It was on our march between Sang-uya and Pialma that the desert, for once, showed itself in an unamiable mood. The morning was fine when we left our comfortable quarters in a Chinese country house, and we soon entered the region of sand-dunes, our horses racing up and down them with much spirit, though the loose sand made the going very heavy. We stopped a picturesque party of wayfarers with their donkeys in order to photograph them, and gave them money for their trouble. They posed themselves and their animals as my brother directed, but when we had finished they remarked that they had expected to be shot, as they imagined the camera to be some kind of firearm! Not unnaturally I thought that this was a joke on their part, but later on we passed a company of beggars, and my brother took a group consisting of a wild-looking woman leading an ox and a man wearing a red leather sugar-loaf hat. I noticed that the latter clasped his hands in an attitude of entreaty as he stood perfectly motionless beside the animal, and when he received his douceur he burst into speech, saying with many exclamations that he had verily believed that his last hour had come. These incidents gave me a glimpse of the docile spirit of the race, and partly explained why the inhabitants of Chinese Turkestan have nearly always been ruled by a succession of foreign masters. They are small cultivators and petty shopkeepers, taking little interest in anything outside their immediate circle, and their life seems to destroy initiative and independence, thus rendering the task of their Chinese rulers easy.
The morning breeze that blew in our faces was pleasant enough at first, but gradually turned into a gale, which raised the sand in such great clouds that the sun and sky were obscured with a yellow haze. In spite of my veil and blue goggles the grit whipped my face and eyes as we galloped our fastest in order to reach our destination before matters grew worse. The horses were much excited, being as anxious as we were to escape from the whirling sand, and it was annoying when the grey broke loose from the rider who was leading him and cantered off until we nearly lost sight of him in the thick haze. A couple of men did their best to head him back, while the rest of us waited, my chestnut screaming loudly and plunging violently in his eagerness to join in the chase. The grey behaved in the usual provoking manner of horses on the loose, circling round and round us, almost letting himself be caught, and then galloping off a short distance before he returned to coquet with the other horses. Finally my brother made a lucky snatch at the trailing halter, and off we went faster than ever, noting with thankfulness potai after potai as they loomed up out of the blinding dust. Suddenly a change occurred that seemed almost like magic. We plunged into a tree-bordered lane with fields of maize stretching on either side, while overhead the clear blue sky seemed free from every particle of dust. I looked back at the whirling yellow inferno from which we had escaped, and in a few minutes thankfully dismounted in a large garden with irrigation channels through which the water flowed with a faint delicious splashing. Here our tents were in readiness, pitched under shady trees, and hot tea was brought that served a double purpose; for we found it a soothing lotion for our sore eyes as well as grateful to our parched throats.
The waggons, which had done this last stage during the night, left again at five o’clock in the afternoon, as the horses would be forced to do a double stage of some thirty miles, with no water obtainable on the road. But the animals had had thirteen hours’ rest and the going was good for the first part of the way, so we hoped they would be able to manage it. We ourselves were to break the stage at Ak Langar, some fourteen miles away, and rest there for four hours before undertaking the remainder of the march, which, we were told, was a continuous series of lofty sand-dunes. Accordingly, after our evening meal we mounted at seven o’clock, and leaving the little oasis, rode off under the full moon across an absolutely barren gravelly desert. We were told that some years before our visit a governor of Khotan had placed posts at intervals along this stage, upon which lamps were hung and lighted on dark nights. Unluckily this benefactor, a rara avis among officials, failing to keep his finances in order, was dismissed from his post and was now dragging out a precarious existence in the Chinatown of Kashgar.
We of course stood in no need of lanterns, but in spite of the moonlight the desert seemed rather eerie, and our horses, unaccustomed to night marches, were curiously nervous and suddenly shied at some dark moving shapes that turned out to be camels grazing on the scanty tamarisk scrub. A little farther on they were startled by a large dog, which we disturbed at its meal on a dead ass, and here and there the moon gleamed on the white bones of deceased pack-animals that lay beside the track. I am not ashamed to confess that I should not have cared to ride this stage alone, and I did not wonder that the peasants whom we passed driving laden donkeys were always in large parties.
