Page:From Kulja, across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).djvu/75

56 time is fifty to seventy feet; depth ten to fourteen, and even more in places. Less than ten versts to the south of the Koncheh-daria, the Inchikeh-daria lay across our road; the latter river after a short course to the east loses itself in salt-marshes, perhaps uniting with the Koncheh at high water. After many inquiries we ascertained the Inchikeh to be an arm of the Ugen-daria, which falls into the Tarim close by, after rising in the Muzart and flowing past the towns of Bai and Sairam. In the meridian of the town of Bugur an arm separates from the Ugen-daria, uniting with the Tarim on the right, and a little fiirther down the Inchikeh-daria branches off to the left.

We struck the Tarim at the point where it is joined by the Ugen-daria with a stream 56 to 70 feet wide. The Tarim itself is here a considerable river from 350 to 400 feet wide, with a depth of not less than twenty feet. Its water is clear and stream very rapid. The river flows in one channel, and at this point reaches its furthest northing; hence it continues in a south-easterly course, then almost due south and before finally emptying into Lob-nor debouches in Lake Kara-buran. The natives rarely make use of the name Tarim in speaking of this river, which is more generally known as the Yarkand-Tarim or Yarkand-daria, after its principal feeder the river of Yarkand. The name Tarim, as we were told, is derived from "tara," i. e. field, owing to the circumstance