sked our guides, whose dominion this was in? and they told me this
was a kind of border that might be called No Man's Land; being part of
the Great Karakathy, or Grand Tartary; but that, however, it was
reckoned to China; that there was no care taken here to preserve it from
the inroads of thieves; and therefore it was reckoned the worst desert
in the whole march, though we were to go over some much larger.

In passing this wilderness, which, I confess, was at the first view very
frightful to me, we saw two or three times little parties of the
Tartars, but they seemed to be upon their own affairs, and to have no
design upon us; and so, like the man who met the devil, if they had
nothing to say to us, we had nothing to say to them; we let them go.

Once, however, a party of them came so near as to stand and gaze at us;
whether it was to consider what they should do, viz. to attack us, or
not attack us, we knew not; but when we were passed at some distance by
them, we made a rear guard of forty men, and stood ready for them,
letting the caravan pass half a mile, or thereabouts, before us. After a
while they marched off, only we found they assaulted us with five arrows
at their parting; one of which wounded a horse, so that it disabled him;
and we left him the next day, poor creature, in great need of a good
farrier. We suppose they might shoot more arrows, which might fall short
of us; but we saw no more arrows, or Tartars, at that time.

We travelled near a month after this, the ways being not so good as at
first, though still in the dominions of the emperor of China; but lay,
for the most part, in villages, some of which were fortified, because of
the incursions of the Tartars. When we came to one of these towns, (it
was about two days and a half's journey before we were to come to the
city of Naum) I wanted to buy a camel, of which there are plenty to be
sold all the way upon that road, and of horses also, such as they are,
because so many caravans coming that way, they are very often wanted.
The person that I spoke to to get me a camel, would have gone and
fetched it for me; but I, like a fool, must be officious, and go myself
along with him. The place was about two miles out of the village, where,
it seems, they kept the camels and horses feeding under a guard.

I walked it on foot, with my old pilot in company, and a Chinese, being
desirous, forsooth, of a little variety. When we came to this place, it
was a low m