therefore, as though the second part of the journey
would be rather uninteresting, unless we are favored with a few
startling incidents. But it seems to me that we are certainly in the
possession of the elements out of which something journalistic can be
made.

At eleven o'clock the train left Kothan station, and it was nearly two
o'clock in the afternoon when it reached Keria, having left behind the
small stations of Urang, Langar, Pola and Tschiria.

In 1889-90 this road was followed by Pevtsoff from Kothan to Lob-Nor at
the foot of the Kuen Lun, which divides Chinese Turkestan from Tibet.
The Russian traveler went by Keria, Nia, Tchertchen, as we are doing so
easily, but then his caravan had to contend with much danger and
difficulty--which did not prevent his reporting ten thousand kilometres
of surveys, without reckoning altitude and longitude observations of
the geographical points. It is an honor for the Russian government to
have thus continued the work of Prjevalsky.

From Keria station you can see to the southwest the heights of Kara
Korum and the peak of Dapsang, to which different geographers assign a
height of eight thousand metres. At its foot extends the province of
Kachmir. There the Indus rises in a number of inconsiderable sources
which feed one of the greatest rivers of the Peninsula. Thence from the
Pamir tableland extends the mighty range of the Himalaya, where rise
the highest summits on the face of the globe.

Since we left Kothan we have covered a hundred and fifty kilometres in
four hours. It is not a high rate of speed, but we cannot expect on
this part of the Transasiatic the same rate of traveling we experienced
on the Transcaspian. Either the Chinese engines are not so fast, or,
thanks to their natural indolence, the engine drivers imagine that from
thirty to forty miles an hour is the maximum that can be obtained on
the railways of the Celestial Empire.

At five o'clock in the afternoon we were at another station, Nia, where
General Pevtsoff established a meterological observatory. Here we
stopped only twenty minutes. I had time to lay in a few provisions at
the bar. For whom they were intended you can imagine.

The passengers we picked up were only Chinese, men and women. There
were only a few for the first class, and these only went short journeys.

We had not started a quarter of an hour when Ephrinell, with the
sferious manner of a merchant intent on some business, came up to me