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38 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
times we used to see him sitting on a headland, patiently
waiting for us, until I sent the skiff to fetch him off.
Day and night, it being now autumn, great ifocks of
wild-geese flew on overhead, making their way via Yarkand
to their warmer winter quarters in India. They generally
kept at an altitude of between 600 and 700 feet, and filled
the air with their anxious screaming ; but when they in-
tended to stop for the night, we would see them gradually
droop downwards, until they almost seemed to brush against
the crowns of the poplars, and soon after they would
disappear amongst the trees. They find their way—do these
wonderful, hurrying pilgrims of the air—with the same
unerring certainty that the brooks from the melting glaciers
find theirs to the terminal basin of the Tarim. They are a
striking sight, as, in strictly-ordered phalanx, and on
unwearied wing, they drive on, on over the earth towards
their distant goal. In October these flocks were so
numerous and so frequent that we no longer paid any
attention to them.
We were now approaching a part of the river known
as the Kotaklik-daria, in which, according to rumour,
there was an alarming waterfall eight fathoms high. But
the nearer we came to the critical point the less grew the
height of the cataract, until, by the time we got quite close
to it, it had dwindled to about only three feet. However,
the velocity of the stream was increased to such an extent
that our ferry-boat was sucked at a tremendous pace into
a narrow, irregular passage, beset with stranded drift-wood
and islets. Very often her prow would run against a
sunken poplar-trunk, and she would be swung completely
round by the current. I used to feel a slight jerk, and in a
minute or two the scenery before me became entirely
changed. These whirligig movements used to make me
quite giddy. In a trice afl the men would be overboard
in the river, pushing and hauling to get the vessel free, and
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