From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People

by Sven Anders Hedin

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.