A SUMMER IN HIGH ASIA. 



means of " galleries," that is to say, a sort of stair- 

 case of flagstones, and by no means stable ones at 

 that, is conducted along the face of the precipices, 

 supported on rough beams, which in their turn are 

 held up by stakes stuck into any crevice in the rock 

 that may be handy. Journeying along a road of 

 this sort, with a June sun full on one's back at 

 midday, and with the glare from the surrounding 

 rocks as bad as the rays of the sun itself, is the sort 

 of thing that makes one ask oneself if it is good 

 enough to undergo all this on the off chance of 

 getting a shot at a buck goat ! However, all one's 

 ills are forgotten as soon as one arrives at a village, 

 and one can truly appreciate the feelings of a 

 traveller in the desert who at last reaches an oasis. 

 These villages, as already described, are invariably 

 situated at the mouth of a side ravine and are 

 irrigated by a stream from above. Their terraced 

 fields, to make which the earth is carried up in 

 baskets from the torrent-bed below, were, at the time 

 that we saw them, brilliant with the green of the 

 young corn, and shaded with the bright tints of the 

 apricot trees, contrasting with the bluer hues of 

 the poplars and willows. Every field was bordered 

 with wild roses and lilac-coloured dwarf iris, while 

 innumerable magpies and golden orioles added 

 animation to the scene. The villages themselves 

 are composed of little square boxes of huts with 

 walls of mud, wedged tightly together and hope- 

 lessly dirty ; but the population, at least the male 



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