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| 0541 |
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 |
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few inches wide. Glad enough I felt that it was possible for
a few of us to avoid some of the worst of these *awrinz* by
taking to a small goat-skin raft where the absence of danger-
ous cataracts allowed of its employment (Fig. 143). Guided
from behind by dexterous swimmers it let us glide down the
tossing river in scenery of impressive wildness. Boldly ser-
rated snowy peaks showed again and again above the high
frowning rock-walls which, as we rapidly passed them, ever
seemed to close in upon us like the jaws of an underworld.
Meanwhile the baggage was being carried in safety by sure-
footed Roshanis past sheer precipices; seen from the river
the men looked like big spiders.
The hamlets nestling here and there at the mouth of
ravines and half-hidden amidst fine fruit trees relieved in
pleasant contrast the uniform grimness of these forbidding
defiles. The dwellings at the places where we broke our
journey looked from outside unpretending rubble-built
hovels. But in the interior, smoke-begrimed as it was, there
could be seen arrangements indicative of rude comfort and
interesting as obviously derived from antiquity. Thus the
living-hall, in its ground plan and in the arrangement of
the skylight ceiling and sitting platforms, invariably showed
the closest resemblance to the internal architecture of resi-
dences excavated at ancient sites in the Taklamakan and
of others still occupied by the living in Hindukush valleys
to the south. This small corner of Asia, in its alpine seclusion,
seemed indeed as if untouched by the change of ages. I felt
inclined to wonder whether it could have presented a very
different picture to some Bactrian Greek or Indo-Scythian
visitor in the last centuries before Christ.
The same impression was conveyed by the physical
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571
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578
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