THE GLENS AND STREAMS OF THE ILVE-TSCIIIDIEN AND TIIE ASTIN-TAGH. 243
ice. The quantity of water that was still running was, on the other hand, very trifling, perhaps only I/io cub. m. in the second. In summer the stream is stated to swell out very considerably and to inundate the country far and wide. In our immediate locality its course was towards the N. I2° W., and I was told that lower down it contracts into a narrow and well-defined channel. Here were some bushes and teresken, but lower down the jajlaks are said to be so good that the shepherds visit them in the summer. To the N. 7 ° W. rose a more conspicuous part of the Astintagh ; and just east of it, on the northern side of the range, the transverse glen of Jajlik-saj is said to have its beginning or baschi. This glen runs northwards down to the lowlands of East Turkestan.
At Camp XCII we found a dark schist, rich in mica and greatly compressed, dipping 78° towards the N. 33° W.; while east of the pass there was a similar, but rather harder and lighter-coloured, schist at 83° E. This schist predominated from that point all the way to the Ilve-tschimen valley.
All day on December 2nd we travelled east, with an inclination to the south. At first we ascended slowly. The grass began to give out and eventually came to an end, and was followed by saj, with gravel and sand and a sprinkling of scrub. A track branched off to the left, over a stretch of low hills, to the Schor-köl. From a minor pass (3303 m.) that we had to cross over, we saw to the south-west a level expanse, with withered grass, beside the more easterly of the two branches of the Ilve-tschimen. From this new Bel the view eastwards was boundless: we were able to follow the Astin-tagh until it dwindled away as fine as a needle in the far, far distance. On the south rose two stupendous bluffs of the Schia-manglaj, with the baschi of the Mandarlik-saj between them. But towards the east the mass of the Schia-manglaj grew lower and lower. The name of Schia-manglaj appears, properly speaking, to designate the northern and eastern parts of the great mountain complex of the Ilve-tschimen, although the latter name is used to indicate the valley in which we last encamped.
From this saddle the surface slopes very gently, with long and scarce noticeable undulations, though we kept pretty nearly to the same level. From the top of a small hill we saw to the N. 12 ° W. the twin lakes of Schor-köl, with a little withered grass round them; we also saw, to the north-east, the beginning of the spring-fed rivulet that supplies the upper lake, and even in winter carries a little
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