Excerpt from Knowledge and Illustrated Scientific News, Vol. 1: January to December, 1904 And not only did the scenery change as they drifted on, but the fiery heats of summer were succeeded by the violent autumn storms, and then the winter crept steadily and remorselessly on. The surface of the river one morning was Spangled with patches of ice. Then a fringe of ice crept out day after day further from the banks, and the air was full of murmurs from the grinding ice, but there was still time to go many miles before the passage was blocked completely by the ice. Then winter quarters were formed, and the caravan, which had made the long journey by land, was successfully joined. Never, writes Dr. Hedin, was a journey of that magnitude carried through so comfortably and so successfully. And we believe him, for with little danger and with no great difficulty for so resourceful and intrepid an explorer, 3. Thousand miles of a practically unknown river was most minutely investigated in the. Space of some three months. Dr. Hedin is not one to rest on his oars. No sooner had he got his winter quarters comfortably arranged than he started out on a perilous journey southwards across the Takla Makan Desert to Cherchen, situated on the river of that name. This desert journey in the middle of a very hard winter, with temperatures of many degrees below zero, and frequent blinding snow-storms, was a very trying piece of work, but it was accomplished with the loss of only one camel. After an excursion to the south-west from Cherchen, which involved a very cold ride of 200 miles, Dr. Hedin brought his caravan back to his winter quarters, travelling for the most part by the ancient bed of the Cherchen River. Meanwhile his head-quarters camp had become an important market, well known throughout all the Lop country, and immediately outside its precincts there grew up a ring of small 'suburbs, ' where tailors, smiths, and other handicraftsmen came and plied their several trades. And Dr. Hedin became quite a king in the Lop country, and was able to set right many injustices to the poor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.