316 PHYSIOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL-ASIAN DESERTS AND OASES. 
by bridges. Besides stone implements other slabs were found to have Arabic 
inscriptions, but without dates, one of our men being able to read them with some 
difficulty. 
Its moats and the native tra- 
dition that the Zerafshan once 
flowed through them make Kodi- 
shar Kurgan of interest. If we 
grant truth to this tradition, there 
are two possibilities; water may 
have stood at this level because of 
a landslide across the canyon or 
because the river then had not cut 
down below terrace G. Although 
there are remains of landslides 
that appear to have wrought a 
comparable change in other por- 
tions of the valley, no such re- 
Fig. 479.—Zerafshan Galchas (Gentlemen). mains are found near Kodishar. 
Perhaps the chances are in favor of a landslide, but it seems barely possible that the 
Zerafshan, now so actively corrading, has cut down its narrow channel to a depth 
of 280 feet in say 2,000 years, but that would be 1.5 inches per year. 

HISSAR. 
In discussing the natural processes of obliteration, the remarkable height of 
the citadel of Old Hissar was attributed in part to a mantle of loess protecting 
it from erosion. It 
rises to a height of 
100 feet or more, in : > . 
the form of a crouch- 
ing lion facing east. 
A part of its highest 
end (the eastern) 
is occupied by the 
palace of the vice- 
roy (koshbegee), 
while the rest is bare 
except for hisstables. 
Culture-strata of 
loess mixed with 
pottery, bones, and 
charcoal are exposed 
to a depth of 20 feet 
in a pit on its western half. It is possible that a portion of its roo-feet thickness 
above ground is composed of loess deposited during periods of abandonment, 
7 

Fig. 480.—Zerafshan Galcha with his Plow. 
