970 
THROUGH ASIA 
that, I ‘gave him a supply of quinine capsules and a fur 
coat, and sent Roslakh with him to act as his escort, and 
help him if he should fall ill on the road. Upon reaching 
Dalai-kurgan he intended to rest for a while. He was 
however grateful and touched when we parted. Thus the 
young Chinaman’s proud dream of one day riding through 
the gates of Peking and beholding the palace (yamen) of 
his fabulously mighty emperor, as well as of perhaps 
securing, through my recommendation, a lucrative post, 
and finally, though by no means last in his estimation, 
of exchanging the Turki wife he had left behind in 
Khotan for a Chinese bride — this proud dream was pricked 
at the foot of Arka-tagh. Sadly and silently he stood 
alone in the desert, gazing after us, as we continued our 
way towards the far distant goal of his youthful ambition. 
During the night it snowed smartly, and the ground 
was still damp when we marched down the little glen in 
which we had encamped. It was now arranged, that the 
horse -caravan, which moved the quickest, should deter- 
mine the direction of our marches. I ordered Islam Bai 
to keep on as straight as circumstances would allow for 
the south, our object being to cross over the Arka-tagh ; 
beyond that he was left free to choose his own course. 
But that was principally dependent upon the contour of 
the ground ; he was obliged to choose the road that 
presented fewest hindrances to the advance of our caravan 
animals. I never had any occasion to find fault with his 
selection of the road ; for he had a keen, sharp eye, and 
was a good judge of how much the camels could do. 
The glen gradually widened, and at the same time 
opened out upon an undulating tableland. At its lower 
extremity there was, on the left, a particularly picturesque 
piece of mountain scenery — an agglomeration of regularly 
formed truncated cones, with grooved sides. The cones 
themselves consisted partly of red sandstone, partly of a 
species of conglomerate, extraordinarily hard and of a 
brick-red colour, resembling breccia. Their apexes were 
formed by a horizontal layer of coal-black tuff, having 
the same level throughout. The tuff-caps protected the 
