# The Earth and Its Inhabitants/Asia/Volume 1/Chapter 3

A translation of Reclus's Nouvelle Géographie Universelle ("New Universal Geography").
CHAPTER III.
THE ARALO-CASPIAN BASIN.
Russian Turkestan, the Turkoman Country, Khiva, Bokhara, Region of the Upper Oxus.
I.—GENERAL SURVEY.
EST of the Caspian the limits of Europe are clearly defined by the ancient Ponto-Caspian Strait, which runs as a natural dividing line along the foot of the Caucasus. But north and east of the Caspian Europe and Asia are merged together in a vast plain, where dreary wastes of sand, clay, or rock, saline steppes and muddy swamps, stretch from horizon to horizon. Here the only natural limit of the two continents is the lowest part of the elevated tract between the Aral basin and the Ob valley. Both sides of this ridge are studded with countless ill-defined lakelets, the remains of dried-up seas. But beyond it the lowlands stretch away to the foot of the plateaux and highlands forming part of the main continental mountain system.
Thus the Aralo-Caspian slope of the Central Asiatic tablelands blends north-westwards with the Russian steppes between Ural and Caspian, while scarcely separated northwards from the Ob valley. But everywhere else it is sharply defined westwards by the Caspian, southwards by the highlands separating it from Persia and Afghanistan, and stretching in an elongated curve from the south-east corner of the Caspian to the Hindu-Kush. Eastwards and north-eastwards rise the upland pastures and snowy peaks of the Pamir, the Tian-shan, and Tarbagatai ranges. The whole region, including the Russian protected states, Wakhan, Badakshan, Balkh, and the Turkoman country, has an estimated area of over 1,200,000 square miles, and to this has now been added a tract of over 400,000 square miles in the Ob basin, henceforth administratively included in the general government of Russian Turkestan.*
​This region, which slopes westwards and northwards to the Caspian, Aral, and Balkhash, is about equally divided into a lowland and highland district. Climate, flora, and fauna vary as much as the geological formations in a land rising in some places to elevations of 20,000 and 22,000 feet in others, as along the Caspian shores, sinking below sea-level. Nevertheless a certain analogy is maintained between the eastern highlands and the western lowlands. In both cases the annual variation of temperature is greater than in Europe or in any other sea-girt land. In autumn and winter the north-east polar blasts prevail on the plains and uplands, giving place in spring and summer to the hot equatorial winds from the south-west. Thus the normal climate of each season becomes intensified here as elsewhere in the interior of the continent, so that in July this region is included in the isothermals of 20° to 25° Centigrade, a temperature answering to that of the Cape Verd Islands, 1,650 miles nearer to the equator, while in January the isothermals are those of Canada, South Greenland, and Spitzbergen, some 1,800 miles nearer to the North Pole. But the variation between the hottest and coldest days is even still greater, averaging no less than 130°, or from about 111° to −12° and even −20° Fahr. On the plains the dryness of the atmosphere and absence of dew add to the rigours of the climate. Whole years have passed without any rainfall, and in 1858 the rains lasted only four hours altogether in the Kara-kum Desert. The moisture borne by the south-west breezes is precipitated on the slopes of the Pamir and in the Tian-shan valleys; but even here the discharge is relatively far less than on the European and Indian highlands.
Another characteristic of Russian Turkestan is the continuous drying up of the soil going on throughout the whole of the present geological epoch. The twin rivers, Oxus and Sir-daria, flowing from the Pamir and Tian-shan nearly parallel to each other, at present discharge their waters into the Aral Sea; but these formerly far more copious streams united in a common channel, disemboguing in the Caspian. Though still ranking in length amongst the great Asiatic rivers—over 1,200 miles each—they are far inferior in volume to the Siberian, Chinese, and Indian streams flowing seawards. Their basins show evident signs of gradual absorption—old channels now partially filled up, numerous rivers formerly reaching the main streams, but now lost in the sands, or expanding into brackish morasses, thousands of lakelets now indicated only by saline incrustations. Even the large inland seas, such as Aral and Balkhash, have diminished in size, while others have been replaced by the Kulja and Ferghana plains. Owing to this continually increasing dryness a large portion of the country has been transformed to steppe lands even on the higher grounds, as on the Pamir, Tian-shan, and Tarbagatai, where the growth of vegetation is limited to three months, partly by the winter snows, partly by the summer droughts.
* Fig. 83.—Routes of Explorers in the Aralo-Caspian Basin.
* Scale 17 : 400,000.
* 300 Miles.
Such a region is necessarily but thinly inhabited, the average being rather less than four persons to the square mile, or six or seven times less than in Caucasia, notwithstanding its vast extent of waste lands. But the local traditions, historical records, and the ruins of numerous cities leave no doubt that the country was formerly far more densely peopled. The inhabitants have disappeared with the running waters. The powerful empires of the Oxus and Sogdiana basins have vanished; the great centres of Eastern civilisation have become eclipsed; many cultured peoples have reverted to barbarism; and the nomad has triumphed over the agricultural state. Even the ruling race has changed, the original Aryan element having been largely replaced by Turkomans, Kirghiz, and other Tûrki peoples.* The upland Pamir valleys from Karateghin to Wakhan are still occupied by Aryan agricultural tribes, some probably autochthonous, others driven to the highlands when the plains were overrun by the nomads from the north-east. The ethnical evolution begun by climatic changes was hastened by wars and massacres. But the urban populations were rendered partly independent of the changed outward conditions by trade and industry, so that the original stock, diversely intermingled with the intruders, has here held its ground to the present time. Aryan and Tûrki peoples thus continue to dwell in the same towns, forming distinct communities, which adapt themselves to the surroundings according to their respective temperaments and hereditary habits. Hence, in a political sense alone, the Oxus has for ages served as the limit between Iran and Turan. North of this river Iran has at all times maintained a footing in the midst of the Turanian peoples.
