CHAPTER LVI. 
OVER THE MOUNTAINS TO THE YARKAND-DARIA 
F rom Ak-tash we travelled eastwards, and the same 
day crossed the Sarik-kol range by the pass of 
Lakshak (15,240 feet high), and encampecl on the other 
side at Keng-shevar, a place garrisoned by eight Tajiks 
and two Chinese. As far as a point a little beyond our 
camp the rocks bordering the route had been black clay- 
slates ; but after that they consisted of a number of 
varieties of gneiss, some of them exceedingly beautiful 
in appearance. Consonant with the change in the rock 
formation, a marked change took place also in the 
landscape. The very name of the district we had just 
quitted, Kara-korumning-bashi (the Head of the Black, 
Stony Country), indicated a different region. The track 
we were following, which wound for the most part amongst 
gigantic fragments of rock which had crashed down from 
the mountains above, led north - eastwards through the 
deep transverse gorge of Shindeh, which cut through the 
eastern declivity of the Sarik-kol range. Beyond Yar- 
utteck (the Boot Terrace), a small side-glen on the left, 
the cliffs frowned upon each other at close quarters, there 
being nothing more than a narrow chasm between their 
perpendicular walls. The gorge was almost entirely 
obstructed by huge blocks of gneiss, whose sharp angles 
and fresh, clean-looking fractures revealed that they had 
been hurled down during the recent earthquake shocks. 
It was anything but pleasant travelling. We frequently 
rode under ponderous arches of overhanging rock, full 
of cracks and crevices, which threatened every moment 
to come crashing down upon our heads. Time after time 
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