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
