Page:Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol 2.djvu/38

6 the slopes were only speckled at that limit. The descent was quaggy and tedious, but there was not much of it, and villages appeared at a general level of 10,500 feet. The second pass was nearly 1 2,000 feet, the adjoining villages hampered by the snow projected their grey turrets through the uniform field of whiteness. The third pass was inaccessible by horses*, and we descended by the hollow of a gorge into a dell that drained off the waters towards Kiinduz and the Oxus. When I beheld the opposite course of the streams, I began to ask, is this the only range that separates Khorasan from Turkistan, and the valley of the Oxus ; and when soon after I found our level to be close upon 5000 feet, I conceived that other and loftier ridges crossed our route ; but a few more days, and the 13th from Kabul, brought us upon the plains of Tartary, for that name is specifically apposite in the region of Asia, adjoining Bokhara and Samarkhand. My understanding was now enlightened, for T had but vague and ill- defined ideas of the geographical nature of this tract, but in one respect I was not wrong — I never Delieved there could be any flat expanse, similar to the plains of India : and the fact is so, and could not have been otherwise ; and long after we had entered the open country, and crossed the Oxus, a range of snowy mountains on our right-hand (our face being then towards Bokhara), confirmed my conjectures. We were both much surprised at such a sight, particularly as it was of so transitory a nature as nearly to elude our comprehension : it was almost sunset, and the outline, just lighted up, gleamed for a few minutes, and faded into a dim mass. The spectacle was full of grandeur, and left us wondering ; for we never saw another trace of the range, or its desolate snows.

" The map gives us very imperfect notions, I should say none at all, on the subject ; for the mountains, marked there as snowy, could not have been in sight, and those that seem to indicate their position, are not only black, but occupy a very limited space. Now, heights bearing perennial snow, and far exceeding that marginal boundary, do not often start up abruptly in patches or isolated ridges from a flat expanse of plain ; as the routes to Yarkund cross them free of snow at this season of the year, they may not be so elevated as they appear. When thus in the open plains of Turkistan, the thought (which had often amused us) recurred, is the Hindu Kush the true limit of the great snowy chain that forms the northern frontier of British India ? As to the appearance on the map, the illustration is correct, as far as it goes ; but we naturally, and upon cosmogonic grounds, ask, — where is the Himalayan ridge ? and where should it go to, but north. It (unfortunately for


 * I should rather think my brother means inaccessible on horseback, A. G.