follow them. To secure their subsistence from plunder, they habitually scooped out their granaries in the depths of the desert, where, after harvest, they annually buried their corn in deep pits, over which the wind soon spread the wavy sand as before, obliterating all traces of their labours. They themselves, however, possessed some unerring index to the spot, which enabled them at all times to discover their hoards. Chalcedonies, jaspers, and other precious stones were found in the rivers of this province.
Here some insurmountable obstacle preventing their pursuing a direct course, they deviated towards the north, and in five days arrived at the city of Lop, on the border of the desert of the same name. This prodigious wilderness, the most extensive in Asia, could not, as was reported, be traversed from west to east in less than a year; while, proceeding from south to north, a month's journey conducted the traveller across its whole latitude. Remaining some time at the city of Lop, or Lok, to make the necessary preparations for the journey, they entered the desert. In all those fearful scenes where man is constrained to compare his own insignificance with the magnificent and resistless power of the elements, legends, accommodated to the nature of the place, abound, peopling the frozen deep or the "howling wilderness" with poetical horrors superadded to those which actually exist. On the present occasion their Tartar companions, or guides, entertained our travellers with the wild tales current in the country. Having dwelt sufficiently upon the tremendous sufferings which famine or want of water sometimes inflicted upon the hapless merchant in those inhospitable wastes, they added, from their legendary stores, that malignant demons continually hovered in the cold blast or murky cloud which nightly swept over the sands. Delighting in mischief, they frequently exerted their supernatural
