High in the sky flew the vultures, bearded and unbearded, and amid the clouds of white vapor we left behind us were many crows and pigeons and turtledoves and wagtails.
The day passed without adventure.

At six o'clock in the evening we crossed the frontier, after a run of nearly two thousand three hundred kilometres, accomplished in four days since leaving Uzun Ada.

Two hundred and fifty kilometres beyond we shall be at Kachgar.

Although we are now in Chinese Turkestan, it will not be till we reach that town that we shall have our first experience of Chinese administration.
Dinner over about nine o'clock, we stretched ourselves on our beds, in the hope, or rather the conviction, that the night will be as calm as the preceding one.
It was not to be so.
At first the train was running down the slopes of the Pamir at great speed.

Then it resumed its normal rate along the level.
It was about one in the morning when I was suddenly awakened.
At the same time Major Noltitz and most of our companions jumped up.
There were loud shouts in the rear of the train.
What had happened?
Anxiety seized upon the travelers--that confused, unreasonable anxiety caused by the slightest incident on a railroad.
"What is the matter?
What is the matter ?" These words were uttered in alarm from all sides and in different languages.
My first thought was that we were attacked.