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The Yarkand-darya would never reach the lake, Lop-nor, where it discharges its water, if it did not receive a considerable tributary on the way. This tributary is called the Ak-su, or "White Water," and it comes foaming down from the Tien-shan, the high mountains to the north. After the rivers have mingled their waters, the united main stream is called the Tarim.
To the south-east of Samarcand stand the huge highlands of the Pamir, called by its inhabitants the "Roof of the World," for it seems to them to rise like a roof above all the rest of the earth. From this great centre run the lofty mountain ranges of the earth, the Himalayas, the Trans-himalaya, Karakorum, Kuen-lun, and the Tien-shan on the east, the Hindu-Kush on the west.
If you examine the map you will see that most of the ranges of Asia and Europe, and the most important, are connected with it. The Tibetan ranges extend far into China and beyond the Indian peninsula. The Tien-shan is only the first link in a series of mountains which stretch north-eastwards throughout Asia.
On the north lie the Tien-shan, or Mountains of Heaven, which are continued farther north-eastwards by the Altai and several other mountain systems, among which the gigantic rivers of Siberia have their origin. Within this ring of mountains, at the very heart of the great continent of Asia, lies this lowland of Eastern Turkestan, like a Tibetan sheepfold enclosed by enormous walls of rock.
In the course of ages these strong spring storms have ploughed out channels and furrows in the clay, but otherwise the desert is as level as a frozen sea, the places where Lop-nor formerly spread out its water being marked only by pink mollusc shells. On the north the Lop desert is bounded by the easternmost chains of the Tien-shan, which the Chinese also call the "Dry Mountains."
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