422 A NEW JOURNEY SOUTHWARDS.
the S. 19° W., and its upper part is entirely situated in the southern range. The third glen, which comes from the south-west, was the one we followed, so that we thus had an opportunity to become more closely acquainted with it.
In the neighbourhood of Camp XV the grass, considering the great altitude, was better than might be expected. Orongo antelopes and kulans were numerous; while wolves, hares, and ravens also occurred. We saw too a flock of wild-geese resting beside the stream; possibly they were on their way from their winter-quarters in India to their summer-quarters in the marshes of Lop. In this flat, open gathering arena the ground consisted exclusively of disintegrated material. The bottom of the watercourse was for the most part mud, excessively soft and treacherous, and the only places where it would bear were those that were strewn with gravel. The nearest hills were composed of the same soft materials as hitherto, but a little higher up the slope there was a somewhat harder sandstone, dipping 38° towards the S. 20° W. One of my guides ventured to assert, that a Mongol pilgrim road formerly led southwards through the main glen which we were now about to follow, and a 'find» which we made at the next camp lent a certain colour of probability to the statement.
June I 4th. From Camp XV we once more had a climb before us, namely a very gentle ascent towards the south-south-west. The going was easy and comfortable, and only seldom so soft as to occasion us any inconvenience. At first we kept on the left or west terraced bank, crossing an occasional contributory watercourse, none of them very deep. The opposite terraced escarpment is however steep or perpendicular, as well as energetically trenched by the side-glens that come in from the south-east. The main glen narrows as it climbs higher; in places sheets of ice were still remaining from the winter. Next to us on the right, or west, the country consisted of low undulating hills, slightly grass-grown, and of terraced elevations. A long way off in the east-south-east and south-east was a larger mountain-mass, probably belonging to the higher regions of the Petelik-saj.
At one point where we crossed over the stream, it carried the rather large volume of io cub.m. in the second, divided however between four larger and a number of smaller arms, distributed over the whole of its bed. Here also wild-geese were resting. After that we crossed over the middle of the above-mentioned feeding-glens, down which, although tolerably energetically developed, only a mere rivulet, perhaps I%2 cub.m., was then trickling. The third subsidiary glen, farthest west, is the largest ; this we left in the meantime on our right hand. The detritus scree, across which we were approaching the foot of the mountains, is hard and thinly sprinkled with gravel, and has a very gentle ascent up to the northern foot of the range. In front of us, to the south-south-west, was the entrance to a glen, backed at its upper end by the rather imposing, snow-capped summit of the range. On both sides of this glen-opening the hard rock again made its appearance in wild crags and cliffs, a green schist dipping 33° towards the S. 37° W. But even there, quite close though it was to the foot of the mountains, gravel and stones were almost entirely wanting; the disintegrated materials are very finely subdivided. The brook which issues from the outlet of the glen spreads itself out in several deltaic arms, the one farthest east being the largest. Here a big sheet of ice had formed,
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