sand hills, an oasis of surpassing beauty. A hundred rills disporting
through the streets, trees, little houses built of stone, and painted
white or red, communicated to the spot an aspect highly picturesque.
Weary as we were, we halted at Ever-Flowing Waters with inexpressible
delight; but the poetry of the thing vanished when we came to settle with
our host. Not only provisions but forage came from Tchong-Wei, and the
transport being very difficult, they were dear to a degree that
altogether disconcerted our economical arrangements. For ourselves and
our animals, we were obliged to disburse 1,600 sapeks, a matter of nearly
seven shillings. Only for this circumstance we should perhaps have
quitted with regret the charming village of Tchang-Lieou-Chouy; but there
is always something which intervenes to aid man in detaching himself from
the things of this world.

On quitting Tchang-Lieou-Chouy, we took the road followed by the Chinese
exiles on their way to Ili. The country is somewhat less dreadful than
that which we had travelled through on the preceding day, but it is still
very dismal. Gravel had taken the place of sand, and with the exception
that it produced a few tufts of grass, hard and prickly, the soil was
arid and barren. We reached, in due course, Kao-Tan-Dze, a village
repulsive and hideous beyond all expression. It consists of a few
miserable habitations, rudely constructed of black earth, and all of them
inns. Provisions are even more scarce there than at Ever-Flowing Waters,
and correspondingly dearer. Every thing has to be brought from
Tchong-Wei, for the district produces nothing, not even water. Wells
have been sunk to a very great depth, but nothing has been found except
hard, rocky, moistureless earth. The inhabitants of Kao-Tan-Dze have to
fetch their water a distance of more than twelve miles, and they
accordingly charge travellers a monstrous price for every drop. A single
bucket costs sixty sapeks. Had we attempted to water our camels, we
should have had to lay out fifty fifties of sapeks; we were therefore
forced to be content with drinking ourselves, and giving a draught to our
horses. As to the camels, they had to await better days and a less
inhospitable soil.

Kao-Tan-Dze, miserable and hideous as it is, has not even the advantage
of that tranquillity and security which its poverty and its solitude
might reasonably be supposed to give it. It is constantly ravaged by
brigand