Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/246

222 The breadth of the valley is less than a mile and a half, and in some places the mountains on either side narrow it even more. The Tibetan road ascends the river for a ten days' march to its sources in the Tang-la mountains. Here, too, there is no population, with the exception of 500 Tangutans, who are encamped about 100 miles above the mouth of the Napchitai-ulan-muren. About 230 miles lower down there is a large agricultural population, and the climate is said to be warmer, so that probably the elevation of the country is not so great in those parts.

The banks of the Blue River were the limit of our wanderings in Inner Asia. Although we were only twenty-seven days' journey, i.e. about 500 miles from Lhassa, that goal was beyond our reach. The frightful difficulties of the Tibetan deserts had so completely exhausted our animals that three of our eleven camels had died, and the rest could scarcely move. Our pecuniary resources, too, were entirely expended, and after exchanging some camels for the return journey to Tsaidam, we had only five lans (27s. бd.) left, with many hundred miles of road before us! Under these circumstances, we could not imperil the results already obtained by our journey, and we resolved to return to Koko-nor and Kan-su, to pass the spring there, and then to continue our journey to Ala-shan by the road we