AS IF to disprove the saying that all rivers wind somewhere to the sea, the Kashgar Daria ended nowhere at all. That is, it ceased to be. For the last two days the current had become sluggish; reeds lined the swampy shores and spread over the wide clay beds. The water stood stagnant and heavy, the ponies splashed among the reed beds, while the camels uttered dolorous protests at every step.
Presently they were moving over salt-streaked clay, and when the reeds ended there was no sign of the Kashgar Daria.
“I turned back about here,” Lanahan informed his friend, “where the river stopped. It was no use for me to go on. Back in Kashgar, I’d not figured on one thing. The sands have been invading the country for hundreds of years; it is inevitable that this drift should have changed the cours
