From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People — Sec 8 The Western Waterway (1899)

DOWN THE YARKAND RIVER

No doubt you remember the village of Merket, where we set out on pur fatal march through the Takla-makan desert in 1895. In September, 1899, I was again at this village with a large caravan and many servants, my plan on this occasion being to travel through the whole of Eastern Turkestan by water.

The waterway I intended to use was the river which in its upper course is called the Yarkand, and in its lower the Tarim.

At the village a great caravan route crosses the river, and flat ferry-boats convey travellers with their animals and goods from one bank to the other.

I bought one of the ferry-boats, and had it converted into a floating home for our journey of more than a thousand miles (Plate X.

).

It was 36 feet long by 8-1/2 broad, and was like a huge trough built of rough planks.

A floor of boards was laid in the bow sufficiently large to serve as a support for my tent.

Behind this was built a cubical cabin of thin boards covered with sheets of black felt.

Within it was furnished with a table and shelves, and window-frames with glass panes were let into the felt walls.

Here I had all my photographic accessories, and here I intended to develop my plates.

When all was ready the ferry-boat was rolled down on logs into the river again.

The tent was set up and its folds were spiked fast to the edges of the flooring.

My bed and my boxes were arranged in the tent, a carpet was spread on the floor, and at the front opening was placed my writing-table, consisting of two boxes, whereon paper, pens, compass, and watch, field-glass and other things always lay ready.

For a stool I had a smaller hide trunk.

[Illustration: PLATE X. THE AUTHOR'S BOAT ON THE YARKAND RIVER.

The man with the white turban at the stern is Islam Bay.

] Amidships our heavy baggage was piled up: sacks of flour and rice, boxes of sugar, tea, and groceries, saddles, weapons, and tools.

The kitchen was at the stern, in charge of my faithful Islam Bay--for he was with me again.

When the ferry-boat was fully fitted up and ready to sail, it drew nine inches of water.

We had also a small auxiliary boat to pilot the larger and inform us where treacherous sand-banks were hidden below the surface.

Fruit, vegetables, sheep, and fowls were carried on the smaller boat, which looked rather like a small farmyard.

The heavy baggage that we did not need on the journey was packed on our camels, and their leader was ordered to meet me in three months' time near the termination of the river.

Our voyage began on September 17, 1899, the crew numbering seven, including Islam Bay and myself.

Kader was a youth who helped Islam Bay by peeling potatoes, laying table, and fetching water from clear pools on the banks cut off from the river.

In the bow stood Palta with a long pole, watching to thrust off if the boat went too near the bank.

At the stern stood two other polemen, who helped to handle the boat.

The small boat was managed by one man, Kasim, and as I sat at my writing-table I could see him pushing his vessel with his pole to right or left in search of the channel where the water was deepest and the current most rapid.

Then we had two four-legged passengers on the larger boat, Dovlet and Yolldash.

Dovlet means the "lucky one" and Yolldash "travelling companion."

The latter had succeeded to the name of the dog which died in the Takla-makan desert.

The boat floats down with the current, following obediently the windings of the river, and the polemen are on the watch.

On the banks grow small hawthorn bushes and tamarisks, interrupted by patches of reeds and small clumps of young trees, among which poplars always predominate.

They are not the tall, slender poplars which tower proud as kings above other trees, but quite a dwarf kind with a round, irregular crown.

When the day draws near to a close I give the order to stop.

Palta thrusts his pole into the river bottom, and, throwing all his strength and weight on to it, forces the stern of the boat to swing round to the land, where another of the crew jumps out on to the bank with a rope.

He makes it fast round a stump, and our day's voyage is ended.

The gangway is pushed out and a fire is lighted in an open space among the trees, and soon the teapot and rice-pan are bubbling pleasantly.

I

remain sitting at my writing-table and see the moonlight playing in a streak on the surface of the river.

All is quiet and silent around us, and even the midges have gone to rest.

I hear only the brands crackling in the camp fire and the sand slipping down the neighbouring bank as the water laps against it.

A dog barking in the distance is answered by Dovlet and Yolldash.

Now steps are heard on board, and Islam Bay brings my supper.

The writing-table is converted into a dining-table, and he serves me up rice pudding with onions, carrots, and minced mutton, fresh bread, eggs, cucumbers, melons, and grapes.

