Wishing to draw a picture of the Zarafshan valley in its unbroken length, I have kept until now our fortnight's excursion to the Fan district or Hazrat-sultan, as this part of the Hissar range is sometimes called (see Maps 110 and 115). We left Varziminar on the 26th of July, and soon found ourselves on the dangerous cornice-paths of the Fan-darya. The Russian soldier, fond of pet names even for pet aversions, has given the name of “balkonchiki” to these giddy ledges. All bridges and paths are emergency structures, for our friend the native only builds emergency roads and emergency houses, his whole life being evidently one long emergency in view of a more permanent state in paradise. The “balconettes” are characteristic of most Asiatic mountain roads, and reflect great credit upon the improvising skill of the inhabitants, having been made without the use of a single ounce of powder for blasting or a single inch of rope for tying. We have more eye for their defects, but explorers and Cossacks have horses, whereas the humble pedestrian praises Allah for having caused such a comfortable passage to be made by man. Steep rock walls rise from the foaming torrent and along their face runs the narrow shelf stuck together out of crooked sticks and rubble. Twisted trees and branches are jammed into clefts or supported by friction on pads of brushwood ; little walls are raised on tiny ledges, or alternate layers of blocks and fagots formed into a coping. On this projecting scaffold is spread a mixture of stones and bits of wood, the surface of the overhanging road.