PART I. THE ALAI MOUNTAINS 
CHAPTER 1 
a is a mountain range lying north of Pamir and 
stretching from east to west. It is separated from Pamir 
by the Alai Plain, or the Alai Steppe, as it is often, (incor- 
rectly, it seems to me) called. From an orographical point 
of view, then, the Alai Range may be considered the northern 
mountain boundary of Pamir. It slopes toward the north, 
down to the fertile, densely populated country of Ferghana, 
at one time the Kingdom of the Khans of Kokan. Ever 
since olden days important caravan routes have led from 
this country to western China (Kashgar). These have been 
enlarged and improved recently by the Russians. Our expedi- 
tion, after being fitted out at Osh, left that town by one of 
these routes, going through Gultsha and Sufi Kurgan to the 
Taldyk Pass, from which we descended to the Alai Plain. 
This was in the latter half of June, 1898. From richly 
cultivated country the way now led up into the extreme foot- 
hills of the range, fresh green and rounded, covered with a 
dense carpet of grasses and Cyperaceae: Poa bulbosa, Festuca 
ovina var. sulcata, Carex supina, C. nitida var. conglobata, 
and others, and dotted with flowers in great profusion. Here 
Eremurus robustus bore its crimson clusters two métres in 
the air, like burning torches, and the intensely yellow Eremo- 
stachys labiosa and the white E. nuda, large and upright as 
waxen tapers. The Trollius-coloured Anemone biflora, Macro- 
tomia euchromon, Erysimum canescens, and Euphorbia sub- 
i 
