Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/305

 where the last remnant of its ancient waters are collected.

The desert of Ala-shan for many dozens, aye, hundreds of miles presents nothing but naked sands, ever ready to overpower the traveller with their burning heat or smother him beneath their sandstorms. Some of these sands are so extensive as to be called by the Mongols Tingeri, i.e. 'sky.' Not a drop of water is to be found in them; no birds, no animals are visible; and their deathlike solitude fills with involuntary dread the soul of the man who has wandered here.

The Kuzupchi or sandy tracts of Ordos appear small in comparison with those of Ala-shan. Amid the former oases may occasionally be seen covered with vegetation; whilst here no such spots relieve the boundless expanse of yellow sand, alternating with vast areas of saline clay, and nearer the mountains with bare shingle. Such vegetation as may be seen is of the poorest description, comprising only a few stunted bushes and some dozens of kinds of grasses. In both one and the other category the saxaul, called by the Mongols zak (Haloxylon sp.), and the grass sulhir (Agriophyllum Gobicum), are most prominent.

In Ala-shan the saxaul or zak has an arborescent growth of 10 to 12 feet in height, with a thickness of half-a-foot, and is generally found on the bare sand. Its wood is too knotty and porous to be of any use in handicraft, but it makes excellent fuel, and