National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

THE REGION OF CHICHEKLIK.

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snow-covered range. At the sides of the upper Ï ar-óashi valley only slopes falling to the north, N. W. and N. E. had snow patches. In front of us we now also saw a mighty snowy range, obviously the southern part of the Mus-tagh-ata massif. In our neighbourhood everything was detritus; the floor of the valley is partly gravel, partly grass.

Finally the Tar-óashi valley opens out into the wide round basin of the

Chicheklik Lakes. This arena is on all sides surrounded by partly snow-covered mountains. To our right, or north, is Yangi-davan, from which comes down the

Yam-bulak road, which is used when the Tengi-tar is impracticable. In the midst

of the basin is a little lake, 500 m. in length, called Chicheklik-kul; here the altitudeis 4,458 m. Just east of it is a threshold perhaps some 20 or 3o m. above the lake,

being the water-parting between it and the uppermost Tar-óashi valley. This threshold was called Chicheklik-åavan by my guides. The whole region is called Chicheklik,

or, according to the Kirgiz pronounciation, Chichekli.

From the little lake an effluent goes to a still smaller lake close by and continues to the south from it, reaching the Shinde River under the name of Chicheklik-su. Both the brook and the lakes have crystal-clear water, which gathers in the upper lake from the surrounding hills. The lakes are at their largest in spring. In the winter they are covered with ice. In the beginning and middle of July five Tajik families with 2,000 sheep wander to the basin, passing three months there or until the first snow comes. West of the Kok-moinak Passes we met a yak caravan on its road thither. The snow remains six months and has a thickness of half a meter, 2 or 3 garech as the Kirgiz say, one garech being the distance between the tip

kak.   of the little finger and the tip of the thumb of an outspread hand. The winter is

is F'   cold; burans or snow-storms are common, both from west and east. There is not

I She   much rain. A basin of this form is called a lus-yeilak or »even summer grazing».

IF II   Twenty tents were said to be pitched along the Chicheklik-su on its course down

to the Spinde. One gets the impression that the Chicheklik basin has once been

Ri   a »Firnmulde» filled with névés sending out glaciers to the south and east. The
Tar-óashi valley with its soft, rounded forms may easily have been the bed of a glacier. Its floor consists of very fine material, and at the little moinak there were blocks and débris which may have belonged to an end moraine. I found no strie,

Ai,1   but hard rock was not easy to reach.

Having left the small lakes and crossed the Chicheklik-su where the altitude

chl   was 4,420 m., we gradually ascended the Kichik-kok-moinak (also pronounced kith).
Everything is soft material and gravel of chiefly gneiss. The rounded heights are

10°   grass-covered. To the east we have the snowy range of Kug-usu. We have a fine
view of the lake basin from the pass. From the little trough-shaped depression

t °   between Kichik- and Kata-kok-moinak several rills join in a brook running down