​And now the incentive to a higher development flows once more from a race of Aryan stock. The Russians, strong in the power imparted by a superior culture, are enabled to grapple with the difficulties of climate and vast distances in consolidating their new Aralo-Caspian conquests. After having surveyed the land as naturalists, traders, or envoys, they have settled down as its political masters. They establish themselves in the already existing towns, found others on more favourable commercial and strategical sites, and have even begun a more systematic colonisation in the upland valleys east of the Tatar plains, thus assigning definite limits to the nomad regions. Lines of steamers on the two main streams, roads, and, later on, railways, will cause the hitherto insurmountable distances to vanish, thus enabling the Slav element all the more easily to establish its political and social predominance. In the midst of Tajiks, Sartes, and Uzbegs, Tashkend and Samarkand are becoming Russian cities, just as Kazan has been Russified in the midst of the Tatars, Chuvashes, and Cheremissians of the Volga basin.
Fig. 84.—Russian Encroachments in Turkestan. :
| Scale 1 : 22,000,000. |||
| Possessions in 1865. | In 1875. | In 1881. |
| 300 Miles. |||
Since the middle of the present century the Russian power has rapidly advanced in this region, notwithstanding the final limits from time to time laid down by the St. Petersburg authorities. Since the capture of Ak-Mejid, on the Sir, in 1853, a territory of about 460,000 square miles has been acquired, partly through the caprice of some ambitious captain, partly under pretext of chastising some unruly tribe. Gorchakov's circular of 1864 limited the farther advance of the imperial arms to a few settled tracts beyond the nomad districts, "where both interest and reason required them to stop." But since then vast strides have been made towards the subjection of the whole Aralo-Caspian basin, and by the fall of Geok-tepe in January, 1881, the independence of Merv and of the few remaining Turkoman tribes is directly menaced. An official treaty concluded in 1873 between Russia and England includes a large portion of their territory in the Afghan states. But such ​diplomatic triflings cannot prevent Russian influence from making itself more and more felt in these regions, which are cut off from Afghanistan proper by the Hindu-Kush, and which belong physically and ethnically to the Aralo-Caspian basin. All the lowlands stretching from the Caspian to the foot of the Pamir, and from the Iranian tableland to the sources of the Ob and Irtish, may already be considered as practically Russian territory, separated by a single range from British India or its immediate dependencies.
East of Turkestan the Russians have for neighbours the Chinese, whose empire is separated from them by the Pamir, the Tian-shan, and farther east by a conventional line running through the gates of Zungaria, and at many points offering no obstacle to invasion. But so far from having anything to fear from the possible irruption of some modern Jenghis Khan, here the advantage is entirely on the side of the Russians, both in arms, resources, strategical positions, and military science.
II.—THE PAMIR AND ALAÏ.
The Pamir and Tibet, which converge north of India and east of the Oxus, form jointly the culminating land of the continent. Disposed at right angles, and parallel, the one to the equator, the other to the meridian, they constitute the so-called "Roof," or "Crown of the World," though this expression is more usually restricted to the Pamir alone.
With its escarpments, rising above the Oxus and Tarim plains west and east, the Pamir occupies, in the heart of the continent, an estimated area of 30,000 square miles. With its counterforts projecting some 300 miles, it forms the western headland of all the plateaux and mountain systems skirting the Chinese Empire; it completely separates the two halves of Asia, and forms an almost impassable barrier to migration and warlike incursions. Yet notwithstanding its mean elevation of 13,000 feet above arable land, it has been frequently crossed by small caravans of traders or travellers, and by light columns of troops. The attempt could not fail to be frequently made to take the shortest route across the region separating the Oxus from Kashgaria, and Europe from China. Hence the Pamir has often been traversed by Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Italians, Chinese, some as traders, some as explorers, some inspired by religious zeal. But of these travellers very few have left any record of their journey, and all took the lowest routes across the plateau. Here are neither towns nor cultivated land, so that it becomes difficult to identify any of the former routes. It was reserved for modern explorers to convey a general idea of the plateau, by their methodic surveys introducing order into the confused nomenclature of the ancients, reconstructing the geography of Central Asia, and getting rid of the fanciful mountain ranges traced at haphazard on the maps. The imaginary "Bolor," which, according to Humboldt, formed the axis of the continent, has already vanished, at least as a line of crested heights, and, like the Imaus of the ancients, it is now merged in the broad tableland of the Pamir. The name itself would seem to have been restricted to a district near the Hindu-Kush, probably identical with the present Dardistan.
​Traders from Greece began, about the twelfth century of the new era, if not earlier, to become acquainted with the routes over the Pamir to Serica, or "the Land of Silk." Being already established in Baktriana, on the valley of the Middle Oxus, the Greeks naturally sought to cross the plateau by ascending the Oxus until stopped by some impassable gorge. Ptolemy, relying on older documents, tells us, in fact, that they proceeded northwards to the country of the Comedes, whose name possibly survives in that of the town of Kabadian.
