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0547 Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.4
Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.4 / Page 547 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000216
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FROM LEH TO THE KA1. A—KORUM,

391

the glacier-arm and an opposing precipitous cliff. If this passage were stopped up, we should be obliged to make a three days' detour. When we reached Schejok men would have to be sent on in advance to find out which would be the better route to take. The terms that our Ladakis demanded were one rupee per day for each horse and 6 annas for each yak. During the summer these prices are considerably lower.

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Fig. 314. LOOKING UP THE TANKS[ VALLEY FROM DRUGUB.

April I I th. The route from Drugub to Schejok leads through the lower part of the glen in which Drugub and Tanksi are situated. On the English map the name Durgul is evidently the same as Drugub, although pronounced differently by differents informants. It is a wild and picturesque road: the river has energetically eaten its way down vertically or very steeply through the granite, making a deep narrow, winding gorge, fenced in by bare, rugged cliffs, bizarre yet impressive in character. The bottom of the glen is choked with gravel and stones of all sizes, which materially impeded our advance. The only vegetation was some solitary, ragged bushes, and these were few and far between. There was no grazing, for there simply is no room for it, the glen nowhere widening out. Throughout the glen there is nothing but stone, stone, flung about in picturesque confusion, just as the most capricious fancy would seem to have suggested. Some idea of its curious and inhospitable nature may be obtained from the accompanying photographs (see figs. 314-317, 3 20).

At first the glen forms a big S-shaped bend, in which the road keeps exclusively to the left bank of the stream; but after that we crossed the brook six times. This was rather trying for our large company of men on foot; when the water pressed upon them, they grew unsteady and began to slip; but they are accustomed to balancing themselves on the rounded stones in the beds of the streams. All the way down this bed is full of water-worn, rounded stones. The places at which the road crosses over the stream are where the latter presses close in to