TO FORT PAMIR AND BACK 389 
precaution to wrap the boxes in felts to protect them 
from the weather. 
We made our preparations for the journey in Yehim 
Bai’s tent. We had four capital horses. Having packed 
up carpets, felts, instruments, and other necessary equip- 
ments, and prepared provisions for three days, for we 
were going to ride through a wholly uninhabited district — 
a distance of about eighty miles — we sat a couple of hours 
round the fire, talking and drinking tea, and getting a 
good meal of the old, inevitable fare, mutton and yak’s 
cream. But as soon as the moon broke through the 
driving clouds sufficiently to light up the silent country, 
we lashed the loads on the men’s horses ; and at eleven 
o’clock, of a windy night, rode, well wrapped in furs, in 
single file, down between the ancient moraines of the 
Mus-tagh-ata. 
A ride of two or three hours brought us to the Sarik- 
kol valley ; thence our path wound up the opposite side, 
and through the Mus-kurau glen to the pass of the 
same name, situated in the Sarik-kol chain, the boundary- 
mountains on the east side of the Pamir plateau. In this 
glen was the critical point of the journey, namely, a 
Chinese karaol (watch-house), or sentry aul (camp), placed 
there for the purpose of guarding the frontier next the 
Russian possessions in the Pamirs. We rode past it in 
deep silence and at a slow pace, so near indeed that the 
Kirghiz with their eagle eyes were able to see the tents. 
But none of the guard challenged us; the dogs even did 
not bark, although we had Yolldash with us. My men 
were terribly alarmed, and their spirits only revived after 
we left the aul behind us ; for they knew that, if they 
were caught, two or three hundred lashes on the bare 
back certainly awaited them. 
At four o’clock on the morning of August 20th we 
safely reached the Mus-kurau pass. There I took some 
scientific observations ; and there too we were overtaken 
by a furious snowstorm. Prom that point the surface 
gradually inclined towards the west. We rode through 
the broad valley of Nagara-kum (the Drum-Sand), the 