* Fig. 85—Routes of Explorers in the Eastern Pamir.
* Scale 1 : 4,500,000.
* 90 Miles.
Farther on the road followed the foot of the plateau by the valley of the Oxus, and probably of its tributary the Surgh-ab, running thence towards the "Stone Tower," the chief station and resting-place on this dreary journey. This tower Rawlinson seems inclined to identify with one of the numerous tash-kurgan, or cairns, scattered over this region. It stands 11,000 feet above the sea, on a head-stream of the Yarkand, at the eastern base of the Pamir in Sirikol. But it does not seem probable that, in order to pass from the Surgh-ab in the Tarim (Oechardes) valley, ​the caravans would have turned so far to the south-east, besides which Gordon regards this cairn as in any case of recent origin.
Two hundred years before the Greeks had crossed the Pamir the Chinese had made the acquaintance of the peoples dwelling on the Sir and Oxus, with whom they had established relations through the passes of the Tsung-ling, or Pamir of the Russian geographers. After Chang-Kien's expedition (probably about 128 a.d.) trade was rapidly developed, and large Chinese caravans soon found their way directly from the Tarim to the Sir basin in the "Tavan" country. To these caravans has been attributed the introduction into China of the vine, walnut, pomegranate, bean, cucumber, parsley, lucern, saffron, and sesame. Coming from the Tarim valley, the Chinese traders naturally sought to cross the heights at their narrowest point. They skirted on the north-east the Pamir and Alaï by the Terek-davan, but we also know from contemporary records that they crossed the Pamir by the southern passes directly in order to reach the Oxus and Ki-pin, or Kabulistan.
This direct commercial movement between east and west was interrupted by civil wars and migrations. But the routes over the Pamir were reopened by Buddhist missionaries and pilgrims. Hwen-T'sang, the most famous of these pilgrims, describes the journey of sixteen years' duration which he made across Central Asia in the first half of the seventh century, and a sufficient number of names in his itinerary have been identified to enable us to follow him over the Southern Pamir through Sirikol, Wakhan, and Badakshan. This is nearly the same route as that taken by Marco Polo in company with his father and uncle in 1272–5. But this traveller seems to have passed more to the north, instead of ascending the Upper Oxus crossing the Pamir in a north-easterly direction, travelling "twelve days on horseback" in a region "without dwellings or pasture." In 1603 the Catholic missionary, Benedict Goës, also crossed the Southern Pamir, probably by the same route as Hwen-T'sang. But two hundred years elapsed before it was again approached by a European traveller. In 1838 Wood ascended a headstream of the Oxus to the Sari-kul, or Kul-kalian, and with this journey begins the era of modern scientific exploration. In 1868 Hayward visited the south-east corner of the plateau; the Hindu emissaries of the Indian Topographic Bureau also traversed the "Great" and "Little" Pamir; the Greek Potagos penetrated, in 1871, from Badakshan to Kashgar; and in 1873 Forsyth, Gordon, and Trotter crossed the plateau to Badakshan, and sent a Hindu geometrician to visit Shignan and Roshan.
But the Northern Pamir has ceased to be visited ever since the epoch of Chinese supremacy. The Arabs, masters of the Sir valley, sent their trading expeditions by relatively easier routes round the northern base of the Tian-shan, and the same route was followed by the European envoys to the Mongol court. The rediscovery of the Northern Pamir is due to the Hindu Abdul Mejid, who was the first to cross the Pamir from south to north in 1861, and to the Russian explorers, Fedchenko, Kostenko, Mushketov, Sieverzov, Oshanin, and others. Over four-fifths of the whole area have already been surveyed, and Sieverzov's expedition of 1878 came within some 30 miles of the English exploration of 1873. About ​twenty important points have been determined astronomically; the elevations of two thousand places have been accurately taken; and it is now certain that no heights of any consequence have escaped observation.
* Fig. 86.—The Alaï and Trans-Alaï Range.
Below the upper clays and sands the Alaï rocks consist of granites and crystalline schists. The granites run precisely in the same direction as the Tian-shan and the spurs projecting westwards into the Turkestan lowlands. But the intervening spaces are occupied by triassic and other more recent formations. The general tilt of the land is towards the west and south-west, and the somewhat ill-defined water-parting lies much nearer to the Eastern Tarim than to the Western Aralo-Caspian basin. On its eastern verge also rises Mount Tagharma, or Taghalma, culminating point of the land. This mountain, known also as the Wi-tagh ("House Mount") and Muz-tagh-ata ("Father of the Ice Mounts"), rises, according to Trotter and Kostenko, to a height of 25,500 feet, and is continued south-eastwards by the Chichiklik, which is itself about 20,000 feet high. These highlands, which run transversely with the Tian-shan, are the Tsung-ling, or "Onion Mountains," of the Chinese, and the Kizil-art of the Kashgarians.
The Pamir is often swept by terrific gales from the north-east, where its sheltering mountain barrier is broken at several points. On the shores of the Kara-kul and in the sandy gorge of the Kizil-art the very rocks are worn by the sands incessantly playing on them from the north. In those lofty regions the air is generally very dry and clear, except when clouded by the powdered mists of the desert winds. The extremes of temperature occasioned by this transparent atmosphere, combined with the snow-storms, which prevail chiefly in February and March, are amongst the principal dangers to which travellers are exposed. They also suffer much from "mountain sickness" and distressing headaches.
