From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People

by Sven Anders Hedin

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.