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Updated: May 10, 2025
They are several miles long and half a mile to a mile broad. The surface is very uneven and consists of innumerable knobs and pyramids of clear ice. I made several excursions on the glaciers of Mus-tagh-ata on foot or on yaks. One must be well shod so as not to slip, and one must look out for crevasses. Once we were stopped by a crevasse several yards broad and forty-five feet deep.
As it melts below, the stream of ice is forced down from above, so that its lowest margin is always to be found in the same place. The gravel and boulders are brought down thither and piled up together so as to form great mounds and ridges, which are called moraines. The ice-stream itself is called a glacier. Many such tongues of ice fringe Mus-tagh-ata on all sides.
In their best clothes, coloured mantles with girdles and embroidered caps, and with their daggers and knives, fire steel, pipe and tobacco box rattling at their sides, they presented a stately and festal appearance. Among them might be noticed the chief of the Kirghizes who lived on the eastern side of Mus-tagh-ata.
The snow had formed a treacherous bridge over a large crevasse in the ice, and this bridge gave way under the weight of the yak. We had all the trouble in the world to haul him up again with ropes. At the foot of Mus-tagh-ata there is a level and extensive valley, where grass thrives luxuriantly. The black tents of the Kirghizes stand scattered about like spots on a panther's skin.
We might be glad if we could struggle down again alive in such weather, so down we started through the drifts, down headlong. We all needed a thorough rest after this experience. On another occasion we had a perilous adventure on the rounded ice-cap of Mus-tagh-ata.
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