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are for the most part covered with snow. During our stay 
in Wakhan, blizzards often raged up on the mountain-tops, 
hiding the summits from us for days at a time. — In several 
places glaciers are seen, from which many water-courses pour, 
more and larger than on the north side, but — as there — 
short. 
According to OLUFSEN the climate of Wakhan is dry, 
almost rainless, with hot summers and cold winters. There 
is a great difference between the temperature of day and 
night. In September we sometimes found the thermometer 
registering over 20° C. at noon and we experienced several 
night frosts. Western winds prevail, warm, dry, often filled 
with sand in summer, cold and dry in winter. 
Only twice, while the expedition was in Wakhan, were 
there many clouds to be seen, the usual condition was clear 
blue sky or a small percentage of cumulus clouds. 
We saw no rain whatever, and in March the covering 
of snow was slight or totally lacking. 
In such a climate agriculture must depend on irrigation, 
and villages were only found where streams rushed down 
the mountain-side. Agriculture indeed depended on one other 
factor. Only where the disintegration of material brought 
down in land-slides had formed terraces along the river, was 
arable soil to be found. To these the mountain streams were 
conducted, often with great difficulty and labour. The country 
villages consisted of clay hovels, with flat roofs, built of clay 
and dung, and often so close together that it was possible to 
walk around the entire village stepping from roof to roof, 
and, at the same time peeping through the hatches, open by 
to emit smoke and admit air, witness the poverty-stricken, 
primitive lives of the inhabitants. Many fortified towers on 
the roofs of the houses, and caves, or other places of refuge 
in the mountains, bore witness to the sufferings endured by 
the inhabilants, — mountain-Tadshiks or Galtshas of Ira- 
nian origin, — prior to the Russian occupation, at the hands 
of the plundering bands of the Afghans, their neighbours. 
In many villages fruit-trees and pyramidical poplars were 
planted, and contributed no small degree of beauty. 
Very curious were the huge fortresses found in many 
