUGH ASIA 
908 
avgentatu^, one of loach (N emachilus yarkctndensts), one 
of carp [Diptycims gymnogaster), and the pike - like 
A spiorrhynchus Prshevalskii. 
We started for the trip on April 22nd in three canoes. 
In one were myself and three boatmen ; in another Islam 
Bai, with the provisions, and tv{o boatmen ; and in the 
third, a tiny cockleshell of a thing, the old and experienced 
Tuzun, who was to go on first 
and pioneer the way through the 
reeds. 
The weather was splendid. We 
did not stop at Kum-chappgan, 
BOYS FROM KUM-CHAPPGAN, LOP-NOR 
but pushed on down the largest arm of the river, the one 
on the left, and were soon lost among the tall reeds. Were 
it not for the narrow channels which the Lop-men keep 
open through them, these forests of reeds would be abso- 
lutely impassable ; and even the channels {chappgans) they 
do keep open would grow over in one year if the young 
sprouting reeds were not pulled up by the roots every 
spring. As a rule a chappgan is about a yard wide, and 
is lined on both sides by reeds as hard and impassable as 
boarden walls, and not less than fifteen or sixteen feet 
high. In several places they were tied together m stand- 
