1841.] Extracts from Demi-official Reports* 123 



tion need not be disputed, for the springs on one side of this trunk 

 flow to the Hrrirood, and on the other towards Tartary. We descended 

 from it to a deep and rapid brook called the Tungan ; which led us 4 

 miles down with the cultivated valley of Ghilmce to the mouth of a deep 

 and close pass called the Derail i Khurgoosh, or the Hare's defile, where 

 the boiling point shewed an elevation of 5,209 feet, about 400 feet lower 

 than our last staiion in the valley of the Herirood. 



Friday 9th October. Quitting camp at 9, 15, we followed the brook 

 Tungan into the Hare's defile, commanding the road at the second of 

 3 angles. In the first 500 yards, was a brick wall with holes built up 

 like a screen upon a not easily attainable portion of the rock, which we 

 were told was anciently erected to help the collection of transit duty. 

 We next went 13- miles between bare perpendicular mountains of lime- 

 stone, the defile running in acute zigzags which for the most part were 

 not more than 50 or 60 yards long, and having but breadth enough for a 

 path, and for the brook which we w r ere continually obliged to cross. 

 Burner, I see, states that after crossing the Dundan Shikan, he travelled on 

 northward to Khoollum between frequently precipitous rocks which rose 

 on either side to the height of 300 feet and obscured all stars at 

 night, except those of the zenith. I am afraid of exaggerating the 

 height of the cliffs between which our road here lay by guessing 

 at their height in feet, so will only say that their precipitous elevation 

 made our horsemen look like pigmies as they filed along their bases 

 in the bed. After this very narrow portion, the defile widened to the 

 breadth of 50 yards, but it presently contracted again to that of thirty, 

 which may be stated as the average width of its onward windings for 

 pearly 5 miles, where the Tungan discharged itself into the river Moor- 

 ghaub, which came from the east, in a bed of good width, through a simi- 

 lar deep pass. After creeping along the bottom of the defile for the 

 first 2s hours of our march, we ascended some way up the side of the 

 left mountain, and followed the bends for the next hour and a quarter 

 by a narrow path worn upon its slightly sloping edge, a tangled thicket " 

 now T occupying all the spare bed of the stream, to which we descended 

 again i mile before its junction with the Moorghaub. The Tungan is 

 a deep brook before its entrance into the Hare's defile. In spring, what 

 with the increase of its waters from melted snow, and and their com- 

 pression between the sharp turnings of the narrow defile, there is no 

 passage from side to side, except such as is afforded for a footman by 

 means of a spear laid across its rocky banks. The distances noted 

 afford a very imperfect description of the quantity of ground that must 



