“I was not altogether certain which way I turned when I left the road.  It was my impression that I went to the eastward and had been moving away from the sun; so I turned my pony’s head in a westerly direction and followed the ridges, which ran from east to west.  Hour after hour passed away, the stars came out clear and distinct in the sky, and marked off the progress of the night as they, slowly moved from east to west.  I grew hungry, and thirsty, and longed most earnestly to reach the caravan.  My pony shared my uneasiness, and moved impatiently, now endeavoring to go in one direction and now in another.  Thinking it possible that he might know the proper route better than I, I gave him free rein, but soon found he was as much at fault as myself.  Then I fully realized I was lost in the desert.

“Without compass or landmark to guide me, there was no use in further attempts to find the caravan.  Following the Mongol custom, I carried a long rope attached to my saddle-bow, and with this I managed to picket the pony where he could graze and satisfy his hunger.  How I envied his ability to eat the grass, which, though scanty, was quite sufficient.  I tried to sleep, but sleeping was no easy matter.  First, I had the consciousness of being lost.  Then I was suffering from hunger and thirst, and the night, like all the nights in Mongolia, even in midsummer, was decidedly chilly, and as I had only my ordinary clothing, the cold caused me to shiver violently.  The few snatches of sleep I caught were troubled with many dreams, none of them pleasant.  All sorts of horrible fancies passed through my brain, and I verily believe that though I did not sleep half an hour in the whole night, the incidents of my dreams were enough for a thousand years.

[Illustration:  LOST IN THE DESERT OF GOBI.]

“Thoughts of being devoured by wild beasts haunted me, though in truth I had little of this fate to fear.  The only carnivorous beasts on the desert are wolves, but as game is abundant, and can be caught with ordinary exertion, they have no occasion to feed upon men.  About midnight my fears were roused by my pony taking alarm at the approach of some wild beast.  He snorted and pulled at his rope, and had it not been for my efforts to soothe him, he would have broken away and fled.  I saw nothing and heard nothing, though I fancied I could discover half a dozen dark forms on the horizon, and hear a subdued howl from an animal I supposed to be a wolf.

“Morning came.  I was suffering from hunger, and more from thirst.  My throat was parched, my tongue was swollen, and there was a choking sensation as if I were undergoing strangulation.  How I longed for water!  Mounting my horse, I rode slowly along the ridge toward the west, and after proceeding several miles, discovered a small lake to my right.  My horse scented it earlier than I, and needed no urging to reach it.  Dismounting, I bent over and drank from the edge, which was marked with the tracks of