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the western frontiers of the country from Kâkshil on the north, round by Tirik Dawn and Taghârma, to Karâkash on the south. Its continuity is interrupted in the south-west by the Sirigh Kû1 division above described, but for the rest its most notable peculiarity is the utter absence, other than military outposts, of fixed habitation or cultivation. Yet it has a permanent population which, within the limits of its several divisions, regularly migrates from the low to the high lands according to the seasons, and on each roams as the necessities of its requirements may dictate. And this periodical movement from one region to the other is attended by a noteworthy, though temporary, transfer of allegiance from one ruler to another, except in the southern portion of the division which is wholly within the Amir's limits.
This anomalous arrangement is the result of the existing distribution of this natural home of the Kirghiz between three different rulers—the Russians, the Khan of Khokand, and the Amir of Kâshghar. Their respective shares in this partitioned territory are not very accurately defined, but this much appears to be certain that the summer and winter quarters of certain of the nomad camps are in the territories of different rulers. Thus the Kirghiz of Kikshâl, which is Kâshghar territory, in summer pasture on the upper Narin and Atbishf beyond Châdir Kol, which is Russian territory, and are there joined by the nomads of Akta.gh, which is the name of that part of the Alitigh range between Châdir Kol and Tirik Dawàn ; now the camps in the southern valleys of Aktaa.gh are Kâshghar subjects right up to the sources of the Tuman river on which the capital stands, whilst those in the northern valleys draining to Uzkand are Khokand subjects ; and both in summer pasture on Russian territory.
Similarly the Kirghiz of Karitigh, the range extending from the Tirik Dawin to Tigharma, who are all Kâshghar subjects, roam the plateaux of Aliy and Kizil Art with the Kirghiz of Osh and Andijin, who are Khokand subjects, as their common summer pastures; though the territory belongs to Kâshghar, and has done so since its first annexation, together with Sârigh Kû1, by Mirza Abibakar at the period of the Uzbak invasion about the end of the fifteenth century, as is recorded in the Tarikki Raüiidi. The author of that book states that Abibakar conquered all this hill region up to Sârigh Chopin or Tangi Wakhin and annexed it to the diwan or " Civil jurisdiction" of Kâshghar, but left the low valleys of Badakshin on the west to the Uzbak invaders.
In our maps this elevated tableland is called " Pimir steppe," but it is not known specifically by this name to the Kirghiz, who are its only frequenters. So far as I can judge from the descriptions given to me by several Kirghiz whom I have questioned on the subject the general configuration 'of the country would seem to resemble that of the Khurisin range of tablelands extending from Mashhad to Mekrân, or the tablelands of Belochistin from Khozdir to Shàl, both of which I have seen. This Pimir steppe (which in this account, though the name is not known to the Kirghiz, I have designated Bolortigh, as that is the name by which the region is spoken of in the Târikki Rashidi) bears some noteworthy points of topographical resemblance to the Khurisin range. Both are cross . ranges running north and south to connect parallel mountain systems whose main direction is east and west, and both separate wide plains or river basins. Thus the Khurisin tablelands connect the Album range with that of Mushti in Belochistin, and separates the hydrogràphic basin of Sistân from the corresponding basin in the desert of Yezd and Kirmin. So the tablelands of Bolor connect the Alitigh range with that of Himalaya, and separate the basin of the Trim from that of the Oxus.
These latter, too, from the descriptions I have heard, would seem to resemble the Khurisin highlands in their general features of arrangement. Thus they are characterized as consisting of a number of subordinate ranges which run parallel to each other, and enclose
s between them those open spreads of pasture plateaux, here called Pimir and in Khurisin eTulaga or Jilga. These drain according to the direction of the hills and the lie of the land either to the east or to the west, by insignificant streams which coalesce and form considerable rivers only after they have passed beyond the plateaux. In one respect the pc'mir and the jilga differ ; the former owing to the prohibitory nature of the climate and altitude have no fixed habitations whatever, whereas the latter, not as a rule, but only where climate and elevation -admit, have such permanent abodes as villages, gardens and fields. Many of these plateaux,
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