THE DESERT OF ALA-SHAN 1237 
prevailing- winds came from the west. Indeed, every day 
the wind blew from that quarter, or else from the north- 
west, with more or less violence. We now began to come 
across Mong'ol camps and to see solitary nomads guarding 
their flocks of sheep. The well of Wu-geh-san was quite 
close to the “ Five Hills,” which had for .some days been 
visible in the distance. 
On January 8th the caravan-track wound in and out 
between the sand-dunes. Sometimes it was not altogether 
easy to keep it, for the wind had blotted out every trace of 
the road. But a worse evil was, that the daylight began 
to fade, and we had not yet succeeded in discovering the 
well. The twilight deepened rapidly. But at length we 
reached a small steppe, whereupon our Chinese camel- 
drivers .said they believed we were not very far from the 
well. They looked for it in every direction, whilst I and 
Islam stayed with the camels, and made a fire, to serve as a 
guide to the two searchers. In the east we heard the bells 
of a caravan quite distinctly ; the sound came nearer and 
nearer, then died away in the west. It was evident we 
had somehow got off the track. So we waited nearly 
three hours before the Chinese came back ; they had not 
found the well. During their ab.sence I witnes.sed the 
most brilliant display of shooting stars I have ever seen 
anywhere. A train of meteors of an intensely light green 
colour shot through the belt of Orion, and for some second.s 
lit up the steppe so brightly that the fire actually paled 
before it. Then it seemed to be darker than ever. But 
after a while the moon rose over the silent waste, and 
enabled us to see where we were going to. After 
travelling due east for about a couple of hours, we caught 
sight of a fire, and thoroughly wearied out, we crept to the 
well of Koko-moruk, which the Chinese call Cheh-.sheh- 
geh-nian. 
Beside the well we found some Mongols, wearing 
pigtails and speaking Chinese. Strange to say, they 
had never heard the name of Ala-shan, nor did I succeed 
in finding out the meaning of the word. They called 
the sandy desert Ulan-alesu, or the Red Sand, which 
