THE DESERT OF TSAIDAM 
1117 
of a river, not more than forty feet wide at the most, 
and to be forced to rest in such a howling wilderness, 
with no other vegetation than a tiny bed of reeds. 
“ Patience ! ” whispered the west wind as it flaunted 
restlessly across the wide expanse of the desert. Patience! 
It was to that west wind we were in no small degree ^ 
indebted for the delay, seeing that it dammed back the 
water in its course towards the west. 
The tents were put up, the horses turned loose, and 
a notched stick put down in the stream close to the bank, 
to show us whether the water rose or fell. By next 
morning the surface had only fallen three-quarters of 
an inch, and the bed of reeds was gnawed right down 
to the roots. I therefore sent Loppsen and two or three 
of the other men back with their horses to the pastures 
of Ova-tdgoruck. The westerly gale was blowing fiercer 
than ever. The tent-covering on the windward side was 
driven in like a half-collapsed bladder, seriously curtailing 
the space inside. The packing-cases, which had been 
placed on the turned-in ends of the tent-covering, to 
hold them fast, rocked and shook, and the tent-poles 
creaked ; every moment I fully expected to see the tent 
go flying like a kite across the river. 
Why had this obstacle come in my way like this ? 
I asked myself restlessly. For I was now waxing im- 
patient to get home, and counted every day’s journey 
as so much ground won. It was now fully a year since 
last I had news from home. I was quite isolated, and 
very lonely. For more than three years I had been 
absolutely alone in the heart of that immeasurable con- 
tinent of Asia ; I thought I should never reach its 
coast ! Every day it afforded me a special pleasure to 
count how many miles we had rubbed off the score, and 
subtract them from the hundreds which still stretched 
between me and my far-distant goal — Peking. From 
Khara-ussu to Pekine was 1260 miles. What an amount 
of patience I should need before we had traversed all that 
long distance at the slow rate at which we were crawling 
along! And what adventures still awaited us ere our 
