OVER THE TENGHIZ-BAI PASS 
123 
of the undertaking, started on our journey up the pass, 
which was now buried deep in snow. The difficulties 
of the road were almost inconceivable, and our labours 
trying in the extreme. But by dint of persevering we 
managed to surmount all obstacles, and came to a trough- 
shaped depression on the summit of the range, where 
the snow was fully six feet deep. A deep and narrow 
pathway had been trampled through the snowdrifts. 
But it was like a shaking bridge laid across a bog. 
One step off the path, and the horses plunged up to the 
girth in the snow ; and it took all our combined efforts 
to dig them out again, and get them back upon the 
“ bridge.” All this occasioned serious loss of time. 
We now became aware of a group of sombre-looking 
peaks, split and weathered by wind and frost, towering 
above the eternal snows away in the south-west. It was a 
detached spur of the Kara-kir, pointing the way like a sea- 
beacon up to the dreaded pass of Tenghiz-bai. The track 
mounted up to the last summit by an endless series of 
zigzags, putting the horses’ strength and climbing powers 
to the severest proof But at length we reached the top of 
the pass safe and sound, and with all our baggage intact. 
There we rested an hour for tea, made meteorological 
and other observations, took photographs, and admired the 
entrancing scenery. 
I he spot at which we rested was shut in on every side 
by snowy crests, with bare, black pinnacles protruding here 
and there through their mantles of snow. Looking north- 
wards, we had the valley of the Isfairan below us. We 
turned towards the south-west, and a magnificent pano- 
rama fascinated the eye. In the far-off distance were 
the sharply accentuated crests of the Alai Mountains, 
and on the opposite side of the valley the system of the 
Frans-Alai, its summits melting into the clouds, its flanks 
glistening with snowfields of a dazzling whiteness. 
The mountain saddle upon which we stood formed the 
watershed between the basins of the Syr-daria and the 
Amu-daria. After recoverino;' our breath in the clear 
rarefied mountain air, we started to make our way at a 
