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Rh is black, although fair and even red hair is often to be found amongst them. They have flowing beards, and their brown or blue eyes are close set in the head. The nose is well shaped and slightly arched, the face oval, the frame vigorous, and they are excellent horse- men and pedestrians, being of very active habits, and capable of enduring severe fatigue. Their language is a Persian dialect, which led to their being classed among the Tajiks, and their social habits are those of a contented and fairly prosperous community of agri- culturists. The village assembly decides all matters of dispute, but there are degrees of station amongst them which are unknown in the more primitive regions lying to the south. Each village has a mayor or Aksakal — White-beard — who is as a rule the oldest man in that village. The greater number of the Graltchas are monogamists, but some of the more pros- perous have two wives. The Galtchas say that their name signifies "The hungry raven which repairs to the mountains to find means of subsistence." M. de Ujfalvy returned to Samarcand after this interesting tour in the Zarafshan Yalley.

But his later travels in Kuldja are still more important. From Samarcand he went to Khodjent, Margilan, Andijan, Osh, and Houlsha, or Grulsha, at the northern entrance to the Terek pass ; and after a brief tour in the direction of the Pamir he went on to Kuldja. In this secluded quarter of the dominions of Russia M. de Ujfalvy found a temperate climate, not to be met with elsewhere in Central Asia in the same latitude. The winter, never very severe, lasts only for