942 THROUGH ASIA 
difficulty whatever. Now it was divided into four arms, 
the biggest current being in the channel nearest the right 
bank. The river was in fact in its summer flood, and 
the torrent raced down so violently that the ground shook 
under our feet. I had measured its volume the day 
before, and found it amounted to 1 2, 700 cubic feet in 
the second ; but fortunately the stream had fallen fourteen 
inches during the night. In spite of that, we were obliged 
to^ requisition the services of a score of water men (suchis). 
I'lrst they took over the horses with the provisions, the 
tent, and the heavier baggage. Alongside the fourth 
and most difficult arm stretched a low gravelly Island, 
and there the ferrymen used a long, narrow, but very 
clumsy boat, in shape like a heavy oblong box. In this 
primitive craft I, Yolldash, and the more perishable 
boxes were ferried over. Yolldash was anything but 
comfortable at cro.ssing in .such a “wobbly” affair. 
The water was fearfully muddy, and its temperature 
57°9 Fahr. (i4°4 C.). 
Beyond the Yurun-kash the road ran through an un- 
broken succession of villages, all embowered in luxuriant 
summer greenery, and across a countless number of 
irrigation-canals, each full to the brink. This network of 
channels despoiled the river of no small portion of Its 
water. 
e spent the first night in a first - rate house at 
Sampulla; and on the next day, June 30th, passed 
through^ the last villages on the south-eastern maro-in of 
the oasis of Khotan. The last irrigation-canal stopped 
at Kutaz-lengher (the Station of the Yak), and then all 
vegetation ceased with extraordinary suddenness, as 
sharply as though It had been scalded off with boiling- 
water. Beyond the dividing-line there was not a green 
blade to be seen. Before us stretched the absolutely 
sterile sai, a sort of Transitional region between the desert 
and the mountains, with which we had already made 
acquaintance at Kopa and Sourgak. The surface was 
hard and yellow, and had a very gentle inclination 
upwards. Between the belt of sai, which is properly a 