What more could a man want?

It was very different when we were wandering on the endless sands.

If I want to drink I have only to let down a cup into the river which gently ripples past the boat.

The dogs keep me company, sitting with cocked ears waiting for a titbit.

Then Islam comes and clears the table, I close the tent, creep into my berth, and enjoy life afloat on my own vessel, where it is only necessary to loosen a rope to be on the way again.

After a few days we come to a place where the river contracts and forces its way with great velocity between small islands and great heaps of stranded driftwood.

Here Palta has plenty of work, for he has constantly to keep the boat off from some obstacle or other with the pole.

Frequently we bump up against poplar trunks which do not show above the water, and then the boat swings round in a moment.

Then all the crew jump into the river and shove the boat off again.

A distant noise is heard, and soon becomes louder.

In a moment we are in the midst of rapids, and it is too late to heave to.

It is to be hoped that we shall not turn broadside on or we shall capsize.

"Let her go down as she likes," I call out.

All the poles are drawn up, and the boat flies along, gliding easily and smoothly over the boiling water.

Below the rapids the river widened out, and became so shallow that we stuck fast in blue clay.

We pushed and pulled, but all to no purpose.

Then all the baggage was carried ashore, and with our united strength we swung the boat round until the clay was loosened, and then the things were brought on board again.

Farther down, the river draws together again.

The banks are lined with dense masses of fine old trees just beginning to turn yellow in the latter days of September.

The boat seems as though it were gliding along a canal in a park.

The woods are silent, not a leaf is moving, and the water flows noiselessly.

The polemen have nothing to do.

They sit cross-legged with one hand on the pole, which trails through the water;

and only now and then have they to make a thrust to keep the boat in the middle of the stream.

Weeks passed, and the ferry-boat drifted still farther and farther down the river.

Autumn had come, and the woods turned yellow and russet, and the leaves fell.

We had no time to spare if we did not want to be caught fast in the ice before reaching the place where we had arranged to meet the caravan.

Therefore we started earlier in the morning and did not land until long after sunset each day.

The solemn silence of a temple reigned around, only the quacking of a duck being heard occasionally or the noise of a fox stealing through the reeds.

A herd of wild boars lay wallowing in the mud on the bank.

When the boat glided noiselessly by they got up, looked at us a moment with the greatest astonishment, and dashed like a roaring whirlwind through the beds of cracking reeds.

Deer grazed on the bank.

They scented danger and turned round to make for their hiding-places in the wood.

A roebuck swam across the stream a little in front of the boat.

Islam lay with his gun in the bow ready to shoot, but the roebuck swam splendidly and, with a spring, was up on the bank and vanished like the wind.

Sometimes we saw also fresh spoor of tigers at our camping-grounds, but we never succeeded in surprising one of them.

One morning, when we had not seen any natives for a long time, the smoke of a fire was seen on the bank.

Some shepherds were watching their flocks, and their dogs began to bark.

The men gazed at the ferry-boat with wonder and alarm as it floated nearer, and no doubt thought that it was something ghostly, for they faced about and ran with the dust flying about their sheepskin sandals.

I sent two men ashore, but it was quite impossible to catch up with the runaways.

Farther down we passed through a district where several villages stood near the banks.

They had learned of our coming through scouts, and when we arrived we were met by whole troops of horsemen.

The village headmen were also present, and were invited on board, where they were regaled with tea on the after-deck.

THE TARIM

The farther we went the smaller became the river.

The Yarkand-darya would never reach the lake, Lop-nor, where it discharges its water, if it did not receive a considerable tributary on the way.

This tributary is called the Ak-su, or "White Water," and it comes foaming down from the Tien-shan, the high mountains to the north.

After the rivers have mingled their waters, the united main stream is called the Tarim.

The weather gradually became colder.

One morning a dense mist lay like a veil between the wooded banks, and all the trees, bushes, and plants, and the whole boat, were white with hoar frost.

After this it was not long before the frost began to spread thin sheets of ice over the pools on the banks and the small cut-off creeks of stagnant water, and we had to press on as fast as we could to escape being frozen in.

Breakfast was no longer laid on land, but on the after-deck of the ferry-boat, where we built a fireplace of clay, and round this the men sat in turn to warm themselves.

At night we travelled long distances in the dark.

