All The Before-Mentioned Provinces, Cashgar, Yarkand, Koten, Peim,
Sartem, And Lop, Are In The Bounds Of Turkestan.
It requires a months journey to cross this desert from south to north, but
to go through it lengthways would take up a whole year.
Those who intend to
cross the desert remain for some time in Lop, on purpose to prepare all
necessaries for the journey, as no provisions are to be met with for a
whole month. These, with their merchandize, are loaded on asses and camels,
and if provisions fall short in the desert, the unfortunate travellers are
reduced to the necessity of killing their beasts of burden for sustenance,
preferring the asses for this purpose, as the camels can carry much heavier
burdens, and are satisfied with less food. This journey is entirely through
sands and barren mountains, in which water is found every day; yet at some
of the resting places it is so scanty as hardly to suffice for a caravan of
fifty of an hundred persons and their cattle. In three or four places the
water is salt and bitter, but in all the rest of the journey it is very
good. In the whole of this journey there are no beasts or birds to be seen.
It is reported, that many evil spirits reside in the wilderness, which
occasion wonderful illusions to travellers who happen unfortunately to lag
behind their companions calling them even by their names, and causing them
to stray farther from the right course, so that they lose their way and
perish in the sands.
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