and some of them die. Some snow falls in December and January, the clouds coming from the north; but the snow seldom lies a foot deep. In the summer it sometimes rains, though the showers are always short, and very rarely violent.
The Kara-akin, after passing through the lake of Dschindar-köl, continues to flow to the east. On the north this lake is bordered by a strip of sand bearing the extraordinary name of Läschkär-sokuschkan-kum, or the Sand where the Armies Fought together, possibly pointing to some legend now forgotten, or more probably the name is due to a mere tradition.
November loth. A rise of 2.8 cm. Transparency, 5.1 cm. at 7 a. m. and 5.6 cm. at I p. m. The banks were 2.41 m. high, and were overtopped by the summer high-water. Throughout the whole of the day the river was accompanied, all along its north side, by the long, narrow lake of Mandschar-köl, which is fed by the Jäkänlik-köl. Between it and the river stretch broad beds of kamisch, and beyond it to the north a belt of sand called Kala-ölgän-kum, where there is a small village, Kala-ölgän-uj, inhabited by fifteen Loplik families. Dung-kotan lay due north of us, but it was at this time uninhabited, its people, to the number of 25 families, having flitted to Süsük. A forest belt beside the river here is called Küjük-tam. On the south we had a small patch of sand, and a »high-water» arm, which empties into Dschindar-köl. The name Kutlekmetning-uj, given to a tract adjacent to the river, is derived from the attempt of one Kutlekmet to found a new colony — an instance of the way in which new names get established along the river-side. The Tarim flows at first north-east, making many sharp turns; then it bends to the east, and finally to the east-north-east, the last stretch being extraordinarily straight. The banks are predominantly steppe, with a thin sprinkling of poplars. The river-bed is still contracted. Just above our camp it was connected by a linking channel with the Mandschar-köl. When the river is brimful, it discharges its surplus water into this lake ; but when the lake, which is, as I have stated, fed also by the Jäkänlik-köl, stands at the higher level, it empties itself by the same channel back into the Tarim. South of the camp is the beginning of the lake of the Utsch-uj-köl, fed by an artery that carries water in summer only. On its north shore it is edged with kamisch, while poplars are the characteristic feature of the south shore. Beyond it in the latter direction stretches the sandy desert. Jigdelik-köl lies north-east of our camp, which bore the name of Kätschik, or the Ford, owing to the fact that the river is there crossed by the highway from Kakde to Karaul. These fords are always situated on such parts of the river as are straight, broad, and shallow. A Loplik, who was well acquainted with that part of the country, sketched for me in the sand with a piece of stick a rough map of the portion of the river we had just traversed, and its immediate surroundings. Of course so rude a sketch could not do more than indicate approximately in outline the tangled labyrinth of the local waterways. To have visited, and personally examined, each of these numerous small marginal lagoons in turn would have demanded an immense amount of time., Indeed it would have been hardly practicable, and when done, the result would have possessed little more than an ephemeral value. We have seen how the river repeatedly alters its bed, and with each such migration corresponding changes are made in its accompanying lakes and lagoons: they dry up,
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