3-077-788 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mount Tagharma, in Central Asia, 1890. 'This View, drawn by M. Karajin, a Russian artist who travelled some years ago over the steppes of Turkestan and Tartary, and whose pictures attracted much notice, represents a conspicuous feature of the highlands in the border region east of Zarafshan and Khokand, in the direction of Kashgar, mainly consisting of the great elevated plateau known as the Pamir, which is also called by Turkomans the Bam-i-Dunya, or "Roof of the World." These highlands, on the average 15,000 ft. above the sea-level, extend over 30,000 square miles, and are in many parts tolerably level, but destitute of trees and shrubs, and with only some patches of grass along the banks of the numerous streams and lakes. They are crossed by several mountain ranges, connecting the Hindoo Kush and the Karakorum ranges, north-west and north of the Himalayas, with the Alai Mountains above Ferghana or Khokand. The sources of the Oxus (the Amu Darya) and of the Jaxartes (the Sir Darya), both flowing to the Sea of Aral over plains of vast extent, are to be found in this central region of Asia, but lie in separate basins, divided from each other by the Tian Shan Mountains, a vast natural rampart between the Russian and Chinese Empires'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.