Flora, Fauna, Lakes of the Pamir.
The Pamir is frequented in summer by Kirghiz nomads, with their flocks from Khokand and Karateghin in the north, and from Shignan in the west. Cairns are scattered here and there, marking old camping grounds, or the graves of Kirghiz "saints," decked with sheep's horns and fluttering rags. Above the line of arborescent vegetation, indicated by the willow, dwarf birch, juniper, and thorny shrubs, the only available fuel is that afforded by the wood of roots of a species of lavender, while still higher up even this resource fails. Yet in many places, even at altitudes of 13,000 feet, the grass is as thick as on the grazing grounds of West Europe, and perhaps richer. Marco Polo's statement that the Pamir affords the best pasture in the world, fattening a lean hack in ten days, is confirmed by recent explorers and their Wakhi guides. In the upland Sirikol valley sloping towards Kashgaria barley, haricots, and other plants are cultivated as high as 10,300 feet. Yet the parallel ridges, especially in the north, are almost destitute of vegetation, and here nothing grows except in the moist hollows on the banks of the lakes and rivulets.
* Fig. 87.—Relief of the Highlands and Plateaux between the Hindu-Kush and Tian-shan.
* Scale 1 : 13,900,000.
* 300 Miles.
The fauna is much richer than was formerly supposed. Sieverzov found in 1878 no less than 112 species of birds at an elevation at which on the Alps there are no more than a dozen. The muddy shores of the lakes show traces of the chamois, hare, deer, fox, bear, wolf, lynx, leopard, and on the Great Pamir are wild goats like those of the Himalayas. But the typical animal of the plateau is the so-called kachkar, or arkhar (Ovis poli), a species of sheep over 3 feet high, weighing from 400 to 430 lbs., and distinguished by enormous horns inclined backwards in a double spiral. Formerly very numerous, the kachkar seems disappearing from the Pamir, and in the north it was nearly swept away by the epidemic of 1869. Potagos appears to have met a small species of monkey in the upland valleys of the south; but the bear has vanished from the north, and the tiger spoken of by some travellers was more probably a leopard.
Traces of increasing aridity are no less evident on the Pamir than elsewhere in the Aralo-Caspian basin. A great many lakes have already ceased to overflow, and have been gradually changed to isolated saline or brackish tarns. Such is the ​Sussik-kul in the south, though the Rang-kul still retains its sweetness, thanks to the stream through which it drains to a tributary of the Oxus. In many places the old lakes are now indicated by incrustations of salt and magnesia.
The Kara-kul, or "Black Lake," so called from its deep blue colour, is the largest on the Pamir, but seems at present to be passing through a transition period. Situated immediately south of the Kizil-art, it is everywhere enclosed by snowy mountains, but its vast basin is no longer entirely flooded. Its present area is about 120 square miles, but former extent is clearly marked by numerous islands, peninsulas, swampy flats, and the dazzling white incrustations of magnesia met with along its shores. It is divided into two halves by a ridge running north and south, and connected with the mainland by a strip of sand. Its feeders no longer compensate for the loss by evaporation, the rainfall is very slight, and nearly all the moisture is discharged either as hail in summer or snow in winter. Before Kostenko's visit the lake was represented as draining either to the Kashgar or to the Oxus, or even to both basins. But if it ever existed the outlet through the Markan-su north-east to the Kashgar has long been dried up, while that flowing south to the Oxus seems to be intermittent, during high floods still sending a little water through the Chon-su or Ak-baïtal to that river. Being thus without a regular outflow, its waters have become so bitter that animals will only drink them when suffering from extreme thirst. But they are always clear, and apparently stocked with fish. According to the nomads the level of the lake rises regularly every Friday, a belief Kostenko seems half inclined to credit. Korostovzev also speaks of regular risings, without, however, indicating their duration.
The Alaï Highland.
North of the Pamir the two parallel ramparts of the Trans-Alaï and Alaï belong to the Tian-shan system, and their geological structure, according Mushketov, is the same. But these diorite and granite masses being separated by the Kog-art and Terek-davan* Passes from that range, they may be regarded as forming an independent system. This western section of the Tian-shan, merging in the Turkestan plains between the Sir and Oxus basins, has a length of 420 miles, and, like the Tian-shan proper, consists of various ridges running either east-north-east or north-west, and crossing each other at intervals.
At the north-east corner of the Pamir the two ranges present a remarkably regular appearance. The Alaï, or Kichi-Alaï, forming the water-parting between the Sir, Oxus, and Tarim basins, sharply limits the Ferghana depression by a barrier of crests with a mean elevation of from 13,000 to 18,000 feet, which are separated from each other by elevated passes. Of these one of the lowest is the Isfaïram Pass, 12,000 feet high, at one of the "breaks" in the Alaï, where the chain suddenly takes a westerly direction. From a neighbouring bluff a view is afforded of the snowy monarch of the Trans-Alaï, which Fedchenko has named
​Kaufmann Peak, and which is probably the culminating point of the whole Tian-shan system. A little farther east rises a group of three other crests, of nearly equal elevation, the Gurumdi of the Kirghiz.
