CHAPTER XXXII. 
BOATING ADVENTURES ON THE LITTLE KARA-KUL 
HIS time we encamped beside the Little Kara-kul 
X from the last day of September until October 9th, 
partly because we needed rest, and because it was unwise 
to pass directly from the higher-lying regions down into 
the warm valleys ; and partly because I wished to take 
soundings of the lake, which would, I hoped, verify the 
observations I had made during our first visit in that 
region regarding the formation of the lake. Quite near 
our camp there was an aul of six yurts ; and the first 
dav after our arrival I consulted with its inhabitants, 
and with Togdasin Beg and some of my own men, as 
to the best way of taking the soundings. There were, 
of course, no boats. One of the Kirghiz had indeed 
seen a boat on the upper Amu-daria; the others had not 
the faintest idea what a boat was like, and could not 
even conceive how such a thing was made. Through- 
out the whole of the broad valley of Sarik-kol there 
were only six small birches, growing on the saint’s grave 
of Kayindeh-masar ; but to touch them would have been 
looked upon as sacrilege. Apart from those trees, there 
was not a bush within a hundred miles. 
The only things to be found in our immediate neigh- 
bourhood were raw hides and oks, or the slightly hent 
poles which support the cupola-shaped felt -roof of the 
Kirghiz yurt. But how these materials could be turned 
into a boat the cleverest of the Kirghiz was unable to 
form a conjecture. I set to work and made a little 
model of a boat out of some oiled linen, with a mast, 
sail, rudder, and keel, and very well she sailed, greatly 
403 
