National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

The descent was gentle at first, with low cliffs on either side and the scrub-covered ground Descent in
between them fairly open. Some mountain sheep were sighted and also big coveys of partridges. But deep-cut
at a distance of about a mile the valley bottom turned into a deep-cut gorge, with steep rock walls gorge.
rising hundreds of feet on either side. The cliffs consisted of granite striking WNW.–ESE. with an
almost vertical dip. The rock walls and the narrow bottom were quite bare of vegetation, except at
one point about four miles from the watershed where a bed of reeds was found at the mouth of a side
gully (Fig. 295). The gorge wound more and more as it descended and the rock coulisses seemed often
to close in completely. Accordingly when dusk obliged us to halt, in the narrow bottom of the gorge,
I was not free from anxiety lest it might, perhaps, end in a couloir impracticable for laden camels.
No cairns of the Chinese sort to mark a route had been noticed anywhere along the day's march.
But the men drew hope from the sight here and there of little stone heaps blocking turns into wrong
gullies after the fashion prevailing in Turkestān. It meant for them a return from the region of the
heathen 'Khitai'. The gorge all the way down recalled scenery such as I had seen near Ara-tam
at the southern foot of the Karlik-tāgh and between the depression of Turfān and the Kara-shahr
valley. There could be no doubt that we were in mountains belonging to the T'ien-shan system.

The north-eastern trend that the gorge had been taking had caused some uneasiness both to Escape
Lāl Singh and myself ; for it seemed likely to take us farther away from the assumed position of from
Baī, where alone we could now hope to find water. The disappearance, moreover, of all traces of gloomy
a track for some distance back raised doubts whether the exit from this gloomy gorge, as far as gorge.
our camels were concerned, might not lie through some gully on either side. However, when
we had continued our march on the morning of September 26th for about two and a half miles,
relief came at last. Ismail, one of my Yārkandī followers, stimulated to unwonted initiative by
the common anxiety, had climbed the cliffs to the west of the gorge and was heard thence shouting
excitedly. On rejoining he reported that he had seen a wide unbroken Sai beyond the rugged
spur above us and far away in the distance a dark spot which he took for trees and houses. As we
moved down, the flanking spur on the left soon grew less rugged, and at one point a gully was
found which allowed the ponies carrying my litter to gain the crest.

There a vast view unfolded itself before us. To the west and west-north-west the snowy peaks of View along
the Karlik-tāgh far away rose in perfect clearness, the northern slope of the range down to about N. slopes of
9,000 feet powdered with what obviously was fresh snow from a recent storm. A confused mass Karlik-tāgh.
of black spurs was seen descending from them towards a bare plateau ; this was cut through by
a valley evidently containing the stream that carries water to the outlying settlements of Adak and
Nōm. Beyond this plateau to the north-west rose another and still more distant snowy range—the
mountains overlooking Barkul. Behind us to the south-west and south barren foot-hills (Fig. 286)
masked the height of the eastern continuation of the Karlik-tāgh. Almost due north our binoculars
showed a dark patch of cultivation which was evidently Baī, the goal towards which we had been
steering. Deceptive as I knew the bare Sai to be that stretched unbroken towards it, it was clear
that Baī lay much lower than where we stood (4,450 feet above sea-level by aneroid), though the
latest map in my hands placed it at 6,000 feet. Impressive in the uniformity of its vast expanse
was the view to the north-east. There one huge desert valley of gravel seemed to stretch away
to the foot of misty hill chains, fading away into Mongolia and clearly forming part of the Altai.
I could scarcely have gained elsewhere an impression more comprehensive of the varied character
of the ground comprised in the great region north of the T'ien-shan for which the name of Dzungaria
offers itself as a convenient designation.

An easy descent of eleven miles over the gentle Sai of bare gravel brought us to the first vegeta- Arrival at
tion on a clayey steppe dotted with tiny tamarisk-cones. The sand lay all heaped up behind them Baī.