OVER THE ULLUG-ART PASS 675 
We had decided to abandon the idea of crossing the 
Ullug-art, and on July 16th were just going to start for 
the Ayag pass, whither the Kirghiz undertook to guide 
us by a short cut, for they considered that pass would 
be much the easier of the two, when a man came down 
from the upper aul, and warned us not to venture by the 
Ayag-art. The pass itself was practicable enough, he 
said but the river Markan-su, on the other side of it, 
would be impassable, especially if the weather was fine, 
^ ^ ^ obliged to come all the way back 
again. He would answer for it, that we could get over 
t e Ullug-art, and if I wmold give him 150 tengeh 
4 ^-)> and ten other men would carry all our 
over on their backs. This would have to be 
done in any case, because, owing to the excessive steepness 
of the path, it was as much as the horses could do to climb 
up and down free of loads. Accordingly we went up to 
the higher aul, consisting of six yurts of Kipchak Kirghiz. 
It was scarcely an hour’s ride. There we spent the night. 
At half-past five on the morning of July 17th the weather 
was clear and calm, although a few light cloud skirmishers 
hovered above the pass. The day before had been sunny, 
and the snow on the eastern versant of the pass had melted 
considerably. An hour later we started, accompanied by 
the ten Kirghiz, who on their own account took with them 
two horses, provisions, and an axe. The path went up a 
steep, narrow gorge, close beside a torrent which murmured 
amongst the smooth, polished fragments of gneiss and 
clay-slate. On both sides the gorge was shut in by 
perpendicular conglomerate strata, which terminated in 
rounded dome - shaped hills, clad with green meadows. 
Herds of camels and flocks of sheep dotted the pastures, 
which were kept moist by the melting of the snows above 
them. Still higher up, the sky-line was broken by fantasti- 
cally shaped peaks of bare rock and snow-clad ridges. At 
nine o’clock the gorge and pass were enveloped in thick 
clouds, and again it began to snow, and snowed on all the 
rest of the day. In a word, the weather could not have 
been worse ; and our Kirghiz shook their heads ominously. 
