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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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range of the Pamirs, which stood before us like a wall. We
headed straight towards that glorious mountain, the Mustagh-
ata, which rose twenty-one thousand feet above the plains on
which we stood, and, three days' march from Kashgar, we
entered the Gez defile, the road up which was rough and diffi-
cult and almost impractical for ponies. When the river, which
runs through the defile, is low, ponies can be led up the bed ;
but now, in the summer-time, when it is in full flood, they
have to be taken two and three thousand feet higher up, over a
spur, then down again for a mile or two, along the valley
bottom again, then once more over a hill, and so on for the
whole way up. On the hillside there was seldom any path, and
the ponies had to scramble about amongst the rocks and
boulders, and up and down places not much less steep than
the roof of a house. But, once through this defile, we found
ourselves on an open plain, surrounded on all sides by
mountains, but itself quite flat. To the left, as we emerged
from the defile, was a large lake. This was not marked on
any of my maps, though the district has been well surveyed,
and I was further puzzled to see quantities of sand-drift cover-
ing the lower parts of the low, rounded mountains on the
opposite bank. As the water of the lake came right up to the
mountain-side, it was difficult to see where the sand could
come from ; but I found that the lake was only a few feet deep,
and when the melting of the snows has finished, it dwindles
to a mere marsh, exposing, at the same time, large deposits of
sand, which the wind blows on to the mountain-sides. This
lake was an extension of the Balun-kul.
The scenery now changed completely. Up the course of
the Gez River, the valleys had all been deep and narrow, with
precipitous sides, and at the head of the defile, on the left-hand
side, the great mountain mass of the Mustagh-ata looked as if
it had but just been rudely thrust upward, and the shattered
sides of the mountain were exposed fresh from the upheaval.
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