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

stream for about five miles more to Tárbáshi, passing through a narrow and dangerous
defile. The road was execrable, and we experienced great difficulty and delay in getting
our baggage through. This defile would be quite impassable for field-guns, and a few deter-
mined men might in places defend it against an army. The road often runs along the
bed of the stream, which contains large boulders and deep holes of water. In the winter
it is probably easier to traverse, but at the time of our passage we had the double difficulties
of ice and water to contend with. As far as I could learn the river is never entirely frozen
over, on account of the numerous hot springs which issue from the limestone rocks forming its
side walls. One of these had a temperature of 125°, and the vegetation in its immediate
neighbourhood was much in advance of that lower down the stream, and showed signs of ap-
proaching spring. In the summer this road is said to be rendered quite impassable by the
floods from melting snow; the alternative route lies up the Yámbulák River.

On the eighth day our road lay alongside the Tangitár stream, which, from Tárbáshi,
ascends a gentle slope, bounded on both sides by undulating snow covered hills. The valley
rises very gradually for about nine miles, up to an almost imperceptible water-shed (14,480 feet
high), by which we reached the Chichiklik plateau, a broad elevated valley whose drainage
passes south, through a somewhat narrow defile, to the Táshkurghán river. On the plateau
close to the water-shed were two small frozen lakes. The summer road before alluded to
which goes up the Yambulák stream enters the Chichiklik plain by the Yámbulák Pass
about four miles to the north of where we crossed the water-shed. On the opposite side
of the valley, which was between four and five miles wide, in a south-west direction
from where we entered it, is the Pass of Kok Mainak, on high spur running down
from the Kizilart mountains. By this pass is the shortest road to Táshkurghán, but on
our outward journey it was so deep in snow that we were obliged to take the alternative
route down the Shindí valley. It is the Kok Mainak Pass that is called "Chichiklik" by the
"Mirza," "Fyz Bux," and other travellers, but the correct name as given by the Kirghiz who
lived in the neighbourhood is, I believe, as I have given it. Our road lay down the stream.
After the first two or three miles, where the slope was very easy, the valley narrowed, and the
road became exceedingly steep and difficult, passing for several miles through a succession of
rocks and boulders. At 10 miles below below the lakes we came to our camp at Balghun, shortly
before reaching which the valley had opened considerably although surrounded on both sides by
lofty mountains.

The following day (29th), we descended four miles to the junction of the Shindí with the
Táshkurghán (or Sarikol or Taghdumbash) River,* just above the Sarikoli village of Shindí, in-
habited by Tajiks, and containing about 15 houses, situated in a small well cultivated valley, about
two miles long by one broad. Our road now lay up the Sarikol river, but I descended it for
about four miles to fix the direction in which it flowed away (south-east by east)† ; returning
to the junction I crossed the main stream with some difficulty owing to the rapidity of
the current, and continued along its right bank, where the road passes through a very wild
defile of crystalline rocks, forming almost perpendicular banks about 2,000 feet in height,
through which the river winds its way with a most tortuous course. At about 10 miles above
the junction we emerged on the north-east corner of the Táshkurghan or Sarikol plain.
The road by which we travelled is only open in winter, as in summer the large mass of water
in the Sarikol River makes it impassable. The route by the Yámbulák and Kok Mainak
Passes is then used.

On entering the Sarikol valley we strike the junction of the Tagharma stream with
the main river. The former comes from the plain of the same name on the north-west, and
has been incorrectly described by a former traveller as the main source of the Sarikol River.
When we saw it there was but little water coming down (temperature 38°), although in
summer there is considerably more, but the small size of the water-course, and the evidence of