Raskam, and that the Kanjuts were to be allowed to settle there and cultivate the ground. Another interesting fact communicated to me was that, so recently as the preceding summer, the land round our bivouac had been cultivated by Yul Bash. This information was obtained by Mohammed Joo from a yak-driver boy. This lad was not a Tajik but a native of Kulan Urgi, and, as he was evidently disposed to give information, I instructed Mohammed Joo to entrust my riding yak to his care.
We were in no hurry to start in the morning, as we knew we were only a few miles from the Yarkand River, and thus the yaks had ample time for a full feed. I set out before the rest of the company, and when Mohammed Joo and the boy overtook me I began to question the latter. He stated that Yul Bash was intimately acquainted with the whole of this region, and he described to me an easier route to Pilipert than that by which we had travelled from that place. This new route lay up the side-valley we had seen near our last bivouac ; it presented no difficulty on account of jungle, or the absence of water or of fuel, and if we travelled by this route four days would be sufficient for the return journey.
I had hoped to find the lower part of the Misgan valley fairly easy, but in this I was disappointed. In many places the jungle was very dense, and when the baggage reached the camp on the right bank of the Yarkand River, about a mile below the -Misgan valley, it had a sorry
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