I30 
EXPLORATIONS IN TURKESTAN. 
Great Kara Kill came in view (fig. 89), and we reached a point where the trail 
begins a rapid descent into the basin and a corner of tlie lake appeared. Far 
and wide stretched the same monotonons, dazzliny; gray, unbroken by anv sign 
of life or vegetation. A little way to the right there rose a talus-shrouded mass 
of rock, and in front were crooked, hollowed bowlders with sharp shadows, while 
in the distance, far below, was the black-blue sheet of Kara Kul reposing calm 
and silent, with its deep color contrasting strangely with the monotonous, dazzling 
gray of the gulf-like desert in which it rested. All around this lifeless waste 
there rose a continuous chain of snow-clad mountains with their sharp peaks and 
ridges outlined against a clear blue sky. It seemed like a lake that had lived and 
died long ago, and now reposed in its desert gra\-e under heaven's ethereal blue and 
Fig. 89. — Looking down the Kara Kul from Uy Bulak pass. 
among the guardian white mountains, ever watching, ever keeping the unbroken 
silence of space. 
From time immemorial this barren desert has been called The Roof of The 
World, and the name seemed appropriate, for the mountain borders shed their waters 
to lands of diverse and powerful nations. There, on that eastern crest, was the 
boundary- of China, to the south were the British, to the west the Afghans, and 
here it was Russian laud. 
The caravan had camped on the northeastern shore of Kara Kul. There we 
remained over the ne.xt da)- to stud)- the desert. 
Imagine a ground of split and polished stones which stretches awa)' in a seem- 
ingly endless waste, the little relief and variety of projecting rock masses near by 
fading beyond to drear)- flatness. That is the Kara Kul desert. There are no 
trees, no bushes — in fact, no familiar forms by which one's puzzled e)'e can scale the 