We had persuaded two natives to go with us in their long, narrow canoes, and they rowed in front of us in the darkness with large Chinese paper lanterns on poles to show us where the deep channel ran.

The woods on the bank gradually thin out, and finally come to an end altogether, being replaced by huge sand-hills often as much as 200 feet high.

This is the margin of the great sandy desert which occupies all the interior of Eastern Turkestan.

The people in the country round about are called Lopliks, and live to a great extent on fish.

During the last few days of November the temperature fell to 28. 8° below freezing-point.

The drift ice which floated down the river became thicker, and one morning the ferry-boat lay frozen in so fast we could walk on the ice around it.

Out in the current, however, the water was open, and we broke asunder our fetters with axes and crowbars.

A

constant roar of grinding and scraping ice accompanied us all day long, and during the nights we had to anchor the ferry-boat out in the swiftest part of the current to prevent it being frozen in.

On December 7 broad fringes of ice lay along both banks, and all day we danced among drifting ice as in a bath of broken crockery.

At night we had a whole flotilla of canoes with lanterns and torches to clear the way, when suddenly the boat swung round with a bump, and we found that the river was frozen over right across.

This did not disturb us, for on the bank we saw the flames of a wood fire, and found that it was burning at the camp of our camel caravan.

THE WANDERING LAKE

The place where the ferry-boat was frozen in for the winter is called New Lake (see map, p. 90).

Just at this spot the Tarim bends southwards, falling farther down into a very shallow lake called Lop-nor.

The whole country here is so flat that with the naked eye no inequalities can be detected.

Therefore the river often changes its bed, sometimes for short and sometimes for long distances.

Formerly the river did not bend southwards, but proceeded straight on eastwards, terminating in another lake also called Lop-nor, which lay in the northern part of the desert, and which is mentioned in old Chinese geographies.

The peculiarity of Lop-nor is, then, that the lake moves about, and, in conjunction with the lower course of the Tarim, swings like a pendulum between north and south.

I made many excursions in that part of the desert where the Lop-nor formerly lay, and mapped out the old river-bed and the old lake.

There I discovered ruins of villages and farms, ancient canoes and household utensils, tree trunks dry as tinder and roots of reeds and rushes.

In a mud house I found also a whole collection of Chinese manuscripts, which threw much light on the state of the country at the time when men could exist there.

These writings were more than 1600 years old.

The explanation of the lake's wanderings is this.

At the time of high water the Tarim is always full of silt, and the old lake was very shallow.

The lake, therefore, was silted up with mud and decaying vegetation, and by the same process the bed of the river was raised.

At last came the time when the Tarim sought for an outlet to the south, where the country was somewhat lower.

The old bed was dried up by degrees and the water in the lake evaporated.

The sheet of water remained, indeed, for a long time, but it shrank up from year to year.

At last there was not a drop of water left, and the whole country dried up.

The poplar woods perished, and the reeds withered and were blown away by the wind.

The men left their huts and moved down the new water channel to settle at the new lake, where they erected new huts.

The Tarim and Lop-nor had swung like a pendulum to the south, and men, animals, and plants were obliged to follow.

The same thing then occurred in the south.

The new river and lake were silted up and the water returned northwards.

Thus the water swung repeatedly from north to south, but of course many hundreds of years elapsed between the vibrations.

At the present day the lake lies in the southern part of the desert; it is almost entirely overgrown with reeds, and the poplar woods grow only by the river.

The few natives are partly herdsmen, partly fishermen;

they are of Turkish race and profess the religion of Islam; they are kind-hearted and peaceable, and show great hospitality to strangers.

Their huts are constructed of bundles of reeds bound together; the ground within is covered with reed mats, and the roof consists of boughs covered with reeds.

The men spend a large part of their time in canoes, which are hollowed poplar trunks, and are therefore long, narrow, and round at the bottom.

The oars have broad blades and drive the canoes at a rapid pace.

Narrow passages are kept open through the reeds, and along these the canoes wind like eels.

The men are very skilful in catching fish, and in spring they live also on eggs, which they collect from the nests of the wild geese among the reeds.

The reeds grow so thickly that when they have been broken here and there by a storm one can walk on them with six feet of water beneath.

Tigers were formerly common on the banks of Lop-nor, and the natives used to hunt them in a singular manner.

