This Fine Lake
(Sirikol) Lies In The Form Of A Crescent, About 14 Miles Long From East To
West, By An Average Breadth Of 1 Mile.
On three sides it is bordered by
swelling hills about 500 feet high, while along its southern bank they
rise into mountains 3500 feet above the lake, or 19,000 feet above the
sea, and covered with perpetual snow, from which never-failing source the
lake is supplied....
Its elevation, measured by the temperature of boiling
water, is 15,600 feet."
The absence of birds on Pamir, reported by Marco, probably shows that he
passed very late or early in the season. Hiuen Tsang, we see, gives a
different account; Wood was there in the winter, but heard that in summer
the lake swarmed with water-fowl. [Cf. Captain Trotter, p. 263, in
Forsyth's Mission.]
The Pamir Steppe was crossed by Benedict Goes late in the autumn of 1603,
and the narrative speaks of the great cold and desolation, and the
difficulty of breathing. We have also an abstract of the journey of Abdul
Mejid, a British Agent, who passed Pamir on his way to Kokan in
1861: - "Fourteen weary days were occupied in crossing the steppe; the
marches were long, depending on uncertain supplies of grass and water,
which sometimes wholly failed them; food for man and beast had to be
carried with the party, for not a trace of human habitation is to be met
with in those inhospitable wilds.... The steppe is interspersed with
tamarisk jungle and the wild willow, and in the summer with tracts of high
grass." (Neumann, Pilgerfahrten Buddh.
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