crowned by the old
royal castle. Leh, as well as the whole of the district of Ladak, is
subject to the Maharaja of Kashmir, but the people are mostly of Tibetan
race and their religion is Lamaism.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] A "satrap" was originally a governor of a province in ancient
Persia.

VII

EASTERN TURKESTAN (1895)

THE TAKLA-MAKAN DESERT

We are now on the high road between India and Eastern Turkestan, the
most elevated caravan route in the world. Innumerable skeletons of
transport animals lie there, marking where the road passes through snow.
After a month's journey over the cold, lofty mountains we come to the
town of Yarkand, in the spacious, flat, bowl-shaped hollow, surrounded
on all sides except the east by mountains, which is called Eastern
Turkestan.

To the south stand the immense highlands of Tibet, where the great
rivers of India and China take their rise. On the west is the Pamir, the
"Roof of the World," where the two great rivers of the Sea of Aral begin
their course. On the north lie the Tien-shan, or Mountains of Heaven,
which are continued farther north-eastwards by the Altai and several
other mountain systems, among which the gigantic rivers of Siberia have
their origin. Within this ring of mountains, at the very heart of the
great continent of Asia, lies this lowland of Eastern Turkestan, like a
Tibetan sheepfold enclosed by enormous walls of rock.

In its northern part a river called the Tarim flows from west to east.
It is formed by the Yarkand-darya and the Khotan-darya on the south, and
receives other affluents along its course, for water streams down from
the snowfields and glaciers of the wreath of mountains enclosing Eastern
Turkestan. The head-waters of the Tarim leap merrily down through narrow
valleys among the mountains, but the great river is doomed never to
reach the sea. It terminates and is lost in a desert lake named Lop-nor.

Trees grow along this river, mostly small, stunted poplars, but the
wooded belts along the banks are very narrow; soon the trees thin out
and come to an end, steppe shrubs and tamarisks take their place, and
only a mile or two from the river there is nothing but deep sand without
a sign of vegetation. The greater part of Eastern Turkestan is occupied
by the desert called Takla-makan, the most terrible and dangerous in the
world.

[Illustration: MAP OF EASTERN TURKESTAN, SHOWING JOURNEYS
DESCRIBED ON pp. 89-110.]

A belt of desert runs thr