I i6o 
THROUGH ASIA 
We still continued to travel due east at about a mile or 
a mile and a half from the lake shore, which glittered a 
dazzling bright line on the south. All day we had the 
rocky island in view, rising above the surface of the water 
like a dromedary’s back, and thrown up in dark relief 
against the scarce perceptible mountains on the south. 
" To-day we travelled through a less lonely region ; for 
we passed several herds of horned cattle, guarded by 
women, children, and shepherds, the last invariably armed 
with a gun or a sword. All the mounted men we met 
carried a black gun, with its tall fantastic fork, across their 
shoulder, as well as a sword stuck through their belt and 
turned horizontally across the front of the body. Their 
sheepskins were drawn up high through their belts so as 
to hang over them at the sides. They also wore top- 
boots with turned-up toes, and close-fitting caps. 
After a march of thirteen and a half miles we made our 
camp beside the brook of Yikeh-ulan, which contained a 
good deal of water. Curiously enough most of the geo- 
graphical names in the locality were Mongolian, and 
they were even used by the Tanguts for instance, 
Bagha-ulan and Yikeh-ulan or the Small and the Large 
Red (Tract) respectively, an allusion to the reddish tinge 
of the soil. 
Immediately above our camp were ten Tangut tents, and 
we were told there were twenty more in a recess of the 
mountains on the north. Some of their inhabitants came 
to visit us, all wearing in their belts naked swords brought 
from Lhasa. They sold us some milk, a sheep, and a 
horse ; but Loppsen was anxious they should not see too 
much money all at once. For he persisted in declaring 
they were all thieves and scoundrels, and that it was simply 
the fear of our weapons which prevented them from 
attacking us. The Tanguts used to ask Loppsen, who 
was my interpreter, whether my packing-cases contained 
soldiers, and he always replied with stolid gravity, “Yes; 
the large boxes contained two soldiers, and the small ones 
one each, as well as a number of guns.” My tent-stove, 
with its strange funnel, they took for a cannon. When 
