Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/50

xlii Nevertheless this terra incognita, exceeding in extent the whole of Eastern Europe, situated in the centre of the greatest of all the continents, at a higher elevation above the level of the sea than any other country on the face of the globe, with its gigantic mountain ranges and boundless deserts, presents from a scientific point of view grand and varied fields of research. Here the naturalist and the geographer may pursue their respective studies over a wide area. But great as are the attractions of this unknown region to the traveller, its difficulties may well appal him. On the one hand, the deserts, with all their accompanying terrors—hurricanes, lack of water, burning heat and piercing cold, must be encountered; on the other, a suspicious and barbarous people, either covertly or openly hostile to Europeans.

For three consecutive years we faced the difficulties of travel in the wild countries of Asia, and only owing to unusual good fortune attained our object of penetrating to Lake Koko-nor and to the upper course of the Blue River (Yang-tse-Kiang) in Northern Tibet.

Good fortune, I repeat, never forsook me throughout my journey, from beginning to end. In my young companion, Michail Alexandrovitch Pyltseff, I had an active and zealous assistant, whose energy never failed in the most adverse circumstances; whilst the two Trans-Baikal Cossacks, Pamphile Chebayeff and Dondok Irinchinoff, who accompanied us in the second and third years of our travels, were brave