196 
THROUGH ASIA 
Amonost other thinofs we measured the volume of the 
water carried down by the Murghab, and set up a gauge- 
post in the river, upon which one of the officers might 
observe the rise and fall of the current during the coming 
spring and summer. We also measured the depth to 
which the crust of the earth is frozen in winter ; and 
industriously compared notes upon what we had seen and 
observed. The soundings I made in Kara-kul awakened 
the liveliest interest. Nobody had expected that the lake 
would go down to anything like a depth of 756 feet. 
One of my friends in Margelan told me that Fort 
Pamir was an earthly paradise. I asked him ‘Why?” 
He replied, “Because there are no women there!” 
Although I am very far from sharing his opinion, I am 
bound to confess, it would not be easy to find a circle in 
which contentment, cheerful spirits, and the tone of light 
and easy comradeship are better preserved than they were 
at Fort Pamir. Nobody cared a rush about appearances. 
The officers went about in threadbare uniforms, and with 
their boots unpolished. Nobody wasted time on the 
niceties of the toilet. Directly we heard the dinner-bell, 
or rather drum, we went straight into the mess-room with- 
out stopping to don such superfluous articles as collar and 
cuffs. No need to furbish up all the pretty sayings a 
polished man of the world feels it obligatory upon him to 
whisper in the ear of the lady he takes in to dinner. 
In a word, everybody at Fort Pamir was perfectly free, 
subject to no irksome social restraints. Cossacks prepared 
and cooked the food we ate. Cossacks waited at table. 
Cossacks rubbed us down in the bathroom, acted as house 
and chamber-maids, even washed our dirty linen. There 
was not the faintest glimpse of a petticoat to be seen 
inside Fort Pamir. The only creatures of the female sex 
within its walls, so far as I was able to ascertain, were a 
female cat, a couple of bitches, and some hens. But to 
call Fort Pamir a paradise because no woman brightened 
it with her lovely smile — that is a doctrine I certainly 
cannot subscribe to. 
Captain Saitseff enjoyed the full sympathy and esteem 
