Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - III.—Boat-building
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
30 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
Music, song, dance—transitory, yet ever affording renewed
pleasure !
Beautiful ? Certainly—dancers are always beautiful.
At least, I thought so as I saw them circling under the soft
lamp-light. Wishing to perpetuate their loveliness, I
begged politely that they would allow me to photograph
them the next morning. But grim and shameless, the sun
ruthlessly lifted the veil with which the twilight had beau-
tified them ; they were three old hags who never ought
to dance except in moonshine.
The 17th September was the day fixed for our start, a
really great day that I shall never forget ; for the journey
I then began was so idyllic and so pleasant, so crowded
with agreeable recollections and important discoveries, that
I despair of making anyone realise it who has never ima-
gined to himself that the deserts in the middle of Asia could
ever be traversed by water. And yet it was not without
a certain degree of anxiety that I started upon it, for, for
the next three months, I was going to be separated and cut
off from my caravan, the greater part of my baggage, almost
all my money, and my servants, including the two Cossacks.
With me I had only Islam Bai and a Kashgar lad named
Kader, who, being able to write, I appointed my Turkic
amanuensis.
Having issued my final orders to the caravan-men and
their leader, Nias Hadji, and having bid them and their
escort of Cossacks good-bye, and waited until the sound
of the camels’ bells had died away in the forest, I turned
and went on board my proud Viking ship, as she lay pulling
at her cables beside a sand-bank. The day was already
far advanced by the time we got all the knots unloosed,
and the ferry-boat, feeling the force of the powerful stream
under her keel, glided out upon the majestic river.
And what did we do on board, and how did we spend our
time ? In the bow, in front of my writing-table, stood
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