* Fig. 88.—The Alaï Plateau.
* Scale 1 : 640,000.
* 12 Miles.
The space between the Alaï and Trans-Alaï is regarded as forming a separate plateau, a sort of advanced platform or landing-place in the descent from the "Roof of the World" down to the Ferghana valley. It forms the bed of a dried-up lake, at its most elevated place, no less than 24 miles broad, and stretching in a narrower channel north-east and south-west. The upper part, known as the Bash-Alaï, or "Head of the Alaï," is the "Paradise" of the Kirghiz, though a paradise they can visit only for three or four months in the year. It forms the water-parting between the Oxus and Kashgar basins, and the two streams that here take their rise are both called the Kizil-su, or "Red River," from the colour of their banks. Most of their tributary rivulets have also a reddish tinge, due no doubt to the clays deposited by the old glaciers.
In those flowing towards the Western Kizil-su, the Surgh-ab of the Tajiks, Fedchenko discovered a species of trout not met with in any other Turkestan river, and probably allied to that found by Griffith in another tributary of the Oxus near Bamian. This fish seems to have been driven by the change of climate from the plains to the mountain torrents.
* SHCHUROVSKIY GLACIER.
* Fig. 89.—The Shchurovskiy Glacier.
* Scale 1 : 320,000.
* 6 Miles.
West of the Isfaïram and Kara-kazik Pass the Alaï rises gradually in a parallel line with some northern ridges traversed by the streams flowing to Ferghana. It is connected by spurs with these ridges, the whole constituting, north of the sources of the Zarafshan, a highland region rising 6,000 or 7,000 feet above the snow-line, and sending down mighty glaciers to the surrounding upland valleys. From the highest peak of these highlands, the culminating point of the Alaï proper, the Shchurovskiy glacier flows northwards, while from the slopes of the Khotur-tau and neighbouring mountains there descend numerous torrents and cascades, a phenomenon elsewhere as rare in the Central Asiatic highlands as on the slopes of the Caucasus. Here the forests, far inferior in beauty to those of Europe, are composed largely of the archa, a species of juniper (Juniperus pseudo-sabina), which flourishes at an elevation of 5,000 feet and upwards.
The Kara-tau, which forms a western continuation of the Alaï, maintains an altitude of over 13,000 feet to the south of Tashkend, beyond which it falls somewhat rapidly in the direction of Samarkand, while throwing off at a sharp angle another spur towards the north-west. The various sections of these mountains, which are interrupted by broad gaps, are known by different names, such as the Ura-tepe, the Julan or Sausar-tau, Kara-tau, and Nura-tau.
The parallel ridges running between the Alaï and Western Pamir have a greater mean altitude than the outer chain but they are divided by mountain torrents into a number of distinct fragments, nowhere forming any decided water-parting. Thus the Trans-Alaï is divided on the west of the Karateghin Mountains by the Ters-agar, whence flow two streams in opposite directions, northwards to the Tuz-altin-dara, a tributary of the Surgh-ab, southwards to the Muk-su. Farther west the Surgh-ab itself pierces the Karateghin range to effect a junction with the ​Muk-su, which is formed by three head-streams, one of which is fed by a glacier over a mile broad, and at its lower extremity about 100 feet thick. The Sel-su valley is filled by a still larger glacier, at least 10 miles long, which Oshanin, the first explorer of this region, has named after the celebrated traveller Fedchenko.
* Fig. 90—Routes of Explorers in the Western Pamir.
* According to Krapotkin. Scale 1 : 3,600,000.
* 60 Miles.
West of the Alaï, where all the parallel chains converge in a snowy plateau sending down glaciers to the surrounding cirques, the two parallel Zarafshan and Hissar ranges are also pierced by river valleys. But here the chains begin to branch off like a fan, gradually falling towards the plains, where they reappear here and there in isolated rocky eminences. Between Samarkand and Hissar some ​of the peaks still rise above the snow-line, and although less elevated than the Kaufmann Peak of the Trans-Alaï, they perhaps present a grander appearance, thanks to their greater relative height above the surrounding district.*
III.—THE TIAN-SHAN.
Of the Asiatic mountain systems sloping northwards this is the largest both in extent, elevation, the abundance of its snows and glacier masses. The title of Tian-shan, or "Celestial Mountains," was conferred on it by the Chinese, doubtless from the elevation of its snowy peaks blending with the fleecy welkin. Its lofty crests have ever formed one of the chief barriers to migration, conquest, and commercial intercourse, and these mountains have at all times been avoided eastwards by the Zungarian passes.
