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Across Thibet.

CHAPTER I.

AMONG THE LAMAS.

How the Journey was Suggested—Rachmed—At Moscow—Through the Ural Mountains—Arrival at Djarkent—Organising the Caravan—At Kuldja—Father Dedeken—Ahdullah, the Interpreter—Across the Tien Shan—In the Province of Ili—Kirghis and Kalmucks—Chinese Justice—The River Kunges—Mongols—Exposing the Dead—Visit to a Grand Lama—A Lama Monastery and Pagoda—Timurlik—Kirghis Immigrants—Valley of the Tsakma—The Joy of the Desert.

RACHMED. Of the first half of my route from Paris to Tonquin through Thibet I do not propose to say anything, because it is already pretty well known, and because I have described it briefly in a volume published about eight years ago. I shall also pass with rapid strides over the route which the travellers Prjevalsky and Carey traversed before us, speaking more in detail of the regions we were the first to explore.

It used to be the fashion to invoke the muses before one began to write a narrative, but all that is out of date; and for my own part I would simply entreat the cross-grained rheumatics and treacherous fever to be so kind as to let me keep my word with my publisher, and write with as little delay as possible the story of a journey which I undertook with great pleasure, but which, as I must frankly admit, it is much less agreeable to put upon paper.

In January, 1889, we were talking, at the house of my