THE LOWER TSCHERTSCHEN-DARJA. 39u
to the river. But on the right it recedes a long way from it; in fact, it was only distinguishable through the narrow edging of snow which lay on its outside dunes. We encamped at Basch-otak quite close to the river.
On the 6th February the stinging cold still continued (— 29° C. minimum), but it had ceased snowing, and there was less snow lying on the ground than in the Andere quarter; the greater part of what fell had evaporated. We again crossed to the left bank at Ak-ilek, where an old left-hand bed begins. This runs parallel and quite close to the existing stream, winding but little, and has at first living poplars on its banks, then dead forest, underwoods and steppe, in fact on the whole a rather rich vegetation. In places there are rudimentary dunes in the river-bed; the great desert being only about one kilometer distant on the north. At Bachtemet the arm divides in the same way as the river-bed of Tschong-schipang; the right branch re-entering the Tschertschen-darja at Bachtemet-lenger, while the left branch, the larger of the two, continues past Boghuluk and Läschkär-satma. At Dung-agbil we again crossed the river on the ice. Here it was narrower than it had hitherto been, and was shut in between tolerably well-scarped erosion-terraces, 3 to 4 In. high. At this point it is crossed by the Tscharklik road, whence the place is also called Kätschik (the Ford).
Fig. 347. KAMISCH AND TOCHRAKS ON THE LEFT BANK OF THE LOWER TSCHERTSCHEN-DARJA.
From what we ascertained by reconnaissance, this old river-bed comes to an end at Boghuluk, disappearing amongst the outlying dunes, which however approach quite close to the Tschertschen-darja. We supposed that, as we proceeded, we should somewhere light upon the termination of this old bed, but we never did. Still it does no doubt rejoin the mother-river, but the junction is masked by vegetation and sand. In several places indeed it would have been impossible to see any such
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