Fig. 91.—Relative Area of the Tian-shan, Alps, and Pyrenees. :
| Scale 1: 24,000,000. |||
| Pyrenees. | Alps. | Tian-shan. |
| 600 Miles. |||
Till recently the Russians themselves, notwithstanding their military resources and superior culture, have stopped short at the northern base of the range, which for them formed the limit of the known world, and which was masked by vast deserts, swamps, and shallow lakes. Its passes are approached by no great river valley except that of the Sir-daria, which, like all the other streams flowing from the Tian-shan, is lost in a land-locked lake. Although forming the chief mountain mass of Asia north of the Himalayas and Kuen-lun, this range is nevertheless of far less hydrographic importance than the secondary
​others through the narrow Nomin-mingin-gobi gateway between the Barkul Hills and the advanced spurs of the Altaï north-westwards to Zungaria. Here the Mongolians were easily enabled to skirt on the north the whole Tian-shan system by availing themselves of the numerous passes opening westwards to the Ili basin, north-westwards to Lake Balkhash, northwards to the Black Irtish and Lake Zaïsan. These depressions between Mongolia and Siberia have a mean altitude of probably not more than 3,300 feet, and the highest point on the route from Barkul north-west to the Black Irtish is only 2,545 feet. The existence of an oblique chain, supposed by Richthofen to run north-west from Barkul to the Tarbagatai Mountains, has not been confirmed by Potantin's explorations, though a small ridge runs from the extremity of the Tian-shan at Barkul in a north-westerly direction, again joining the main range west of the town. This is the outer rim of an ancient lake, of which nothing now remains except the small Barkul basin, to which this town owes its Tatar name. Beyond the Barkul heights nothing occurs in the north-west as far as the valley of the Black Irtish, except irregular masses representing the islands and peninsulas of the old sea flowing between the Altaï and Tian-shan highlands.
Katûn and Yulduz Highlands.
West of the Urumtsi defile and of the old Turfan inlet the main range rises above the snow-line, and takes the name of Katûn, or Katin. This section, one of the least known in the system, is probably one of the highest, and undoubtedly exceeds 16,000 feet. No mention is made by the Chinese writers of any pass over it, and all the caravan routes skirt it east and west, while the lakes on both sides of the chain seem to point at extensive snow-fields on the uplands. Regel recently found vast glaciers about the sources of the Kash, which flows from the Katûn highlands westwards to the Kunges and Ili. Here the Tian-shan system develops into several parallel ridges, while south of the Katûn runs another chain through whose gorges the torrents from the main range escape to the plains. West of one of these gorges, traversed by an affluent of Lake Bogla-nor (Bostan-nor, or Bagrach-kul), the Tian-shan forms four parallel snowy ridges, known, like the neighbouring lake, by several different names, and enclosing two vast basins over 7,000 feet high. These so-called "stars" (Great and Little Yulduz) are the beds of old lakes, which now form natural pasture-lands watered by streams flowing to Lake Bogla-nor. It was in one of these vast cirques that Tamerlane, on his expedition against Kashgaria, assembled five armies from five different points of the Tian-shan, and ordered them to exterminate all the inhabitants of the land between Lakes Zaïsan and Bogla-nor north and south. The imperial tent stood in the middle of the plain, and the "Destroyer of the Universe" ascended his golden throne glittering with gems, and round about were the less sumptuous, but still gorgeous tents of his emirs. All received rich presents, and the troops were inflamed with rapture. These grazing grounds are the "Promised Land" of the nomad pastors, who here find the richest pastures for their flocks, and the finest climate, free even in summer from flies and mosquitoes. Yet Prejvalsky found this ​magnificent region completely abandoned in 1876. Plundered in 1865 by the Moslem Zungarians, the 50,000 Yulduz nomads had been driven, some south-eastwards to Lake Bogla-nor, others north-westwards to the Ili valley. Left thus masters of the wilderness, the wild ruminants have here become very numerous. Among them are the Ovis poli in flocks of thirty to forty, the mountain goat (Capra Sibirica), the maral, a species of deer.* But neither the Ovis karelini, the Oris poli, nor the argali is anywhere met in the Eastern Tian-shan. The wolf, fox, and other beasts of prey are also numerous in this section of the range, which is the exclusive home of the white-clawed bear (Ursus leuconyx).
Fig. 95.—Routes of Explorers in the Eastern Tian-shan. :
| Scale 1 : 9,670,000. ||
| Prejvalsky, 1876. | Sosnosky, 1874–9. |
| Kuropatkin, 1876–7. | Regel, 1876–9. |
| Rafaïlov, 1874. | Great Chinese Highway. |
| 120 Miles. ||
According to their aspect, the mean direction of the winds, and amount of rainfall, the slopes of the Eastern Tian-shan present many striking contrasts. The southern and generally more abrupt slopes, being unable to retain much moisture, are nearly all treeless, while the northern are well wooded, the pine flourishing in some places as high as 8,000 feet, the upper limit of arborescent vegetation. On the northern slopes of the Narat, or Nara-tau, running north of the Little Yulduz, the forests on the banks of the Zanma consist almost exclusively of the "Tian-shan pine" and of a species of ash, while the apple, apricot, and other fruit trees abound in the Kunges valley, and in most of the basins north of these mountains.
Fig. 96. :
| Ovis Karelini. | Argali. | Ovis Poli. |
​The two Ala-tau chains, which have a total length of about 150 miles, are limited eastwards by the San-tash Pass and the Aktogoï defile, westwards by the Büam defile, which is traversed by the river Chu, and which separates them abruptly from the Alexander Mountains. This gloomy gorge is strevn with enormous blocks, between which rise fantastic porphyry pillars. But it lacks the savage grandeur of the Aktogoï gorge. Below the junction of the Great Kebin the Chu crosses the western continuation of the Northern Ala-tau, after which it receives the Little Kebin at the head of a broad plain skirted by two detached branches of the Tian-shan, which merge gradually with the desert. The southermnost of these chains, another Ala-tau, now more usually known as the Alexander Mountains, is a snowy range running east and west over 180 miles, and culminating with the Hamîsh, or Mount Semyonov of the Russians.