After a while we came to a ruined potai, against which a rough post was leaning, and learnt that this was the boundary between the districts of Kargalik and Khotan. We were therefore in the Kingdom of Jade, and our horses, having become used to their novel experience, trotted along briskly in the keen night air, pricking their ears and hastening whenever they espied the remains of a deserted serai sharply silhouetted in the moonlight; for they were as anxious for their night’s rest as I was.
With the exception I have mentioned there were no potais to mark this particular route, so I had not the pleasing sensation of knowing that two and a quarter miles were accomplished whenever we passed one, and was feeling extremely sleepy, when a black mass of building seemed to rear up suddenly ahead of us. It was just upon midnight, and I was most thankful to dismount and pass into a serai built of hewn stone, the welcome cleanliness of its rooms being due to the fact that practically no one halted there, owing to the lack of water. Yet the first sight that met my eyes was a man drawing up a bucket from a well by means of a windlass; but Jafar Bai explained that the water was bitter and harmful to horses.
The natives had given us such alarming accounts of the difficulties of the latter part of the stage that, tired as we all were, we were allowed to sleep for only four hours, and it seemed to me as if I had hardly closed my eyes when Sattur roused me. He brought a lighted candle by which I dressed; for my room had no window and opened on to the public courtyard, and a fat pigeon, disturbed by the light, flopped down from the rafters and fluttered feebly round and round until I let it out.
When we rode off in the crisp air of the early morning we were surprised to find that for some miles ahead of us the road lay across a gravelly plain that made excellent going for horses and baggage waggons. Close to the serai four huge vultures were feeding on the remains of a dead camel, and the loathsome birds were so gorged that on the approach of our party they could only with difficulty flap or hobble away for a few feet; they watched us until we had passed and then returned to their interrupted meal. How horrible it must be for a dying animal to be ringed about with these birds biding their time, or even fastening on their prey before life is extinct! Owing to the recent storm the atmosphere was unusually clear, and we enjoyed the somewhat rare experience of seeing the lower slopes of the Kuen-lun range, the existence of which was not even mentioned by Marco Polo, presumably on account of its invisibility, which is notorious.
After a while we rode among low sand-dunes curved and ribbed by the wind, and then crossed a high ridge that was more like a low hill than a dune and must have meant a stiff pull for even our five-horse arabas. Below its crest stood a couple of wooden posts, signifying that we had reached the boundary of the famous Kaptar Mazzar or Pigeon Shrine, where all good Moslems must dismount to approach the sacred spot on foot. There in the midst of the sand lay a graveyard marked by poles on which hung fluttering rags and bits of sheepskin, and near by was a tiny mosque with fretted wooden door and window and some low buildings, the roofs of which were crowded with grey pigeons. Legend has it that Imam Shakir Padshah, trying to convert the Buddhist inhabitants of the country to Islam by the drastic agency of the sword, fell here in battle against the army of Khotan and was buried in the little cemetery. It is affirmed that two doves flew forth from the heart of the dead saint and became the ancestors of the swarms of sacred pigeons that we saw. Our arrival caused a stir among them and a great cloud rose up, with a tremendous whirring of wings, and some settled upon the maize that our party flung upon the ground as an offering.
The guardian of the shrine, in long blue coat and white turban, left his study of the Koran and, accompanied by his little scarlet-clad daughter, hurried to meet us. My brother asked them to attract their charges to the graveyard, where he wished to photograph them; but unluckily the holy birds entirely declined to be enticed in that direction, paying no attention to the grain flung lavishly or to the voice of the mulla. They merely wheeled round and round in lessening circles until they descended on to the roofs of the pigeon-houses; for they were sated with the offerings of the Faithful and extremely fat. It might be thought that these birds, which are supposed to eat their own weight daily, would be a menace to the crops of the neighbouring Zawa oasis, but fortunately food is so abundant at home that they hardly leave the vicinity of the shrine. They are certainly highly favoured; for we were told that if a hawk were to venture to attack them it would fall down dead in the act!