After leaving Görlen we went on for about four hours down stream, and came to Yengï yap, an insignificant hamlet, surrounded by earth walls, and about one hour and a half distant from the river. Two hours later we reached the district of Khitayi, which begins where the Yumalak, a conical hill, rises close to the left bank. On the right the Oveis mountains approach nearer and nearer to the Oxus, and soon we passed the prominent peak Yampuk, crowned with the ruins of an old castle. Opposite Yumalak the mountain chain, Sheik Djeli, which runs from east to west, forms a very narrow channel (here called kisnak), much narrower than the Iron Gates on the Danube, and often dangerous to navigation from the force and rapidity of the current. The waters here roar, as if the Oxus, that unruly son of the desert, were angry at being so imprisoned between the rocks. The narrowest part is, however, very short; on the left bank the mountains terminate abruptly, while on the right bank the high lands gradually slope, and after having passed Tama, which lies on the left, the country is everywhere flat. With the mountains disappeared every romantic feature along the banks of the Oxus. After a voyage of two days our eyes and imagination were fully satisfied, and although the morning and evening hours had their charms, yet the heat became intolerable in the day-time, and the mosquitoes and flies at night--insects, in comparison with which the Golumbacz on the Lower Danube are harmless and insignificant as butterflies. As soon as the sun began to set, every one crept carefully under the mosquito-net, made, of course, of linen, the air under which had become so thoroughly poisoned by my fellow-travellers, that I felt keenly not to be able to exchange it for the purer air outside. Towards evening we reached the district of Mangit, which has a town of the same name, about two hours' distance from the river, but not visible from the boat on account of a small wood which intervenes. Here we remained for some time moored along the bank, and having comfortably cooked our dinner in the open air, instead of on the narrow hearth in the boat, we continued our voyage. We reached Basuyap, after another hour's journey, at night, much to the regret of my friend, who had been anxious to pay a visit with me to a very celebrated _Nogaï Ishan_, who resided there, in order to ask his advice and blessing on the journey he had undertaken. These _Nogaï_, who fled hither to escape the Russian authorities or the conscription, are in Central Asia regarded as martyrs to freedom and Islamism, and revered as such; but I have frequently met among them the most consummate rascals, and thought that they had probably run away from a fully merited chastisement.