ASCENDING MUS-TAGH-ATA 
349 
animals, and meet me at the base of the moraine. Alone, 
and followed by my faithful Yolldash, I made my way as 
best I could, sometimes crawling over the rocks, sometimes 
balancing on them. They were separated from each other 
by dark, chilly fissures, in whose depths the water gurgled 
against the stones at the bottom. At one time I managed 
to toboggan down the side of a boulder so successfully 
that I jammed my foot in between it and another rock, 
and had to take off my boot to set myself at liberty. In 
other places I found it better to wade through the water, 
under, and between, the blocks ; and it was with a feeling 
of intense relief that I at last succeeded in extricating 
myself from that dangerous and gloomy labyrinth, where 
I might easily have got lost if I had not had a compass. 
After many adventures I reached the slope at the foot of 
the moraine. Then looking back, to my dismay, I beheld 
Yolldash on a huge boulder, whining and howling dis- 
mally, and not able to move either backwards or forwards. 
I'hen he disappeared behind the boulder. I heard him 
splash into the water, and finally he emerged from nndei'- 
neath the moraine, evidently elated, though slightly lame 
of one paw. At the same time he was annoyed with me, 
for having decoyed him into such an awkward predica- 
ment. 
After traversing a sloping piece of greensward, down 
which a fresh stream was flowing, we reached the tongue 
of the Chal-tumak glacier, which had the considerable in- 
clination of 24°9. Its surface was black with gravel, 
through which .solitary white pyramids stuck up ; but the 
side of the glacier was polished like steel. 
It was twilight when we reached the new camp, 
where everything was in order. Not far off lay the aghil 
(aul or tent-village) of Chal-tumak, consisting of four 
uys (tents). The chief, Togda Bai Beg, a handsome, 
refined-looking Tajik, came at once to pay his respects. 
He told me, that the village had altogether twenty-five 
inhabitants, and that one tent was inhabited by Tajiks 
(Aryans, speaking a Persian dialect), and the other three 
by Naiman Kirghiz. He said, that they lived in the 
