“According to the belief of the nations of Central Asia,” says I. J. Schmidt, “the earth and its interior, as well as the encompassing atmosphere, are filled with Spiritual Beings, which exercise an influence, partly beneficent, partly malignant, on the whole of organic and inorganic nature....  Especially are Deserts and other wild or uninhabited tracts, or regions in which the influences of nature are displayed on a gigantic and terrible scale, regarded as the chief abode or rendezvous of evil Spirits....  And hence the steppes of Turan, and in particular the great sandy Desert of Gobi have been looked on as the dwelling-place of malignant beings, from days of hoar antiquity.”

The Chinese historian Ma Twan-lin informs us that there were two roads from China into the Uighur country (towards Karashahr).  The longest but easiest road was by Kamul.  The other was much shorter, and apparently corresponded, as far as Lop, to that described in this chapter.  “By this you have to cross a plain of sand, extending for more than 100 leagues.  You see nothing in any direction but the sky and the sands, without the slightest trace of a road; and travellers find nothing to guide them but the bones of men and beasts and the droppings of camels.  During the passage of this wilderness you hear sounds, sometimes of singing, sometimes of wailing; and it has often happened that travellers going aside to see what those sounds might be have strayed from their course and been entirely lost; for they were voices of spirits and goblins.  ’Tis for these reasons that travellers and merchants often prefer the much longer route by Kamul.” (Visdelou, p. 139.)

“In the Desert” (this same desert), says Fa-hian, “there are a great many evil demons; there are also sirocco winds, which kill all who encounter them.  There are no birds or beasts to be seen; but so far as the eye can reach, the route is marked out by the bleached bones of men who have perished in the attempt to cross.”

["The Lew-sha was the subject of various most exaggerated stories.  We find more trustworthy accounts of it in the Chow shu; thus it is mentioned in that history, that there sometimes arises in this desert a ‘burning wind,’ pernicious to men and cattle; in such cases the old camels of the caravan, having a presentiment of its approach, flock shrieking to one place, lie down on the ground and hide their heads in the sand.  On this signal, the travellers also lie down, close nose and mouth, and remain in this position until the hurricane abates.  Unless these precautions are taken, men and beasts inevitably perish.” (Palladius, l.c. p. 4.)

A friend writes to me that he thinks that the accounts of strange noises in the desert would find a remarkable corroboration in the narratives of travellers through the central desert of Australia.  They conjecture that they are caused by the sudden falling of cliffs of sand as the temperature changes at night time.—­H.  C.]