Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/267

Rh things in autumn. Among these was a pair of boots, of which I was very glad, for they enabled me to walk over the mountains with far greater comfort than in those I had improvised for myself We had also stored five pounds of sugar, which was the greatest treat for us, deprived as we had been so long of every European comfort; and we bought a yak of the Tangutans which supplied us with meat for a long while.

In the middle of May the weather in Kan-su was spring-like and showery, and although night frosts continued, the heat of the sun during the day rapidly developed the vegetation. By the 27th of the month, the trees in the central zones were turning green, whilst on the lower ground they were in full leaf; the verdure looked brilliant when the sun shone, and many of the bushes and herbaceous plants were covered with flowers. In the thick underwood on the banks of the mountain streams the wild rose, cherry, currant, gooseberry, honeysuckle, and the barberry, with its long yellow clusters of flowers, were in blossom; to these must be added the fragrant Daphne Altaica (?) and on the exposed slopes the hawthorn and yellow caragana. In the woods we saw anemones, wild hyacinths, peonies, and whole beds of wild strawberry; the valleys were gaily decked with iris, primrose, and potentilla; and the slopes of the mountains with saxifrage, Draba,