TSCHERNOFF'S EXPEDITION. 509
occur. Then, turning, they rode back to Islam Niasning-köli and the Mahametningköl, the kok-ala or canal of which leads eastward to the Jätim-tarim, a minor arm of the Tschong-tarim flowing through the sand. Beside this they rode as far as the Ötäk-kaldi arm of the Tarim. Another arm in that same neighbourhood is known as the Kose Kirgen-kok-ala. From the top of the high sand to the south they perceived, farther on in the same direction, a large dry barren bajir, wedged in between the Bajir-köl and the Gölme-käti No. 2. Thence they travelled to the inflow canal of this latter lake, and so on to Kasi-kallaning-tschapghandaki-konasatmasi, where they encamped. Down to that point the arm of the Tarim which they had followed was called the Jätim-tarim. To judge from Tschernoff's description, the Tarim at that spot would appear in the beginning of 1901 to have been very greatly subdivided and very uncertain in its course. Young poplars, tamarisks, and kamisch were growing on its banks.
On the thirteenth day they visited the Gölme-käti, approaching it by its canal, which is long. To ride from one end of the lake to the other took them 36 minutes; there were poplars on its banks. Immediately south of the lake they rode across a large bajir, which, according to Tschernoff's description, would appear to be of a very unusual character. Poplars abounded within its arena, and there was an isolated sand-hill in the middle of it, the top of which commanded an extensive view (fig. 236). Then they climbed over the accumulation of sand which separates that bajir from the Tschapghan-köl. This lake they likewise crossed from end to end, the ride taking 46 minutes. Here again there were poplars. After that they followed the Jätimtarim as far as the Karaunelik-köl, the same lake as my Karaunelik-tokkan-köl. Both this and the next following lake, the Jilgha-köl (absent from my list), were crossed on the ice. Finally, crossing the Kurban Pavaning-tägirmän, they reached the canal mouth of the Laj-baskan-köl, where they encamped.
The narrative of the fourteenth and immediately following days shows, that below the Karaune-tokkan-köl there must be a number of small lakes not enumerated on my list. Several of them are quite small; others form parts of the lakes about which I was told. Tschernoff however enumerates them in a different order from what I have done. His map proves clearly that the marginal lakes on the right bank of the Tarim are just as numerous below the region I examined, namely down to and including the Ullugh-köl, as in the region above this lake, i. e. up as far as the Teis-köl. It is difficult to obtain a perfectly clear conception of the wonderful hydrographical arrangement in that region; Tschernoff's map is not per se sufficient to enable us to arrive at quite trustworthy conclusions. This much may however with tolerable certainty be inferred, namely that these lower marginal lakes are doomed to dry up, now that the Tarim has deserted its old bed in favour of more easterly arms. An accurate mapping of this country also would no doubt have been of interest, though, as I have already observed, there was the less necessity for it, seeing that the region of these marginal lakes is everywhere of a stereotyped character, and that the lakes which figure on Pl. 12 are quite sufficient to give a conception representative of the general geography of the region as a whole. We have however one beautiful example of these lower marginal lakes in the Begelik-köl.
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