Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/172

 alpine in character. The valleys are not wide (about half a mile) occasionally narrowing into ravines, hemmed in by lofty rocks of gneiss and granolite. The road is crossed by several small streams, none amounting to rivers, with the exception of the Shandu-gol or Luan-ho, which takes its rise on the northern slope of the mountains nearest to the plateau; and after flowing past the town of Dolon-nor forces its way through the entire range and debouches in the plains of China Proper. The steep hillsides were thickly covered with grass, and as we penetrated farther into the range, by brush-wood and trees; the latter chiefly consisting of oak, black, or more rarely white birch, ash, pine, and an occasional spruce. Elms and poplars grow in the valleys. The commonest bushes were the evergreen oak, rhododendron, wild peach, sweet briar, and hazel.

Woods are only met with on the northern bank of the Luan-ho as far east as the town of Jehol,