LAKE KARA-KUL 
155 
shaped valley, girdled by low, snow-clad mountain-ridges of 
moderate height. In the valley itself there was very little 
snow. What there was lay in thin, scattered patches. 
Before us on the right the valley opened out wider, and 
swelled up into a series of low, rounded hills. On the left a 
spur ran out south-westwards across the valley, terminating 
in a single isolated cone. Continuing on up this gradually 
rising ground, we came, at the end of another four hours’ 
march, to the little pass of Uy-bulak, from the summit 
of which we had a grand panorama towards the south-east. 
Far down under our feet we could see the north-east 
corner of Great Kara-kul, cased in a panoply of ice and 
mantled with snow. All round it stood a ring of giant 
mountains, draped from head to foot in one unbroken 
garment of dazzling snow. Within the pass the snow 
was once more 15 to 16 inches deep, and coated with 
a curiously hard, dry crust, tough as parchment, and so 
strong that the horses frequently went over it without 
breaking it. It was just as though we were travelling 
over a huge, tight-stretched sheepskin. 
From Uy-bulak and the foot of the mountains a broad 
steppe sloped downwards at an almost imperceptible angle 
towards the northern shore of the lake. Except in a few 
places, it was almost entirely covered with snow, which, 
under the force of the prevailing westerly and north- 
westerly winds, had assumed a strangely odd appearance. 
It resembled a number of small parallel dunes, or the 
wrinkled folds that come into cream when it is poured out 
on the ground and left to freeze. Several clumps of 
teresken, a hard, dry scrubby shrub, which yields excellent 
fuel, were scattered about the steppe. 
The sun set at six o’clock. At the moment of his 
disappearance the shadows of the mountains on the west 
side of the plain raced across it so swiftly that it was 
difficult for the eye to follow them. Then they slowly 
mounted up the flank of the mountains on the east 
side, till nothing but the topmost pyramidal peaks were 
left glowing in the evening sunshine. A quarter of an 
hour later, and the entire region was dimmed with the 
