Here are sharp curves, gradients which require the most powerful locomotives, here and there stationary engines to haul up the train with cables, in a word, a herculean labor, superior to the works of the American engineers in the defiles of the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains.
The desolate aspect of these territories makes a deep impression on the imagination.

As the train gains the higher altitudes, this impression is all the more vivid.

There are no towns, no villages--nothing but a few scattered huts, in which the Pamirian lives a solitary existence with his family, his horses, his herds of yaks, or "koutars," which are cattle with horses' tails, his diminutive sheep, his thick-haired goats.

The moulting of these animals, if we may so phrase it, is a natural consequence of the climate, and they change the dressing gown of winter for the white fur coat of summer.

It is the same with the dog, whose coat becomes whiter in the hot season.
As the passes are ascended, wide breaks in the ranges yield frequent glimpses of the more distant portions of the plateau.