68 
EXPLORATIONS IN TURKESTAN. 
a wagon road half the way, and then crossed by a trail o\er Kngart pass in the Fer- 
gana range, about 10,500 feet altitude, in the afternoon of July i, and descended 
eastward, to camp in the \'alley of the (eastern) Kugart (figs. 67 and 68), a branch of 
the Narin, both the Narin and the Kara Dar\-a being branches of the Syr. On July 2 
we crossed the Oi-Kain pass eastward to a branch of the (eastern) Kugart, and 
camped at Urgas-Khan, a summer village of Kirghiz, in a grassy valley at about 
8,000 feet elevation. At noon of this day we o\-ertook a large caravan of horses 
and camels laden with merchandise for the interior. An open pass led us eastward 
to the headwaters of the Makmal on the morning of July 3, and after crossing a belt 
of badlands southward, we camped by a new bridge o\-er the Alabuga River. Here 
we met a Russian lieutenant of engineers, on his wa}' to superintend work on a 
Fig. 39. — Kuve-Gen-Shigai-e{ and some of his Men at Akh Tash, Son Kul. 
road over the Kugart pass. He had latel}- been in Kashgar, and gave Mr. Hunt- 
ington some useful suggestions about the road thither. We followed a good road 
down the Alabuga Valley northeastward (fig. 60) on July 4, and rested over Sunday, 
July 5, in the garden of a Kirghiz winter village, Tot-kui. On July 6 we reached 
the junction of the Alabuga and the Narin, and turned eastward up the Narin \'al- 
ley, camping for the night on the river bank at an altitude of about 6,500 feet, near 
a party of Sart sheep dealers, who had just brought a flock of some 3,600 sheep 
across the ri\-er with a loss of only ten, on their way to Fergana. Since July 3 
the road had been in a dissected basin of Tertiary conglomerates and clays, which 
continued eastward far up the Narin Valley. 
On Jnl>' 7 we forded the Narin, and turned northward along a trail up a side 
valley, camping in the mountains with a party of Kirghiz, who were driving their 
