File:A visit to the Russians in central Asia (1899) (14598078999).jpg

Identifier: visittorussiansi00phib (find matches)
Title: A visit to the Russians in central Asia
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Phibbs, Isabelle Mary
Subjects: Russians -- Asia, Central Asia, Central -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & co., ltd.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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to the Russians left free by the receding dunes. A singularinstance of this phenomenon has taken placein England on the Norfolk coast, where Eccleschurch was gradually submerged in sand. By1839 the whole church was buried, by 1862the tower reappeared, and in 1892 the sandscleared away on the landward side. The sand dunes are mostly from ten totwenty feet high, but some are seen like littlehills fully a hundred feet high, in some placeshigher. They cover the plain and follow insuccessive rows one behind the other, just likethe marks left by wave ripples on a sandybeach, onl)- on a large scale. In the extreme east of Central Asia thesandy desert is found at its worst, and it is inconnection with this quarter that most of thetales of weird horrors have their origin. Howdeeply the superstitious mind of the Asiaticniav be impressed by these wastes of movingsands, and how^ little reason there is to wonderat the stories of ghosts, demons and visionswith which he has invested the region, may
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I in Central Asia 133 be judged by General Prejevalskis vivid de-scription of it. The effect of these bareyellow hillocks, he writes, is most drearyand depressing when you are among them andcan see nothing but the sky and the sand ;not a plant, not an animal is visible, with thesingle exception of the yellowish-grey lizardswhich trail their bodies over the loose soil andmark it with the patterns of their tracks. A dullheaviness oppresses the sense in this inanimatesea of sand. No sounds are heard, not eventhe chirping of a grasshopper, the silence ofthe tomb surrounds you. The Chinese call the desert of Gobi A diysea. Hinen Tsangs description differs littlefrom that of the Russian traveller. Thesesands, he says, extend like a drifting Boodfor a great distance, piled up or scattered beforethe wind. There is no trace left behind bytravellers, and oftentimes the way is lost, andso they wander hither and thither quite be-wildered, without any guide or direction. Sotravellers pile up the b

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