988 
THROUGH ASIA 
which we spent the night. The camels how'ever had 
l^een taken in a wrong direction ; but we hoped their 
drivers w'ould soon find out their mistake and come in 
search of us. 
We therefore continued along the latitudinal valley we 
had travelled up the day before, that is, still towards the 
east. Hitherto we had observed certain characteristics 
common to all these latitudinal valleys of the Arka- 
tagh. They all received their greatest number of 
tributaries, as w^ell as their largest, from the south, and 
their smallest, if any at all, from the north. Moreover 
the streams wTich coursed clowm them leaned stronMv 
o ^ 
towards the low mountain-chain which shut them in on 
the north ; and its slopes were in every case steeper than 
those of the chain which fenced the valleys on the south. 
On the other hand, the latter were richer in detritus ; 
the bare rock being frequently exposed on the flanks of 
the northern range. 
After going about eight and a half miles, we perceived 
our donkeys grazing in the distance, on a high terrace 
which overhung the left bank of the crystal brook we 
w'ere following. There, amid a scene of extraordinary 
beauty, we pitched our tents, a process w'hich demanded 
every man we had, for there was a fierce nor’-wester 
raging. The passable grass, coming after the enforced 
fast of the preceding day, rendered a rest imperative for 
the animals. When, late in the day, Hamdan Bai came 
in with the camels, he recognized the locality. Only 
the year before Littledale had encamped barely ten 
minutes to the north. He had travelled from East 
Turkestan, and halted there for a few days in order to 
search for a more westerly pass over the Arka-tagh. But 
his search had been as unsuccessful as ours. He then 
tried the valley which opened out on the east, and found 
there an easy pass, w'hich led to a small lake on the 
south of the Arka-tagh. We proposed to profit from 
Littledale’s discovery, for Hamdan Bai undertook to 
guide us to the pass by which the English traveller 
crossed the range. 
