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CHAPTER III.
BOAT-BUILDING.
All the water which gathers from the glaciers and melting
snow-fields, from the springs and rains, on the high plateaus
of Western Tibet and the Eastern Pamirs, gradually stream
together into a magnificent transverse valley, and form
the great river which, in the upper part of its course, is
variously known as the Zerafshan, Raskan-daria, or Yar-
kand-daria. Augmented by several tributaries, it acquires
sufficient power to force its way across the whole of the
East Turkestan desert, a distance of 900 miles, and to
empty its waters into the Lake of Kara-koshun.
And now for the plan of my journey. Why should I
traverse again the roads through the desert or alongside it,
which I already knew so well ? Why should not this river,
which for thousands upon thousands of years has expended
its power to no purpose—why should it not be compelled,
late though it was, to render me service ? Its muddy current
streams at all events due east. Why, then, should it not
convey me, seeing that I want to go in the same direction ?
Prudence—though over-much prudence is not my pet
failing—might have warned me of the dangers ahead. " Do
you not understand," Prudence might have whispered,
" that there are cataracts in which your craft may be
capsized ; that there are sand-banks upon which it may
repeatedly run aground, and that if from any cause you
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