C H A P T E R X IX .
F R OM A L T YN - IM M E L TO V IFRN Y .
Route over Chulak hills.—»-The Ili bridge.— Trans-Ili Ala-Tau mountains.
' — View from the steppe.— Ala-Tau passes.— Jelanash plateau.—
Fort Vemoe ; its site, climate, and diseases.— Appearance of town
and houses.«—Diversity of population ; races and classes.— Introduction
to M. von Ghem.— Poor hotel.— Mercantile acquaintances
and sale of Scriptures^-Market prices and local industries.--
Scriptures for prisons and hospitals.— Town schools.— Visit to
Archbishop.— Need of Scriptures and tracts in the vernacular.
IT was early on the morning of the 7th September
when from Kuldja we arrived at Altyn-Immel.
The bulk of my books had greatly shrunk, for everywhere
the post-masters and others purchased them
readily. Accordingly, our boxes repacked, we started
for Vierny. Altyn-Immel station is 4,000 feet high,
and in four stages we were to descend 2,700 feet to
the Ili river. Our road lay over the round-backed
spurs of the Chulak hills, and after the second station,
Karachekinsk, across immense plains, dotted here and
there with Kirghese yourts, and herds. A t Chingil-
dinsk, the next station, was a spring of water, roofed
over in the post-house, that I was taken to see as
something remarkable,— a veritable treasure, I suppose, .
in such a region.
Here we drank tea, and posted on to Ilisk, defended
by a small fort, and where a ferry took us across the
Ili, here about 700 feet wide. Future travellers will be
able to cross by a bridge. It was to be opened in the
spring of 1884, as Major Gourdet wrote me, a wood
and iron one built on the American Howe system, 850
feet long, at a cost of about ,£20,000. M. Gourdet
had been sent to Europe to order the ironwork of the
structure when I met him at Moscow.* A t this river
our official companion reached the frontier o f his uyezd,
and having now conducted us rapidly, and shown us
every attention possible, he bade us adieu. Meanwhile,
we pushed on to Kuntenta, after passing which
I learned the use of sending on the wagonette ahead.
I had insisted on this after our former mishap ; and
at about two o’clock on the morning of the 8th we
overtook our vehicle, out in the cold, come to an utter
standstill, one of the wheels having gone not a little
wrong, but having fallen entirely to pieces. We could
only trot forward in the tarantass to the next station,
Kara-su, where the good-natured post-master lent us a
wheel to recover the broken-down vehicle, and allowed
* T h ew e igh t of iron is 130 tons, and consists of 160 tubular pillars
and 7,000 bolts. M. Gourdet mentions an interesting fact about the
metal— namely, that a rod of iron of 120 inches, with a section of
1 square inch, supported an elongation of 32 inches before breaking
under a weight of 25 tons ; to which should be added, that on account
of the testing machine being a very primitive one, the tension was not
made in the plane of the axis of the bolt, so that it was before breaking
bent at an angle of about 15°. It was just at the bend that the bolt
broke, showing that, if the tension had been quite vertical, it would have
borne mo.re than 25 tons weight. The pillars are made of f-inch sheet-
iron, the quality of which may be estimated from one of the sheets
having been folded, cold, like a pièce of paper, i.e., at 180°, without the
least sign of cracking. Holes 1 inch in diameter have been punched at
a distance of £ of an inch from one another, and the narrow partition is
•left quite clpan and entire, without any trace of breaking. M. Gourdet
then adds, “ I do not suppose there is much iron even in England that
can rival this from Nijni T a g il.” .