gravelly scree was so thickly seamed with deep gullies and water-channels, that, it was evident, the Tsanger-schar receives every year an appreciable influx of water from this side-glen. The scree drives the river over close to the foot of the southern range, so that the screes of gravel, which on that side break out of the transverse glens, have been abruptly shorn off and present high vertical escarpments. The level expanses which sometimes show themselves on this left side of the stream are therefore very small, but nevertheless produce bush vegetation. The mountain-range in that same quarter is steep and massive, its spurs short and craggy; the main chain was seldom visible, though it grows gradually lower towards the west, and finally is quite free from snow. The gravel screes that bulge out between the spurs are much shorter and steeper than those on the north side of the valley.
In the vicinity of Camp CXXXVI the valley was fairly broad, but after that it contracts. We kept to the northern bank of the river, having close on our right the steep, shorn edge of the gravelly scree, often a vertical wall as much as i o m. high. In the face of the escarpment the various layers of gravel-and-shingle, sand, and fluvial mud were very distinct. One of these screes is especially big, being common to several transverse glens which converge upon it from different directions. Here again extensive sheets of ice had formed, obscuring the river, and below them the stream was divided into two or more arms. The volume may have amounted to about 4 cub.m. Occasionally in the deep places the velocity was only slight; it was these dark eddies that the fish preferred. Wild-duck occurred in several places, and we saw wild sheep and hares. During the last part of the stage the river was quite free from ice, not even the banks being fringed. In places the surface consisted of powdery dust, and on the right or northern bank a path was distinctly visible, being trodden one and sometimes two feet deep into the soft surface, while the grass beside the track was eaten off down to the roots. The bushes
lied in, Tourney in Central Asia. IV. 34
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