Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/306

 its leafless but juicy and prickly branches are the chief food of the camels of Ala-shan. The Mongols pitch their yurtas beneath the shelter of these trees, which protect them in some degree from the wintry blasts on the bleak steppe; it is said, too, that you can obtain water sooner by sinking wells in places where the zak grows than elsewhere.

The range of the zak is very limited in Ala-shan, being only found in the northern part of this country. In the Gobi, however, it grows sporadically on the sand as far as the 42nd parallel N. lat.

The grass sulhir is of even greater importance to the inhabitants of Ala-shan than the zak, and may be called, without exaggeration, the 'gift of the desert.' It attains a height of two (rarely three) feet, growing on the bare sand, generally near the borders of sandy wastes devoid of vegetation. This prickly saline plant blossoms in August, and its small seeds, yielding an agreeable and nutritious food, ripen in the end of September. The crop of sulhir is best after a rainy summer; in a drought it withers, and then the Mongols of Ala-shan fare badly the whole year round.

To obtain the seeds of the sulhir the Mongols gather the grass and thrash it on the bare clay, patches of which often occur in the midst of the