Lake Issik-kul and Western Tian-shan Highlands.
The geographical centre of the whole Tian-shan system is the Great Issik-kul, or "Hot Lake," as it is called by the natives. It is encircled on all sides by mountains, on the north by the Ala-tau Kungei, on the south by the Ala-tau Terskei, the vast amphitheatre forming an oval tract of over 400 miles in circumference. The Issik-kul is not only the largest lake in the Tian-shan highlands, but the only great survivor of the numerous reservoirs that formerly filled the basins between the parallel ridges. But it was at one time far larger than at present, as shown by the water marks on the hillsides 30 miles west of its present limits. Even in the ten years from 1867 to 1877 it has fallen nearly 7 feet, implying at least a temporary, if not a permanent, drying up of the land. The river Chu, which formerly flowed to its western corner, now reaches it only during the freshets and melting of the snows. According to a Kirghiz tradition the Kutemaldi was dug by the inhabitants of the country, anxious to get rid of the Issik-kul, but, owing to a miscalculation, they gave a new affluent instead of an outlet to the lake. Yet, although it has no present outflow, it is about ten times larger than Lake Geneva, its area being estimated at 2,300 square miles.
It stands some 5,000 feet above sea-level, but never freezes, whence, according to Sieverzov, its name the "Hot Lake," though this title is more probably due to the numerous hot springs round its shores. The lake is slightly brackish and teems with fish, of which, however, not more than four species have been discovered in its clear blue waters. In 1872 the first boat worthy of the name was launched on its surface; yet its desert shores seem to have been formerly thickly peopled. Crania, bones, and various objects of human industry are occasionally thrown up by the waves, and bits of iron and potsherds have been found by Kolpakovsky at a depth of 3 or 4 feet.
East of Lake Issik-kul are grouped the Khan-tenghri Mountains, which may be regarded as the dominant mass of the whole Tian-shan system. Although exceeded in height by the principal Trans-Alaï peaks, the Khan-tenghri contains the greatest ​number of snowy crests, glaciers, and streams flowing to the four points of the compass, and it is also crossed by the most frequented pass between the northern and southern slopes, and leading from Kulja to Eastern Turkestan.
The Khan-tengri forms part of the southern chain, which begins south of the Great Yulduz basin, and runs under divers names thence westwards. To the Kok-teke succeeds the Geshik-hashi, beyond which follow the Shalik-tau and the Muz-art-tau, which last is crossed by the broad but dangerous Miz-art Pass, at a height, according to Regel, of about 11,600 feet. The passage is easier in winter than summer, the crevasses being then filled with frozen snow, but although it has been crossed by Kaulbars, Kostenko, Dilke, Regel, and others, no European traveller has hitherto continued the journey southwards to Kashgaria.
West of the Muz-art stretches a world of glaciers and lofty crests in a highland region, of which little is known beyond the fact that several of its glaciers, especially that at the source of the Sari-jassi, a tributary of the Tarim, are comparable in length to the Aletsch glacier in the Valais Alps. From the Muz-art-tau to the western extremity of the Sari-jassin-tau the snowy range maintains for over 60 miles a mean elevation of more than 16,500 feet. All the peaks overtop Mont Blanc by at least 3,000 feet, and southwards rises in solitary grandeur the Khan-tengri, or Kara-göl-bas.
Beyond a chaos of peaks, whence flow the head-streams of the Tarim and Sir, the mountains resume their normal direction from east to west. They form with their parallel chains an enormous mass, no less than 210 miles broad north of Kashgar. The outer are far more elevated than the central ridges, between which flows the Narin, the chief affluent of the Sir. Although pierced at intervals by streams running south-eastwards to Kashgaria, the Kok-shaal, or southern range, maintains a mean altitude of over 15,000 feet, while several summits in the Kok-kiya section exceed 16,600 feet. These highlands, whose escarpments slope towards Chinese Turkestan, are amongst the least-known regions of the continent, although crossed towards their western extremity by the Turug-art, an easy pass well known to traders. It is a very barren region, with bare hills and scattered ridges, between which are the channels of dried-up rivers. The slope is very gentle even northwards to the Ak-sai plateau and the Chatir-kul. This lake, which is said to be destitute of fish, is all that remains of an extensive inland sea formerly flowing between the southern range and the parallel Kubergenti, Ak-bash, and Kara-koin chains on the north. Although it has no apparent outlet, its waters are still quite fresh. The hills skirting it northwards are crossed by the Tash-robat Pass, which, like the Turug-art, is open all the year round to the caravans between Verniy and Kashgaria.
West of the Turug-art the southern range attains a great elevation, and from a pass on a parallel chain north of it Osten-Sacken distinguished no less than sixty-three snowy peaks. It runs at first north-east and south-west, then turning west and north-west in a line with the extreme spurs of the northern chains, and intersecting the parallel ridges of the Central Tian-shan in such a way as to intercept their waters. But the innumerable lakes thus formed have now run dry, mainly through
​the defile by which the Narin escapes westwards. Here the Tian-shan system is completely limited by the Ferghana plains, but at the south-west corner of the Tian-shan proper various offshoots run south-westwards, connecting the main range with the Alaï and the Pamir. But till the beginning of the tertiary period a large marine strait still connected Ferghana and Kashgaria through the Kog-art, thus completely separating the Pamir from the Tian-shan plateau. The whole Tian-shan system was at that time crossed from north-east to south-west by a chain of inland seas, of which all that now remains is the Issik-kul. Those of Kulja and Ferghana have long been drained off.
