4o6 DZUNGARIA 



crossed a pass of 6,300 ft., called Kergen Tash, lying 

 between the Urkashar Range and the Sair Mountains. 

 This route led us into Russian territory for ten or twelve 

 miles, before it turned back and recrossed the frontier 

 at the Bai Musa Pass, which was an open gap, of 4,300 ft. 

 in altitude, between the Tarbagatai Range on the north 

 and the Kojur spur of the Urkashar on the south. As 

 a means of communication between the Chuguchak 

 district and that of Zaisan, this track, being suitable for 

 wheeled traffic, is of some importance. Even this short 

 return to Russian territory showed us definite traces 

 of Russian progression. We observed a picket of 

 frontier guards at the Bai Musa Pass, and in the distance 

 — ^northwards — a large new settlement, where there was 

 said to be a garrison of Cossacks and a go-ahead colony 

 of emigrants from Semipalatinsk. 



The Emil Valley — which we passed through on our 

 way to Chuguchak — is of much historical interest. 

 This valley, situated on the main road between 

 Eastern and Western Asia, providing, as it does, the 

 one easy means of access from the east to the west, 

 is now, and always must have been, of great strategical 

 value. It was mentioned by Carpini, one of the earliest 

 Western writers, who travelled through the country on 

 his way to visit the court of Ku3'uk Khan — grandson 

 of Jenghis Khan — in Northern Mongolia. It must 

 have been in those days a district of real importance, for 

 Carpini wrote that the Mongols " had built anew, as 

 it were, a city called Omyl, in which the Emperor had 

 erected a house." Evidently the old city was destroyed 

 when Jenghis first sacked the Empire of the Kara-Kitai 

 — of which this district was a part. The Emil district 

 formed the seat of Kalmuk ascendanc}- at the end of 



