Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/287

 arm of the Hoang-ho, near our camp. Some holes in the river-bed held water, and were full of fish, so that with our small net we caught in a short time upwards of 100 lbs. of carp and silurus; the latter of these is very common in the Hoang-ho. We kept the best of the fish we caught, and returned the remainder to the water.

The sport with the wild oxen and jerking the meat detained us eight days. But we had now enough to last a long while, and could advance more quickly; the more so as the poor vegetation and fauna of the valley of the river no longer presented objects of any particular interest.

On August 31st we resumed our march. The sands of Kuzupchi were on our left, as before, and on the right of our road lay the course of the Hoang-ho. Thick underwood impeded our progress in places, and the number of mosquitoes and small flies tormented us as well as our camels. The latter have a particular dislike to these insects, which are nowhere to be found in the deserts of the Mongolian plateau.

At the end of the first day's march we passed the night near the ferry of Gurbunduti, not far from which, on the border of the sands of Kuzupchi, lies a small salt basin of the same name. We ourselves did not see it, but we heard from the Mongols that it was 2½ miles in circumference. The layer of salt deposited is six inches to two feet