Elk City mining news. (Elk City, Idaho) 1903-1913, 1905-08-12
CHAPTER XVIII

The country is fertile and well cult
waited, growing wheat, maize, rice, bar
ley anu flax, in its eastern districts. Ev-
erywhere are great masses of trees, will
lows, mulberries, poplars. AS far as the
eye can reach are fields under cultivation,
irrigated by numerous canals, also green
fields, in which are fiocks of sheep, a
country half Normandy, half Provence,
were it not for the mountains of Pamir
on the horizon. But this portion of Kach-
garia was terribly ravaged by war when
Its people were struggling for independ-
ence The land flowed with blood, and
along by the railroad the ground is dot
tide with tumui beneath which are
buried the victims of their patriotism.
But L did not come to Central Asia to
travel as if l were in France. Novelty
Novelty! The unforeseen The appall-
ing
1t was without the shadow of an ac-
cident, and after particularly fine run,
that we entered Yarkand Station at four
o'clock in the afternoon.
A few Chinese passengers alighted at
Yarkand, and gave place to others exact
ly like them-among others score of
coolies-and we started again at 8
o'clock in the evening. During the night
we ran the three hundred and fifty kilo-
meters which separate Yarkand from
Kothan.
A visit paid to the front van showed
me that the box was still in the same
place. certain snoring proved that
Kinko was inside as usual, and sleeping
peacefully. l did not care to wake him.
and |. left him to dream of his adorable
Roumanian.
In the morning Popof told me that the
train, which was now travelling about as
fast as an omnibus, had passed Khar-
ealik. the junction for the Kilian and
Tong branches. The night had been
cold, for we are still at an altitude of
1900 meters. Leaving Guma Station. the
line runs due east and west, following
the thirty-seventh parallel, the same
which traverses it in Europe, Seville,
Syracuse and Athens.
We sighted only one stream of impor
lance, the Karakash, on which appeared
q few drifting rafts and files of horses
and asses at the fOrds between the pebbly
banks. The railroad crosses it about
hundred kilometers from Khotan, where
we arrived at 8 o'clock in the morning.
Two hours to stop. and as the town
may give me a foretaste of the cities of
China, | resolve to take Il run through it.
AS we were about to board the car
again, | saw Popof running toward me,
shouting:
Monsieur BOmbarnacw
what is the matter, Popof?'
"a telegraph messenger asked me if
there was any one belonging to the
Twentieth Century on the train"
"A telegraph messenger!
"Yes, and on my replying in the af-
firmative he gave me this telegram for
for you"
"Give it me. give it mel"
l seize the telegram, which has been
waiting for me some days. Is it a reply
to my wire sent from Merry, relative to
the mandarin Yen Lou?
| open it. l read it, and it falls from
my hand This is what it said:
"Claudius Bombarnac, Correspondent
Twentieth Century, Khotan, Chinese
Turkestan:
ut is not the corpse of a mandarin
that the train is taking to Pekin, but
the imperial treasure, value fifteen mill
ions, sent from Persia to China. as an
nounced in the Paris newspapers eight
days ago; endeavor to be better informed
for the future"