Indian Trigonometrical Survey. The great Murtagh, which had again and again during our previous climbs appeared before us in unmistakable majesty, could alone not suffice for this purpose ; and other triangulated peaks on the main watershed we had been unable to recognise with any certainty as long as we were comparatively near to the unbroken screen of icy ridges.
It was thus with a feeling of eager expectation that I pushed upwards. The long-stretched back of the mountain forming the Ulughat-Dawan had become visible when the slope changed into a series of less steep shoulders. But a projecting spur shut off the view to the south and kept me in suspense. An hour ahead of my people and followed only by Ram Singh, I gained at last a small saddle in the main ridge. By ascending a broad knoll to the south I should soon learn whether my hope was to be fulfilled. So we left the ponies and hurried up. It was a moment of intense joy when, arrived at the top, I beheld the grand panorama that suddenly revealed itself. The whole of the mountain-world traversed during the last three weeks lay before me, and beyond it a semicircle of great snowy peaks which had been hidden hitherto by nearer ranges. Far beyond Murtagh we could see glittering ranges in the direction of the main Yurung-kash source. The glaciers we had passed at the head of the valleys between Issik-bulak and Nissa were now seen to be surmounted by ice-peaks of the most varied shapes, domes, pyramids, and bold steeple-like cones. To the west there rose a grand chain of snowy mountains encircling the head waters of the Kara-kash river. No European eye had ever seen them from the south. Towards the north only a narrow belt of eroded rocky ridges separated us from the great desert plain and its fringe, the Khotan oasis.
The sky was brilliantly clear all around, but over the plains there hung the ever-present haze of dust. It covered and effaced with its tinge of brownish-yellow alike the sand of the
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