Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/245

 valley of the Ubir-mirgin-gol, a rivulet which flows for ten miles through the mountains before issuing into the valley of the Hoang-ho.

Here the scenery suddenly changes. The mountains descend precipitously into the valley; forests, streams, and flowery meadows suddenly terminate, and in their stead appears a sandy waterless plain as level as a floor. The birds and animals of the mountains disappear; the call of the deer, the cluck of the partridge, the woodpecker's noisy hammer, and the music of singing birds are no longer heard; the antelope and larks reappear, and myriads of grasshoppers fill the sultry noonday air with their incessant chirruping.

After leaving the mountains, we took an easterly direction along the valley between the river and the In-shan range. The Chinese population is very dense, and their villages are nestled at the foot of the mountains, probably to escape the heavy floods of the Hoang-ho. The fields are large, well cultivated, and sown with millet, wheat, barley, buckwheat, oats, rice, maize, potatoes, hemp, peas and beans, and in some places with pumpkins, water-melons, common melons, and poppy. Owing to the lower level of the land and the shelter afforded by the mountains on the north, vegetation was very forward; some of the corn was ripening, and the barley was ready to carry.

Our next day's march of twenty-seven miles