CHAPTER VIII
TO THE SOURCE OF THE OXUS
THERE could be no doubt about our now nearing the Pamirs when, after a cold night with the thermometer sinking to a minimum of 25 degrees below freezing-point, we started across stony and partly marshy ground for the low saddle known as Dasht-i-Mirza Murad. By crossing it the route cuts off a southern bend of the now much broadened Oxus Valley. A ten miles' ride over alluvial plateaus still retaining snow in great patches brought us to a low spur from which I first sighted north-eastwards the rolling downs of the Little Pamir. In the clear air of this high elevation our day's goal, the Kirghiz camp at Bozaigumbaz, seemed quite close. There the head-waters of the Ab-i-Panja meet the stream coming from Lake Chakmaktin on the Little Pamir. In the distance far away to the east I rejoiced to greet again the snowy peaks guarding the approach to the Wakhjir Pass and the source of the Oxus.
But at this point of my return to the ` Roof of the World ' there was an archaeological object to claim my attention. The fairly well preserved little structure of which I had heard before is known as Karwan-balasi, from the local tradition which believes it to have been built as a tomb for a merchant's son who had died here in old times. The ruin shows a small cella, about nine by ten feet outside in ground plan, solidly built of flat slabs set in mortar and at a height of about twelve feet surmounted by a now broken dome (Fig. 5). The orientation of the cella towards the south-west, i.e. the direction of Mecca, with a doorway from the side opposite, makes it practically certain that it was erected in Muhammadan times. All
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