Kaufmann Peak, and which is probably the culminating point of the whole Tian-shan system. A little farther east rises a group of three other crests, of nearly equal elevation, the Gurumdi of the Kirghiz.
| Fig. 88.—The Alaï Plateau. |
| Scale 1 : 640,000. |
|
 12 Miles.
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The space between the Alaï and Trans-Alaï is regarded as forming a separate plateau, a sort of advanced platform or landing-place in the descent from the "Roof of the World" down to the Ferghana valley. It forms the bed of a dried-up lake, at its most elevated place, no less than 24 miles broad, and stretching in a narrower channel north-east and south-west. The upper part, known as the Bash-Alaï, or "Head of the Alaï," is the "Paradise" of the Kirghiz, though a paradise they can visit only for three or four months in the year. It forms the water-parting between the Oxus and Kashgar basins, and the two streams that here take their rise are both called the Kizil-su, or "Red River," from the colour of their banks. Most of their tributary rivulets have also a reddish tinge, due no doubt to the clays deposited by the old glaciers.
In those flowing towards the Western Kizil-su, the Surgh-ab of the Tajiks, Fedchenko discovered a species of trout not met with in any other Turkestan river, and probably allied to that found by Griffith in another tributary of the Oxus near Bamian. This fish seems to have been driven by the change of climate from the plains to the mountain torrents.
