6yo 
THROUGH ASIA 
As soon as everything was carried away to places of 
safety that could be so carried, the general attention was 
directed to the melon-gardens, on the slopes going down 
to the river. The gardens were trenched all over, and the 
water ran up the trenches with great speed. All the men 
of the town rushed off to the melon-gardens, caught up 
big armfuls of melons — ripe or not was all one — and ran 
with them to the foot of the terraces, where they threw the 
melons up to other men, who piled them up in heaps. 
In spite of that however a large portion of the crop was ' 
washed away by the flood. Meanwhile fifteen houses had 
entirely disappeared. 
But no doubt the inhabitants of the place would profit 
from the disaster? Not in the least. The same thing 
happens every year. For no sooner is the flood past and 
gone than the people set to work and build up their houses 
on the very same sites where they stood before. The 
flood had already begun to subside by nine o’clock, and | 
it fell so rapidly that by the forenoon of the next day, 
July pth, the river had dropped back to its normal 
condition and was little more than a rivulet trickling along 
the bottom of its deeply eroded channel. Communication 
had been re-established between the opposite banks ; but i 
the scene presented was one of havoc and desolation. As ■’ 
a matter of precaution we stayed in Upal the rest of the ' 
day. 
In the latitude in which we then were four passes led ' 
over the Mus-tagh or Kashgar Mountains, the eastern ! 
border-range of the Pamirs, namely Ayag-art (the Foot 
Pass), and Kazig-art (named from a Kirghiz sept ?), which 
we had already left on our right as we journeyed to Upal • 
Buru-koss-davan (Wolfs Eye Pass), which was on the 
left of the road we had come ; and lastly, Ullug-art (the 
Great Pass), the pass we chose. The last two are drained 
through the same glen, which issues upon the plains at 
a place called Orugumah, where the Chinese maintain 
a Kirghiz karaol (post of observation). The Kirghiz 
m that district belong to the Tavur sept. The most 
difficult of the four passes is Buru-koss ; it is only used 
