Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/263

 characteristic plants of Ordos, the liquorice root (Glycyrrhiza Uralensis), called Chijir burja by the Mongols, and so or soho by the Chinese. This plant, which belongs to the leguminous order, has a root four feet long and upwards, with a thickness of two inches near the stem. These are, however, the dimensions of the full-grown plant; the roots of the young specimens are about the thickness of a finger, although their length is from three to four feet; iron spades with wooden handles are used to dig up this root. The labour of extracting it from the ground is very heavy, because it grows downwards almost vertically into a hard clayey soil, and is found in waterless districts where the workmen are exposed to a burning sun.

A party of labourers, generally Mongols, men and women, hired by the Chinese, on first arriving at the place, establish a depôt for storing the roots obtained every day. Here they are laid in a pit to preserve them from the sun; the next process is to cut off the thin end and the lateral offshoots. Then the roots are tied in bundles like sticks, each bundle weighing 100 hings (about 130 lbs.), loaded on boats, and despatched down the Hoang-ho. The Chinese told us that the liquorice root was sent to Southern China, where a particular kind of cooling drink is prepared from it.