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EAST ASIA.
saddle-horses and pack animals, and at least one, that leading from Kashgar over
the Turug-art (11,750 feet) and the Terekti into a carriage
road.
(12,800), might easily be converted
On the other hand, one alone is utilised throughout the
whole year.
This is the famous Terek-davan, or "Poplar Pass" (10,450 feet),
used throughout the historic period by most of the Central Asiatic conquerors.
When the winter snows are unusually heavy, the Sartlar, a neighbouring Kara-
kirghiz tribe, are employed to transport the goods across the pass. The future
railway from Russian Turkestan to the Tarim basin will probably
follow this
route, which offers the most direct line from the Volga to the Hoang-ho basin.
But for the present there is no question of railways in a region where even the
Fig
26. ROUTES FROM KASHGAR TO FKHGHANA.
Scale 1 : 2,500,000.
. 60 Miles.
main highway round the base of the mountains from Khotan to Hami assumes the
aspect of a mere desert track.
TOPOGRAPHY ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS.
The chain of oases encircling the Tarim depression begins at the foot of the
Central Kuen-lun with the city of Clierchcn (Charchan, Charchand, Chachan),
which has probably been visited by no European since the days of Marco Polo and
Benedict do Goes, and whose position can only be approximately determined. Too
inaccessible to be subjugated either by the Chinese or the Khotani,
it lies about
6,000 feet above sea-level on a torrent flowing to Lake Lob in a corn-growing
district. It is a small place, of some five hundred houses, according to Johnson,
reduced by Prjevalsky to thirty.