Kash

OUR previous survey, including the expedition up the Yurungkash gorge, had cleared up the important question as to the true origin and course of the main feeder of the Khotan River. The next and equally interesting task was to map the headwaters of the streams which drain the portion of the Kuen-lnen range south and south-west of Karanghu-tagh, and are manifestly the principal tributaries. In the course of my inquiries from the Qusha herdsmen about dominant pots that would enable me to sight again the series of maguificent glaciers which feed the Kash River, I lad ascertained that there was a difficult path just practicable for laden yaks crossing the transverse range north-west to Karanghu-tagh. It was said to lead to the Nissa Valley, whence a track could be found to the mountains on the upper Kara-kash River.

1903, Aurel Stein, “Over the Kara-kash Ranges”, in Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan, published 2005, →OCLC, page 225

We left Kuldja on 31 July 1928 and went up the right side of the broad cultivated Ili valley. Just below Mazar, a village with a large and frequented shrine built in the Tungan style, the Kash river flows through a gorge into the Kunges, and the united stream is called the Ili river. Continuing up the right bank of the Kash river, the country became down-like in appearance, though deep and unsuspected gorges made travel away from the river quite impossible.

1930 July, Reginald C. F. Schomberg, “Three Journeys in the Tien Shan, 1928–1929”, in The Geographical Journal, volume LXXVI, number 1, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 25