PREPARATION FOR THE MOUNTAIN JOURNEY. 
65 
Andizhan had been badly injured by an earthquake a year before our arrival, 
and the Russian part of the city had hardly begun to recoxer from the destructive 
effects of the shock. Many of the inhabitants had left their shattered houses and 
still were living in box freight cars 
that were standing in trains on 
temporary tracks in the streets 
near the raihva}- station. In the 
absence of any hotel, we spent the 
few days of inevitable dela)-, while 
outfitting, in the small service car 
that had been obligingly put at 
our disposition by the railway 
superintendent at Tashkent, where 
we had left the rest of the party 
in the larger car that had brought 
us all from ]Mer\'. It was during 
this interval that we visited the 
ridges of tilted and dissected 
gravels and silts a few miles south 
of Andizhan, to which reference 
has already been made. 
One of the most interesting 
experiences of this part of our 
journey was the companionship, 
for the first three days, of Kambar- 
Ali, the ]\Iin-bashi or native chief 
(fig. 36) of the department of 
Kugart, through which we had to pass. Colonel Kor^tof summoned the Min- 
bashi to Andizhan the day before we left that city, and presented us to him as 
foreign travelers to whom he should show ever)' attention. The IMin-bashi 
accordingly met us shortly after sunrise on June 27, with his interpreter and 
several jiggits, or mounted police. Thus escorted, our cavalcade rode forth along 
shaded roads, through the fields and villages on the fertile and populous plain 
of Fergana. One of the jiggits, riding ahead, announced the coming of his chief, 
whereupon all other travelers dismounted and remained standing on the road- 
side to salute the Min-bashi and his party as we rode by. We lunched at a nati\e 
restaurant, where tea, rolls, and apricots were served. The first night was spent in 
the town of Kurgan Tepe, where we were the guests of another native chief, a 
friend of our host. On June 28 we crossed the Kara-dar}-a, a rushing, turbid river, 
in high-wheeled carts. The river was at that time about 200 meters wide in a mile- 
wide, barren flood plain of cobbles, gravel, and silt. The cultivated fields on the 
north and south were from 3 to 5 meters higher. We then crossed extensive wheat 
fields, owned by the Min-baslii, and were entertained for the night at our host's 
house, a spacious but simple residence near the village of Chanket. Here we met 
Fig. 56. — Kambar-Ali, the Min-Bashi of Kugart. 
