FROM THE KONTSCHE-DARJA TO THE FOOT OF THE KURUK-TAGH. 7
The right bank is low and level. The left bank, on the contrary, is high, and it is only upon it, at all events it is so at Dilpar, that the poplar woods grow; though both higher up and lower down there are reported to be toghrak forests on the right bank as well. Hence the relation here is the reverse of that which we
Fig. 4. VERTICAL SECTION OF THE KONTSCHE-DARDA. THE LEFT BANK IS HIGH, THE RIGHT LOW.
found to obtain in the case of the Tarim; for, whereas it is the right bank of the latter that runs next the desert, the Kontsche-darja has the desert on its left bank. South-west of the Tarim we found the country low and plentifully indented with depressions; but in the case of the Kontsche-darja it is the north-east, or outer, bank that is higher. This circumstance apparently contradicts the proposition I have already laid down (vol. I p. 302), namely that the inter-riverine tract between the Kontsche and the Tarim forms, in relation to the adjacent desert, a sort of low terrace, or in other words, that
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