OVER THE ULLUG-ART PASS 677 
formidable precipice, from which rocks of fantastic shape 
jutted out through snow. Down between these cliffy pro- 
jections we had literally to slide and clamber on our hands 
and feet, now with our faces to the rock, now with our 
backs to it. The snow was two feet deep, and the 
Kirghiz were obliged to hew steps in it with the axe, 
before they could get the horses down. Then each horse 
Was cleverly piloted down by two men, one leading the 
animal, the other holding on by its tail, so as to act as a 
sort of brake if the horse should lose its foothold. They 
managed to get them all safely dowm the first and most 
difficult part of the precipitous slope, then it was the 
boxes' turn. A long rope was tied round each, and, two 
men holding the rope, the box was let slide gently down 
the face of the precipice by its own weight. Then came 
a talus slope at an angle of thirty-five and a half degrees, 
littered with loose ddbris. Down this the horses were left 
to make their way by themselves. My piebald stallion 
from the Khotan - daria stumbled, rolled some^ thousand 
feet dowm into an abyss, broke his spine, and died on t e 
spot. Ullug-art is a perilous pass, the worst I have ever 
crossed in any part of Asia. 
The weather was abominable. The wind,^ from the 
south-west, drove the snow about us in blinding c ou s. 
It wms only by snatches, when the snowstorm momentarily 
