For some reason unintelligible to me accommodation is refused us at the village.  The old guide addresses the people in tones loud and authoritative, but all to no purpose—­they refuse to let us remain.  While hesitating about what course to pursue, one of the men comes out and volunteers to guide us to a camp of nomads not far away.  Following his guidance, a camp of a dozen tents is shortly reached, and in their hospitable midst we spend the night on a piece of carpet beneath the sky.  The usual simple refreshments are provided, as also quilts for covering.  Upon waking in the morning I am surprised to find the bicycle lying close to my head.  The hospitable nomads, having heard the story of its abandonment from the guide, have been out in the night and found it and brought it in.

The same friendly person who brought us to the camp turns up at daybreak and voluntarily guides us through the area of ditches and impenetrable reed-patches to the river.  Several people are squatting on the bank watching a crew of half-naked men tugging a rude but strong ferryboat up-stream toward them.  The boat is built of heavy hewn timber, and capable of ferrying fifty passengers.

The Furrah Rood, at the ferry, is about two hundred yards wide, and with a current of perhaps five miles an hour.  A dozen stalwart men with rude, heavy sweeps propel the boat across; but at every passage the swift current takes it down-stream twice as far as the river’s width.  After disembarking the passengers, the boatmen have to tow it this distance up-stream again before making the next crossing.  The boatmen wear a single garment of blue cotton that in shape resembles a plain loose shirt.  When nearing the shore, three or four of them deftly slip their arms out of the sleeves, bunch the whole garment up around their necks, and spring overboard.  Swimming to shallow water with a rope, they brace themselves to stay the down-stream career of the boat.

A small gathering of wild-looking men are collected at the landing-place, and my astonishment is awakened by the familiar figure of a Celestial among the crowd.  He is a veritable John Chinaman—­beardless face, queue, almond eyes, and everything complete.  The superior thriftiness of the Chinaman over the Afghans needs no further demonstration than the ocular evidence that among them all he wears by far the best and the tidiest clothes.  In this, not less than in the strong Mongolian type of face, is he a striking figure among the people.

John Chinaman is a very familiar figure to me, and I regard this strange specimen with almost as great interest as if I had thus unexpectedly met a European.  His grotesque figure and dress, representing, so it seems to me at the moment, a speck of civilization among the barbarousness of my surroundings, is quite a relief to the senses.  A closer investigation, however, on the bank, while waiting for the guide’s horse, reveals the fact that he is far from being