1052 
THROUGH ASIA 
The new lake contracted to a long narrow creek. We 
turned off from it towards the east-south-east, and slowly- 
made our way over the low hills towards the Southern 
Mountains, hoping to discover some herbage at their foot. 
On the right we left a small pool, beside which sat a grey 
bear in a brown study. Yolldash charged down upon him 
as bold as you please. But when Bruin looked like 
waiting for the attack, Yolldash turned tail, and fled 
back again as swift as an arrow, whilst the bear trotted 
off amongst the hills. 
We did find herbage, some patches of it tolerably good, 
at any rate the best we had come across since we left 
Dalai-kurgan ; we decided therefore to sacrifice another 
day for the animals’ sakes. As it turned out, it was 
a wise decision ; for hail, snow, and wind disputed for 
the supremacy from a very early hour in the morning. 
According to their wont, the men sat in a circle round 
the fire, and mended their ragged clothes and the saddles, 
whilst Emin Mirza read aloud to them. One of the 
camels was galled on the pads of his hind feet. Accord- 
ingly one of the men made him a pair of stockings of 
khulan skin, and sewed them on his feet. After that he 
got on capitally. 
September i8th. The heavy snowfall of the preceding 
day made it difficult for the animals to find the herbage. 
One donkey was left in the camp, whilst two more of the 
horses were unfit for work. They were sent along with 
the last four donkeys ; and of these again only one was 
able to carry anything like an appropriate load. We had 
now only eight horses left that were fit for service, and 
all of them were thin and pined. I, Islam Bai, and Parpi 
Bai were the only members of the caravan who rode. 
The rest of the men were obliged to walk. As I have 
said, two of the camels were not very capital, though the 
others were still in pretty fair condition. The dogs how- 
ever were in fine trim ; they got many a fat meal from 
the animals which died in camp. 
The weather was splendid, and the ground quite level. 
We travelled along the base of the Southern Mountains, 
