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0271 Across Asia : vol.1
Across Asia : vol.1 / Page 271 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000221
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RECORDS OF THE JOURNEY

vehicles. The ground is good and the ascent very gradual until you reach Aq Bulaq dawan. From this slight pass a wide view is revealed of the green hills intersected by many valleys. The descent, too, is easy. The road very soon enters a valley, Shâr Bulaq, along the bottom of which the river, from which it takes its name, winds until it runs into a small fen overgrown with reeds. The road leads along one side of the valley, but now runs along the bottom for several miles until it debouches into the valley of the Kunges. A water-channel flows from the fen, both its banks being boggy and covered with reeds for long distances. The water is salt, hence the name Shâr Bulaq. The ground along the road, however, is firm.

About 4 miles below the fen, about 2/3 of a mile NW of the road, there is an upright stone, about i m high and 0.30 m broad, standing in a slight cauldron-shaped hollow. On the stone a woman's face has been carved fairly well. It is different in form from those I have seen hitherto and the work is incomparably better. The features are rather classical, the hair is reproduced to a certain extent and an attempt has been made to give a curve to the sides of the head and make the ears protrude and not merely indicate them on the front of the stone. Some pieces of the upper part of the stone are broken off and it is deeply embedded, inclined slightly forward and facing SE.

At the place, where the hollow debouches into the valley of the Kunges, the road turns E, parallel to the hills that we had crossed. The ground is good, but the grass infinitely worse than on the hills or in the smaller valleys. Far to the N a line of yurts is visible, with frequent intervals, indicating the course of the Zanma or Tchakpä as the Kirghiz call it. The Kunges flows beyond it, almost in a parallel direction, and still further N the valley is bounded by a huge dark mass of mountains. We passed the Tchegir Bulaq mazar at the mouth of the gorge of the same name, the site of many Kirghiz yurts. Further on, the surface of the ground is uneven, broken into small mounds, on a triangular, wedge-shaped eminence at the mouth of a small gorge. It looks rather like an old mazar or dwelling place. Next to it are some low, though not small, mounds of earth, one of which, 30-40 paces square, specially attracted my attention. Just beyond we reached our camping place next to an extensive and fine mazar at the mouth of the Talde Bulaq gorge.

A couple of hours' ride over a level plain, crossed only by one or two small streams, June 12th.

brought us to the bank of the river Tchakpä as the Kirghiz call it or Zanma in the language Camp at

of the Kalmuks. The ford is at a place, where it flows in three arms, the width of which is Tell gara su.

28, 28 and 21 feet. The current is 3 i /3 m per second, the depth up to a horse's belly and

the bottom firm. The bed slopes gradually towards the middle. It did not take more

than I I /2 to 2 minutes to cross all the three arms. The river seems to flow from a cleft

in the mountains on the right in a direction 278° — > 85°. Unlike most of the tributaries

of the Tekes, it has not cut a deep bed, but flows almost on a level with the ground in

a very flat bed. The road continues in an E direction. On the right is the Narat mountain range,

known by different names, its most outlying spurs running along the road at a distance

of a mile to t z /3 mile. On the left lies the plain in which the Tekes flows, hidden from

our sight, and ending in the enormous mountain range between the Kunges and the Kash.

This, too, is known by a number of different names. Shortly before our camp to-day it

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