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86 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
frozen over from side to side. By a stroke of rare good
fortune my caravan happened to have arrived there
simultaneously, and was in the immediate neighbourhood,
so that I was able to send a message to the Cossacks to
stop at Yanghi-kol. This 7th December was our last
day’s drift down the river. We were travelling due south-
east, having on our left immense steppes of grass and
kamisJi (reeds), and on our right high, barren sand-dunes,
the bases of which were undermined by the river. This
last was now everywhere frozen over, except for a small
strip of water in the middle, and it was choked with drift-
ice. In that confined water-way we were carried along
at an uncomfortable speed, the edges of the ice crunching
and ringing like broken glass as we brushed against them ;
nevertheless, it was fine to see our ferry-boat cutting her way
through it like a sugar-saw.
Early in the day we became aware of some horsemen
approaching on the bank. They were Chernoff, Faisullah,
and Nias Hadji. They confirmed the report that within
another two hours we should reach the spot where the river
was frozen across from side to side, and beyond that point
it would not be humanly possible to advance. Although
the sun had already set, I determined to push on. I was
resolved we would not stop until we were literally forced
to do so. By the light of lanterns, and of torches
fastened to long poles, held up in the canoes, we nii^ide our
way through the huge ice-mill, where the ice-disks were
being ground to powder. But at length silence fell. The
ferry-boat stopped, the ice-disks glided in under the firm
ice. A gigantic fire was burning on the bank, the signal
that our long river-journey was at length ended. Thus far
were we to drift on the broad bosom of the Tarim, but no
farther. And it was here that my caravan awaited me.
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