THROUGH ASIA 
1 84 
A typical Peripheral region is one which through the 
agency of erosion has lost its former character of a high- 
level plain or plateau, and assumed the more definitely 
marked aspect of a region in which Nature’s fingers have 
carved and moulded with powerful effect. Its outward 
contours are very much steeper and wilder, the relative 
altitudes greater ; the plateau is cleft almost to its 
foundations by gigantic trenches or fissures radiating 
outwards ; the valleys or glens, which cut into it, are 
deep and narrow, revealing the internal structure of the 
mountains ; whilst along their bottoms the torrents foam 
and race through confined, gorge-like channels, over huge 
boulders of stone which have crashed down from the 
heights above. 
On the west side of the plateau the turbulent head- 
streams of the Amu-daria, namely the Murghab, Ghunt, 
and Panj, in many places force their way between vertical 
walls of rock, as though they were traversing a tunnel 
through the mountains. Such places are absolutely 
impassable, except to the native inhabitants of those 
regions, namely the clever Tajiks. There are places 
above certain of the streams where these people have 
driven wooden pegs into the sides of the perpendicular 
crevices, and with the sureness and nimbleness of apes 
clamber up from peg to peg, bearing heavy burdens lashed 
upon their backs. It is surprising what skill they show 
in availing themselves of every jutting piece of rock, every 
ledge and cornice, every crack and chink in the precipitous 
cliff-wall. 
T. he border regions of the Pamirs are distinguished for 
the striking geographical homologies they present. On 
the north the river Kizil-su flows between the two parallel 
mountain-chains of the Alai and the Trans-Alai. On 
the east the Sarik-kol valley, between the Mus-tagh and 
Sarik-kol ranges, is traversed by the Ghez-daria and the 
Yarkand-daria. On the south the Wakhan is hemmed 
in by the Wakhan chain and the Hindu-kush, which both 
run in the same direction. The Panj too on the west 
likewise flows between parallel ranges of mountains, 
