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6o ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
to the united river. For the last portion of the journey
our old ferry-boat moved with exasperating slowness.
But we were resolved, at all costs, to reach our goal that
night. " Out with your punting-poles !
" I cried, and
the men pushed, and whistled, and sang as they worked
together. The pole of one of the men, Alim, stuck fast in
the mud at the bottom, and was left behind. Alim, nothing
daunted, flung off his clothes and swam back to it, and
then turning swam after the ferry-boat. And yet the
temperature of the water was only 48° Fahr. For my own
part, I no longer had any passionate desire for a bath. The
air had, however, that day been as warm as in summer.
I even sat in my shirt-sleeves and thoroughly enjoyed
watching the changing perspectives of the uniform, but ever
varying, scenery, my senses drinking in the scent of apricots,
grapes and pears, a dishful of which always stood beside
me.
At length the curtains parted and a new act began in
our fairy spectacular play. The side scenes of the forest
setting moved wider and wider apart, the drop-scene at
the back was pushed back to a great distance, and before
us appeared, in the centre of the stage, the boiling, seething
waters of the Aksu-daria.
Our big clumsy craft was just beginning to feel the force
of the treacherous, but powerful, suction which was drawing
her into the eddy of the actual confluence, when we managed
to check her in the very nick of time. I wanted to stop
there and examine the meeting of the waters. Next morn-
ing there was a very earnest ring in the " Bismillah! " (" In
God’s name!") of my Mohammedans, as, planting them-
selves firmly at their posts, feet wide apart, muscles tense,
they gripped their poles so tightly that their knuckles
turned as white as cubes of ivory. Having taken my
bearings from a distant promontory, I put my instruments
away carefully into my pocket just in case the water in
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