CHAPTER XII. 
LAKE KARA-KUL 
O N the southern side of the range there was at first 
a good deal of snow ; but it soon began to get 
thinner. At the end of a march of eight hours’ duration 
we came to the little caravanserai of Kok-sai. The name 
of this place is indelibly engraven upon my memory. It 
was there I recorded the lowest temperature it has been 
my lot to observe in the course of all my journeyings 
through Asia. The quicksilver thermometer fell to - ^6°8 
r ahr. ( — 38 2 C.), that is, almost as low as the freezing- 
point of mercury. 
South of the pass of Kizil-art the landscape changed 
Its character entirely. There was a far smaller quantity of 
snow. Over large areas the surface of the earth was bare 
and exposed, in others buried under sand and the dSris 
ol disintegrated rocks. The mountains were softer and 
more rounded in outline, and their relative altitudes were 
less ; whilst their several ridges or crests were separated 
from one another by broad, shallow, trough-shaped valleys. 
The region around Lake Kara-kul, between the passes of 
Kizil - art and Ak - baital, possesses no drainage outlet 
towards the Amu-daria ; and the products of disintegra- 
tion are not carried away by the streams, but remain 
and help to level up the natural inequalities of the surface. 
In other words, the distinction holds good here which 
Baron von Richthofen lays down as obtaining between 
regions which have no drainage outlet and peripheral 
regions which have a drainage outlet. 
All day long on loth March we rode towards the south- 
east, crossing in the early part of the day an open trough- 
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