THROUGH ASIA 
264 
during the night tlie temperature had fallen to 45°5 
Fahr. (7°5 C.). 
That day, July 3rd, we had an unusually trying day's 
march. At first the glen was of medium breadth, and 
tolerably rich in grass, bushes, and willow trees. Every 
now and again the conglomerates stretched pretty far up 
the mountain sides, forming rampart - like walls, with 
covered galleries, excavations, and grottoes, but so 
precipitous that they looked as if every moment they 
would crash down into the glen. But after we passed the 
end of the side-glen of Yam-bulak (the Grotto Spring), 
the main glen became very narrow, and its bottom choked 
with disintegrated d 6 b 7 -is. I'he torrent too dwindled a 
o-ood deal, having lost two or three of its principal 
contributaries. 
At Yam-bulak there was a hut by the wayside, and our 
eyes were charmed by the sight of the fresh white flowers 
of the wild rose. Beyond that point the glen was called 
Tenghi-tar, a very suitable name, although a pleonasm ; 
for tar means “narrow” and tenghi “narrow glen-path.” 
Here the coarse crystalline rocks predominated again ; the 
sharp pinnacles and needles of the mountains in the 
argillaceous formation being replaced by more rounded 
domes and flattened tops. 1 he glen was, as I have said, 
choked with ddbris, nevertheless vegetation thrived ; the 
beech, wild-rose, and hawthorn being the most noticeable 
species. 
Finally the glen contracted to a wedge-shaped trough 
carved, as it were, out of the mountain-side. The path 
grew more and more difficult. We wound a hundred, 
a thousand times in and out round the fallen boulders ; 
and every now and again crossed the stream, its water 
once more clear and limpid. The glen was closed by an 
upheaval of gneiss, overlain sporadically by conglomerate 
strata. At a spot appropriately named Issyk-bulak, a 
triple hot spring gushed out from beneath a large 
block of conglomerate. The water, though not par- 
ticularly copious, burst forth with a splash, and had a 
disagreeable sulphurous odour. It coloured the stones 
