Across Asia on a Bicycle: The Journey of Two American Students from Constantinople to Peking by jr Thomas Gaskell Allen William Lewis Sachtleben

Author:jr Thomas Gaskell Allen, William Lewis Sachtleben
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Century Co.
Published: 1894-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

THE JOURNEY FROM SAMARKAND TO KULDJA

ON the morning of November 16 we took a last look at the blue domes and minarets of Samarkand, intermingled with the ruins of palaces and tombs, and then wheeled away toward the banks of the Zerafshan. Our four days^ journey of 180 miles along the regular Russian post-road was attended with only the usual vicissitudes of ordinary travel. Wading in our Russian top-boots through the treacherous fords of the ^^ Snake " defile, we passed the pyramidal slate ro(»k known as the " Gate of Tamerlane," and emerged upon a strip of the Kizil-Kum steppe, stretching hence in painful monotony to the bank of the Sir Daria river. This we crossed by a rude rope-ferry, filled at the time with a passing caravan, and then began at once to ascend the valley of the Tchirtchick toward Tashkend. The blackened cotton which the natives were gathering from the fields, the lowering snow-line on the mountains, the muddy roads, the chilling atmosphere, and the falling leaves of the giant poplars—all warned us of the approach of winter.

We had hoped at least to reach Vemoye, a provincial capital near the converging point of the Turkestan, Siberian, and Chinese boundaries, whence we could continue, on the opening of the following spring, either through

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110 ACROSS ASIA ON A BICYCLE

Siberm <.>!■ across the (Jhiueso empire. But in tliis we wei-e doomed to disappointment. The delay on the part of the Russian authorities in gi-anting us permission to etit«r Transeaspia had postponed at least a month our

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