had since been spreading up the valley. Enormous masses of rock and detritus had been pushed by the impetus of the landslips up the steep spur flanking the mouth of the Shedau valley. The gigantic dam thus formed seemed even then, four years after the great landslide, to rise some 1200 feet above the level of the new lake. Some portion of the uppermost slopes on the scarred mountain-side above the barrage seemed still on the move, and stone avalanches descending from it accounted for the clouds of dust which are seen in the photograph (Fig. 135).
At the foot of the above spur I found a small Russian party under Professor J. Preobrazhenski just arrived from the side of the Alichur Pamir for a survey of the great barrage. The Russian scientists had arrived by skin raft from the southern extension of the lake, which they reached across the Langar pass, the same I wished to make for. They gave me a very kindly welcome, but were confident that my intended passage along the precipitous slopes above that inlet would prove impracticable. As, however, the plucky Roshani headmen with us were prepared to make the attempt, the spur was ascended to a height of about 13,200 feet and camp pitched near a small spring.
When next morning a steep descent had brought us down to the dazzling green waters of the Yerkh inlet, I realized the difficulties of further progress along the precipitous rock slopes thrown down by the earthquake and across dangerous debris shoots, in many places still liable to move. Fortunately our Roshanis were all excellent crags-men, as befits people bred in such mountains as theirs, and quite experts in building rafaks or ledges of brushwood and stones along otherwise impassable precipices. It was fully
IIIF Color HighRes
