Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/170

 in hiring a Mongol or Chinaman, even for so short a time, we started a party of four.

Our route first lay in the direction of Ku-peh-kau, which commands the pass through the Great Wall, and is nearly seventy-seven miles north of the capital. At first the appearance of the country does not change; the level plain watered by the Peiho and its tributary the Cha-ho is thickly studded with villages, and small towns and hamlets recur frequently along the road-side; but on the second day the mountains, which had been hitherto hardly visible in the distance, appeared nearer, and thirteen miles from Ku-peh-kau we entered the outlying hills of this marginal range. It is somewhat different from that at Kalgan. The two chains, which we will call the Kalgan and Nankau ranges (after the towns at the foot of the passes by which they are respectively descended), unite towards Ku-peh-kau in a broad belt, which continues to form an outer barrier to the high plateau.

Ku-peh-kau is a small place enclosed on three sides by mud walls, while on the fourth it is shut in by the Great Wall. A little over a mile from the town stands a mud fort commanding the road to Peking through a small narrow defile. The mountains only really begin on the northern side of Ku-peh-kau.

Although early in March, the weather was warm and springlike in the plains; it was even hot during