When a tiger had done mischief among the cattle, the men would all assemble from the huts in the neighbourhood at the thickets on the bank of the river where they knew that the tiger was in hiding.

They close up round him from the land side, leaving the river-bank open.

Their only weapons are poles and sticks, so they set fire to the copse in order to make the beast leave his lair.

When the tiger finds that there is no way out on the land side, he takes to the water to swim to some islet or to the other shore of the lake, but before he is far out half a dozen canoes cut through the water and surround him.

The men are armed only with their oars.

The canoes can move much faster than the tiger, and one shoots quickly past him, and the men in the bow push his head under water with their oar-blades.

Before the tiger has risen again the canoe is out of reach.

The tiger snorts and growls and puffs madly, but in a moment another canoe is upon him and another oar thrusts him down deeper than before.

This time he has barely reached the surface before a third canoe glides up, and his head is again shoved under water.

Soon the tiger begins to tire and to gasp for breath.

He has no opportunity of using his fangs and claws, and can only struggle for his life by swimming.

Now the first canoe has circled round again, and the man in the bow pushes the tiger down with all his strength and holds him under water as long as he can.

This goes on until the tiger can struggle no longer and is drowned.

Then a rope is tied round his neck, and with much jubilation he is towed to the shore.

The climate at Lop-nor is very different in winter and summer.

In winter the temperature falls to 22° below zero, and rises in summer to 104°.

Large variations like this always occur in the interior of the great continents of the world, except in the heart of Africa, close to the equator, where it is always warm.

On the coasts the variation is smaller, for the sea cools the air in summer and warms it in winter.

In the Lop-nor country the rivers and lakes are frozen hard in winter, but in summer suffocating heat prevails.

Men are tortured by great swarms of gnats, and cattle are devoured by gadflies.

It has even happened that animals have been so seriously attacked by gadflies that they have died from loss of blood.

Fortunately, the flies come out only as long as the sun is up, and therefore the animals are left in peace at night.

During the day horses and camels must be kept among the reeds, where the flies do not come.

Incredible numbers of wild geese and ducks, swans and other swimming birds breed at Lop-nor, and the open water is studded all over with chattering birds.

In late autumn they fly southwards through Tibet, and in winter the lakes are quiet, with yellow reeds sticking up through the ice.

WILD CAMELS

The level region over which the Lop-nor has wandered for thousands of years from north to south is called the Lop desert.

Its stillness is broken only from time to time by easterly storms which roll like thunder over the yellow clay ground.

In the course of ages these strong spring storms have ploughed out channels and furrows in the clay, but otherwise the desert is as level as a frozen sea, the places where Lop-nor formerly spread out its water being marked only by pink mollusc shells.

On the north the Lop desert is bounded by the easternmost chains of the Tien-shan, which the Chinese also call the "Dry Mountains."

They deserve the name, for their sides are hardly ever washed by rain; but at their southern foot a few salt springs are to be found.

Round them grow reeds and tamarisks, and even in other places near the mountains some vegetation struggles for existence.

This is the country of wild camels.

Wild camels live in herds of half a dozen head.

The leader is a dark-brown stallion; the mares are lighter in colour.

Their wool is so soft and fine that it is a pleasure to pass one's hand over it.

Several herds or families are often seen grazing on the same spot.

They look well-fed, and the two humps are firm and full of fat.

In spring and summer they can go without water for eight days, in winter for two weeks.

For innumerable generations they have known where to find the springs: the mothers take their young ones to them, and when the youngsters grow up they in their turn show the springs to their foals.

They drink the water, however salt it may be, for they have no choice, but they do not stay long at the meadows by the springs, for their instinct tells them that where water is to be found there the danger is great that their enemies may also come to drink.

Against danger they have no other protection than their sharply developed senses.

They can scent men at a distance of twelve miles.

They know the odour of a camping-ground long after the ashes have been swept away by the wind, and they avoid the spot.

Tame camels passing through their country excite their suspicion; they do not smell like wild ones.

They are shy and restless and do not remain long at one pasture, even if no danger threatens.

In some districts they are so numerous that the traveller cannot march for two minutes without crossing a spoor.

Where the tracks all converge towards a valley between two hills, they probably lead to a spring.

On one occasion when our tame camels had not had water for eleven days, they were saved by following the tracks of their wild relations.

IX