IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Overland to India : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
96 OVERLAND TO INDIA
CHAP.
heat, then, the day brings a suggestion of spring, and we are glad that the days of summer are postponed for a while.
The hunter is far on ahead, and we wonder whether he will unexpectedly turn up with a wild ass under his arm, but he has bad luck and loses his io tuman. We are now quite up to Kuh-i-ghasemi, and at its foot our leader suddenly turns off to the south-east and leads the caravan up among a confusion of detestable hillocks with deep
ravines between, but then again the direction becomes s
southerly, when we reach a furrow sloping this way. All this manoeuvre seemed to me suspicious, so I called
to the Seid, the owner of the hired camels, and inquired 1
particulars. He then began to poke about among the
hillocks as if he were seeking a lost track, and when he 1
came back he assured me that it was all right and that ;t
our course would soon turn south again. It was useless
to express the least doubt in face of such confidence, and we followed the man as he strode on southwards.
The train moves on extremely slowly, and the ground becomes bad, lumpy, and uneven among the hills, ravines, and terraces, and when the wind at mid-day rises to a gale, the air is compressed in the narrow gullies so that the heavy camels stagger as they advance. To the right
rises the main crest of the range, surrounded by a con- 11
fusion of tangled limestone hills, and it is impossible to acquire a clear notion of their topography. On either side of the large dale we follow, the configuration is much more distinct, an innumerable quantity of low saddles and ridges parallel to our track. The rock, a coarse-grained light red sandstone, dips at an angle of 20° to the west, and hence arise these ridges with the strata cropping out at the top. They are of small height, not exceeding 13 feet, and many barely a foot high. They are conspicuous as a black band on the otherwise grey ground, and when we march southwards we follow the intervals between them. In short, the country is a series of ridges and banks, steep, often vertical, on the east, and
with a gentle fall to the west ; the interval, or the breadth i
of the dale, is about 3o feet, often less. At some places
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