414 DZUNGARIA 



wind which causes havoc amongst the nomads, and kills 

 off men and flocks when caught unprotected, is this 

 north wind when it attains the velocity of what is called 

 a " buran." 



We experienced one buran only during our journey 

 across Asia, and it took place in this very locality during 

 the following summer. On June 2oth a buran struck 

 us from the north when camped on the south side of 

 the main ridge of the Dzusau portion of the Barlik 

 group, which stood up like a wall close above our camp, 

 and gave us protection from that quarter. In Central 

 Asia the highest gale is inconsiderable in comparison 

 with a buran. A vast difference lies between the 

 two : a buran blows steadily, without lulls, and with 

 a force against which it is useless to contend. 



Miller describes how this buran caught him, when on a 

 hunting expedition : — "On the second day away an ever- 

 increasing wind began to blow from the north-west, 

 though the sky was cloudless. By the evening it had 

 blown up into such a gale that we had the greatest diffi- 

 culty in reaching the yurts for which we were making. 

 It was all our horses could do to move against the force 

 of the wind, which frequently shifted us in our saddles. 

 By night-time the yurt in which we had taken shelter 

 began to suffer. The huge pieces of felt which covered 

 the roof worked loose, and were whisked away, causing 

 the frame-work to rattle down upon us. It was only the 



diction of this, 1 noticed that all the sand-dunes at the south end of 

 Ebi Nor were formed by winds which must have blown from the east- 

 north-east. Ebi Nor, by its very name, is " A%-ind-lake," and it would 

 be hard to give an impression of the sight its frozen waters presented in 

 mid\\'inter. We saw it in January, from the crest of a sand-dune on 

 its southern edge. Its southern shores were a jumble of great blocks 

 of ice piled up in fantastic shapes, and the actual surface of the ice was 

 as if its waves had been instantaneously frozen sohd in stormy weather. 



