FROM LADAK TO EAST TURKESTAN.
ever shrunk a little, partly in consequence of a fresh change in the weather : the sky was again clouded and at times a little fine snow fell.
In the outlet of the Kilian glen, up which you get an extensive view of the mountainous background, stands the tiny fort of Abu Bekr crowning a small knoll. An expansion of the glen, where bushes were growing, is called Pilat-aghatsch. Occasionally there was a little wretched grazing, on which goats were feeding, and every now and again we came across a yurt or a hut, around which the fields were being ploughed for the spring sowing. The glens which join the main glen, now on the one side, now on the other, were getting bigger and bigger, and not seldom contained running brooks. At the masar of Er Naser we halted, at an altitude of 3280 m. The place is also called Ali Näsär.
On the 2nd May we had to ascend again to another pass, and went north up the glen of Bos-tschat, which, though it winds a good deal, makes no big bend to cause a loss of time. All the same the road was heavy, the glen being deep, narrow, and broken, and its bottom thickly filled with gravel and stones, which made riding difficult. The rocky walls rise on both sides to a giddy height, and are often nearly perpendicular. Here again the scenery is in a high degree grand and impressive. Every now and again we caught a glimpse, up this or the other side-glen, of the main range in the background, with its glittering snow-fields. In three places the bottom of the glen is so narrow and deep, that we were forced to ride
Fig. 344. STONE HUT AT BOS-TSCHAT.
IIIF Color HighRes
