Yupogha

— Sending our baggage-ponies and all our retinue except the indispensable Hafiz and Sangi Khan ahead the day before, we left Kashgar on 21st March and reached Yupogha, 51 miles east-south-east, the same evening. Our way at first led through a flat country of trees and reedy canals and old farms on the banks of quiet rivers; but the second day the cultivation became gradually more sparse and the country dried as we approached the Takla Makan. That night we slept at a thriving little market-village called Tarim Bazar, where there the much-frequented shrine of one of Kashgar's many lady-saints, Bu Mariam.