Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/30

 The time was unfavourable for such a journey as was proposed; for the Mahommedan rebellion in NW. China and the adjoining regions was in full blaze. Singanfu, the capital of Shensi, and famous capital of China in ancient times, had in the spring of 1870 been invested, and an invasion of Shansi, perhaps of Pechihli itself, had only just been barred by a timely check of the rebels at Tung-kwan, on the great south-west elbow of the Yellow River, a point often, and in all ages of Chinese history, the key of important campaigns. About midsummer the strong frontier town of Kuku Khoto (or Kwei-hwa-cheng), in the border-land north of the Great Wall, was entirely blockaded from the side of Mongolia, whilst raids were frequently made into its suburbs. In October Uliassutai had been attacked, and the open part of the town burnt, and so greatly were the Chinese alarmed for Urga itself that they allowed it to be protected by a Russian garrison.

Prejevalsky himself does not (in this work at least) state these sufficient reasons for delaying his expedition; he rather seems to leave us to infer that the delay was part of the programme; but we borrow the details from a notice by Mr. Ney Elias, who was himself in North China and cognisant of the circumstances.

It was impracticable, however, in such a state of things to carry out the journey projected, and in the meantime Colonel Prejevalsky determined on undertaking a preliminary and experimental journey to the busy town of Dolon-nor and the salt lake of Dalai-nor in Eastern Mongolia. Returning to Kalgan, he reorganised his little caravan, and on May 15 again ascended the Mongol table-land, and travelled westward parallel to its southern margin, and through the Tumet country, till they struck the western