Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/301

Rh the west they extend, with a few interruptions, to other far distant mountains of no great elevation. If the latter statement may be relied upon, we may conclude that they unite with the Thian Shan, and supply, as it were, a connecting link between that range and the In-shan system; an extremely interesting fact and one worthy the attention of future explorers.

Their width where we crossed them is a little over seven miles, and their apparent height hardly above a thousand feet. The chief formation is porphyry, of which the loose débris scattered over their slopes is composed. Springs of water are extremely rare, and the appearance is desolate and lifeless. They are almost devoid of vegetation, except where an occasional dwarf peach, acacia, and Sarcosygium xanthoxylon appear, or where along the dry watercourses the karmyk and dirisun, or more rarely still the elm, is seen. There is a remarkable absence of birds, and it is only now and then that you see a vulture, a lammergeier, a kestrel, a partridge (Perdix Chukor), or a stone-chat (Saxicola Isabellina).

Yet despite their barrenness, the Hurku hills are inhabited by a large and rare animal, the mountain goat (Capra Sibirica), called by the Mongols Ulan-yaman, which is also said to have its habitat in the Yegrai-ula mountains in the north-western angle of Ala-shan, not far from the town of Sogo. In the