124 Extracts from Demi-Ojjicial Reports. [No. 110. 



be traversed by a traveller through this defile. An idea of its windings 

 may be formed from the facts, that our baggage ponies were nearly 4 

 hours creeping along a distance for which my observations afford a direct 

 line of 6i miles, and that the portion of our road which lay in the bed, 

 crossed the stream 34 times. 



What is called the Derah i Khurgoosh ends at the junction of the 

 Tungan with the Moorghaub, but the narrowness and difficulty of the pass 

 continues for a mile farther down the left bank of the latter stream, 

 •which we forded where the water was up to our ponies' shoulders, run- 

 ning at the rate of, I should imagine, 3i miles per hour. A steep road, 

 which laden ponies take, ascended a little above the entrance of Derah 

 i Khurgoosh, which comes down again just below the junction of the 

 two streams, 



Afterward the pass opens out into a warm litte valley of 250 yards 

 width, called Taitak, or under the mountain, at the end of which we 

 halted near some Eimauk tents, Hence we turned off northerly from 

 the Moorghaub, and ascending by a moderate steep pass to the top 

 of the hills enclosing its right side, proceeded on a gentle rise over 

 an undulating surface that gained to a small grassy vale lying at 

 the foot of a higher pass. Here we had an unpleasant scene with 

 the greedy relatives of the Atalik accompanying us, who announcing 

 their intention to take leave, demanded presents extravagantly above any 

 claims that they could prefer for reward, and by their united clamour 

 hindered all endeavours to moderate their claims made by our host, 

 to whom alone w 7 ere we strictly bound to give any thing. After I had 

 gone out of the way to satisfy these beggars, they went off as if they 

 were the party robbed, and 1 have no doubt that they incited the attack 

 which was made upon us the next day. 



October 11th. Quitting camp at 10, we ascended | mile up a rocky 

 pass to the spring head of Misree, which waters a small grassy level in the 

 enclosure of the pass where we found an Eimauk encampment. The pass 

 upward from this little platform was steepish, though on an equal ascent, 

 and the path was tiring, lying over small loose fragments of slaty lime- 

 stone which had fallen from the shelving bases of the decomposed cliffs on 

 each side. The defile above the spring gradually narrowed in an ascent of 

 about 13-| miles, which our loaden ponies were 40 minutes accomplishing, 

 to a point at which the steep rocks, enclosing it almost met, leaving a short 

 passage through which 3 horsemen could ride abreast. Our foremost 

 riders had nearly reached this point when a number of armed men 

 rising with shouts from their ambuscade above it and on either side 



