long day's ride, passing by several small lakes in the hollows of the moraines of ancient glaciers, and at night we halted just at
the point where the Alichur River enters the Yeshil-kul. Our baggage, including our bedding and cooking things, was brought on more slowly, and we spent the night cold and hungry in a yurt, which had been sent on for us, but we were delighted the next morning to find the stone. It was the broken remains of a large tablet mounted on a pedestal, and placed about a hundred feet or more above the river, on its right bank, a few hundred yards before it flowed into the lake. The inscription was in Chinese, Manchu, and Turki, and evidently referred to the expulsion of the Khojas in 1759, and the pursuit of them by the Chinese to the Badakhshan frontier. Above this ancient monument, on the left bank, was a ruined Chinese fort, built many years before.
The place is of historic interest, as it is the scene of the conflict between the Russians and the Afghans in 1892. An account of this has been given by Lord Dunmore, who visited the spot only a few weeks after the event, and found the dead bodies of the Afghans lying there. The Afghans appear to have sent a small outpost of about fifteen men to this place. A Russian party, under Colonel Yonoff, making its annual promenade of the Pamirs, came up to them, fired on them, and killed every single man.
After taking a rubbing of the inscription on the monument, which has, by the way, been since removed by the Russians and placed in the museum at Tashkent, we rode back to Buzilla Jai, and the following day retraced our steps up the Alichur Pamir. I do not think there is anything special to record about this Pamir. It is of exactly the same description as all the rest. The principal routes leading to it are : (I) that leading right along it from the valley of the Aksu River to Shignan ; (2) that from Sarez on the west by the Marjunai Pass, a somewhat difficult one, which has, however, repeatedly been
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