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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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| 0385 |
The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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But beyond the defile, looking toward the Pamirs, the mountains
were all rounded, the main valleys were flat open plains, and
even the side valleys were wide and shallow. No trees grew
anywhere. The mountain-sides were brown, and only covered
with coarse wormwood, but the valley bottom had a luxuriant
growth of grass, which at this time of year was very rich and
succulent.
At Lake Bulun-kul, Lieutenant Davison parted from me, and
travelled westward to the Alichur Pamir, by the Ak-berdi Pass,
which he was, I believe, the first European to cross. It is an
easy one, as most of the passes on the Pamirs are, and leads
down to the Rang-kul. Meanwhile, I travelled on to the Little
Kara-kul, a lake with absolutely unique surroundings. No
other lake in the world can boast of two peaks of over twenty-
five thousand feet each, rising from its very shores. Here, on
the edge of the Roof of the World, was this lovely sheet of clear
blue water, with its grassy banks, and the two great mountains
standing like two sentinels above its shores. These mountain
peaks are the Mustagh-ata and another, which Mr. Ney Elias,
who discovered it, named Mount Dufferin. They rise not as
rugged pinnacles, but in huge masses, and so gradually and
evenly that the ascent seems perfectly easy, and entices travellers
to scale the icy summits, and from these to look out over
the Roof of the World, far away to the Himalayas, and round
over the vast plains of Turkestan to the Celestial Mountains,
which divide Russia from China. No other mountain that I
have seen seems easier of access, and from no other could such
an extended view be obtained ; Russia, India, and China, each
presses round its base.
Near the Kara-kul there were several encampments of
Kirghiz, with their numerous flocks feeding on the rich
pasturage round the lake. Thence I crossed by the easy
Ulugh Rabat Pass into the wide Tagarma plain, and passed on
to Tashkurgan, which I now visited for the third time. After
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