THE PLAIN OF TAGHARMA 
279 
peaks on our right stood out bold and clear-cut, their 
glittering snowfields contrasting sharply against the limpid, 
light blue sky; the only flaw upon its pearly purity being a 
few light feathery clouds far off towards the south. In a 
word, the still, soothing peace of the Sabbath rested upon 
the whole face of the country, so that it was pure joy 
simply to sit still in the saddle and quietly observe it. 
We reached the summit of the pass at one o’clock, and 
from a cairn of stones there (13,875 feet altitude) were 
able to get a general survey of our surroundings. The 
large glaciers radiated westwards from the central nevd, 
the ice at their fractured edges and in the crevasses 
glistening a beautiful translucent blue. The spaces 
between the glacial arms were filled up with stupendous 
crags and pinnacles of rock, coal black in colour below 
the snow-line. We were too close in to the mountain 
to be able to see the majestic dome which crowns it. 
That can only be seen to advantage a long way west 
of the place in which we were then ; for instance, its 
noble proportions can be seen clearly and distinctly from 
the Murghab. There was an almost equally fine view 
to the north, where the valley of Sarik-kol inclined a 
little towards the north-west, so that the Mus-tagh chain 
shut in the view on that side. The dominating feature 
on the south and west was the Sarik-kol chain, curving 
in towards the Pamirs ; but in certain places it was 
obscured by the undulating country between — a country 
diversified by knolls of sand, gravel ddbi'is, and earth, 
gradually merging one into the other, overgrown with 
scanty patches of tussock-grass. In the immediate fore- 
ground, on the north, was the tolerably level plain of 
Su-bashi, having at its upper end the karaol (watch-house) 
of Irik-yak, garrisoned by seven Kirghiz, whose duty it 
was to watch the two passes Mus-kurau and Tock-terek. 
d he latter possessed two approaches, in one of which, 
that called Kara-tock-terek, there was an isolated hill 
of fine-grained granite, which has been subjected to great 
pressure, and showed a fluidal structure, interspersed with 
veins of pegmatite or coarse-grained granite. The glacial 
