The Senses of Loss

"It is said the musical sands will give out a sound even in a laboratory far from their native dunes.  It may be, yet sometimes in my London home  I take up a handful of  Crescent Lake sand and try to make it sing, but I listen in vain for the thunder-roll of its voice.  Between the leaves of a book I have pressed a small branch of sand-jujube* flowers, and whenever I catch its subtle but fading fragrance, I, like the Kashgarian exile, long for a place that seems so near and is yet so far away.  Sick with longing I walk among the crowds while my spirit flees to the quiet which is found by the hidden lake among the dunes."
[* eloeagnus latifolia]

The Gobi Desert  Mildred Cable with Francesca French

Sacred paper

"Another familiar figure in every bazar crowd is the old Chinese Confucianist, whose self-appointed duty is to collect any pieces of paper lying about and save the sacred writing from desecration.  He carries a pronged picker and puts the fragments of paper into the basket which he carries.  He also collects all that is placed in small boxes standing in different parts of the bazar and marked 'Receptacles for the respectful collection of sacred paper'.  All these he takes to the temple to be burnt by the priest."

The Gobi Desert  Mildred Cable  with Francesca French

Letters from Turfan

"The professional letter-writer sits at the door of the Post Office.  It is his job to listen to what any particular man wishes to say to his distant friends or relatives, then, using flowery and appropriate terms to write out the message in the form of a letter to the person indicated.  He sits behind a table on which are placed inkslab, a Chinese pen, letter-paper and a pad.  The client comes to the side of the table and tells his tale.  The writer listens, bargains the price, pulls up his long sleeve, lifts the block of Chinese ink, rubs it very slowly over the inkslab, dexterously applies the brush to the ink, stroking its hair to a fine point, then, with a flourish of his hand begins to draw beautiful ideographs on the paper."

The Gobi Desert  Mildred Cable  with Francesca French