FORT PAMIR 
201 
regular intervals during the day had swept past the 
fort with an angry howl, subsided, there rose upon 
the rarefied mountain air a succession of Russian songs, 
sung by some seventy fresh, strong voices. They were 
partly folk-songs with a melancholy cadence, partly 
soldiers’ ditties of a livelier character. I he last Sunday 
of my stay at Fort Pamir was closed by a musical 
evening of this kind. The atmosphere was still and 
calm, the air cold ; the stars glittered with indescribable 
brilliancy ; and the gentle murmur of the Murghab stole 
upon the ear In the pauses of the singing. The soldiers 
sang with much feeling, as though their hearts were 
touched by memories of their far-off native land ; and 
their officers and myself listened with genuine sympathy, 
as their fresh, warm voices melted away into the lofty 
regions of immeasurable space. 
LANDSCAPE NEAR FORT PAMIR, LOOKING NORTH-WEST 
Russian Officers returning from a Hunt 