* Fig. 98.—Western Chains of the Tian-shan.
* Scale 1 : 9,000,000
* 240 Miles.
North of the Upper Narin valley the main range is known as the Terskei Ala-tau, or Ala-tau "of the Shade," in contradistinction to the Kungei Ala-tau, or Ala-tau "of the Sun," skirting the other side of the Issik-kul. Owing to the greater moisture of its slopes the former is far better wooded, the pine forests and pastures at many points reaching the snow-line. It culminates with the Ugus-bas, which attains an elevation of over 16,500 feet. Near the Barskaûn Pass, on its southern slopes, rises the Narin, chief head-stream of the Sir, while other affluents flow from the southern region of the Ak-shiirak glaciers, south of which rise the farthest sources of the Kashgarian Ak-su. A large portion of the country comprised between the Terskei Ala-tau and the Kok-shaal north and south forms an extensive plain, or ​sîrt, strewn with sandstones, many-coloured marls, gypsum, and saline incrustations, and studded with tarns, but nearly destitute of vegetation. This bleak region is exposed to snow-storms even in June and July, and in some years the snow never melts in the hollows throughout the summer.
Fig. 99.—Routes of Explorers in the Western Tian-shan. :
| Scale 1 : 9,000,000. ||
| Postal Highways. | Reinthal, 1868. |
| Divers Routes. | Kaulbars, 1869. |
| Valikhanov, 1858. | Kostenko, 1876. |
| Golubev, 1859. | Kuropatkin, 1876–7. |
| Venyukov, 1859–60. | Prejvalsky, 1877. |
| Sieverzov, 1854–68. | Regel, 1876–9. |
| Osten-Sacken, 1867. | Forsyth, 1874. |
| 120 Miles. ||
The Terskei Ala-tau is continued westwards under divers names, as are all the parallel chains with which it is connected by transverse ridges. The lacustrine plains are probably more numerous here than elsewhere in the Tian-shan system. But of all the formerly flooded basins one only remains, the Son-kul, a fresh-water lake about the size of Lake Geneva, encircled by steep sides of green porphyry, and draining through a small stream to the Narin. One of the most remarkable of these dried-up plains is the Kashkar valley, source of the Kashkar, the main head-stream of the Chu. It communicates by the Shamsi Pass with the northern plain.
* Area and population of the Aralo-Caspian lands:—
| | | Area in Square Miles. | Probable Population in 1880. |
| Russian possessions from the Atrek to the Irtish | Russian possessions from the Atrek to the Irtish | 1,520,000 | 4,500,000 |
| Khiva | Khiva | 23,000 | 300,000 |
| Bokhara | Bokhara | 95,500 | 2,150,000 |
| Turkoman country | Turkoman country | 60,000 | 200,000 |
| Afghan Turkestan | Afghan Turkestan | 54,000 | 950,000 |
| | Total | 1,752,500 | 8,100,000 |
* Throughout this work the term Tûrki is to be taken as practically synonymous with the popular but less accurate Tatar, or "Tartar." Farther on occurs the expression "Turanian," used in a very vague way by most ethnologists. Here it will be strictly limited to the Tûrki nomad as opposed to the Iranian settled population.—Ed.
​ * The Tian-shan passes bear the Tatar names of davan or daban, art or yart, bel and kutal. The davan is a difficult rocky defile, the art a dangerous gap at a high elevation, the bel a low and easy pass, and the kutal a broad opening between low hills (Fedchenko).
* Chief elevations of the Pamir and Alaï system:—
| Pamir. | Pamir. | | Feet. |
| | Feet. | Bash-Alaï | 11,000 |
| Kizil-art Pass | 14,240 | Alaï-tagh, highest point | 19,330 |
| Kara-kul | 13,400 | Alaï-tagh, mean height | 16,000 |
| Uz-bel Pass, south of Kara-kul | 15,100 | Shchurovskiy Glacier, lower extremity | 11,900 |
| Snow-line | 15,500 | Kaufmann Peak, Trans-Alaï | 25,000 |
| | | Ters agar Pass | 9,850 |
| Alaï. | Alaï. | Trans-Alaï snow-line | 14,160 |
| Terek-davan | 10,460 | Shelveli | 25,000 |
| Isfaïram | 12,000 | Saudal | 25,000 |
| Kavuk | 13,300 | Chabdara (Hissar Mountains) | 18,600 |
| Kara-kazik | 14,630 | Hasreti-Sultan | 15,000 |
​ * Sieverzov tells us that the young horns of the maral, while still filled with blood and not yet hardened, are highly esteemed by the Chinese, who pay from £6 to £20 the pair for them on the Siberian frontier. Hence the maral has always been eagerly chased; and since the wild animal has become rare, the Cossacks of the Kiakhta district have succeeded in domesticating it. Polakoff has recently stated that this industry has become widely diffused in Western Siberia, where tame herds of fifty to seventy head are now to be met. Unfortunately the horns of the domesticated animal have lost many of the qualities for which they are chiefly valued as an article of trade.—Editor.