Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/422

 for the Turkish and Chinese languages, who had been with him to the Lob-Nor. The baggage, arranged in forty-six packages, was loaded upon twenty-three camels. It included two Mongolian tents and arms of the best manufacture, in the use of which the whole company was carefully drilled. The soldiers and Cossacks were accommodated upon eight camels, and there were four reserve camels. Prejevalski, with the officers and the interpreter, rode on horseback. The party left Saisank on March 21, 1879, directing their course toward the Dungarian Desert, between the Altai and the Thian-Shan. At the latter range the salt-steppes abruptly give way to fragrant forests of larch; the mountains assume a wonderful grandeur, lifting their tops away above the snow-line, and rising like a steep wall out of the plain. Along the northern and southern Thian-Shan extends one of the many oases which wind along like a tortuous chain between the Kuen-Lun, the Altyn-Dagh, and the Nan-Shan—the oasis of Hami in the desert of that name. Through this oasis and that of Sa-cheu, the party proceeded to the foot-hills of the Nan-Shan and into those lofty mountains themselves. Two of the snow-covered outposts of the range, about eighteen thousand five hundred feet high, were named after Humboldt and Ritter. Prejevalski then entered the extensive district of Zaidam, inhabited by Oleuts, where he had formerly sought for the Kuku-Nor. This time it was Northern Thibet, with its table-lands standing at an elevation of from twelve to sixteen thousand feet, and its mountains towering above all their neighbors, that stood foremost in his vision. On his first journey he had struck the route of the Buddhist pilgrims, and had reached the point where the Napchi-Ulan-Muren enters the Mur-Usu, which from there is called the Yang-tse-Kiang. On his second journey he had reached only the northern borders of Thibet. On this third journey he reached the sources of the Blue River (the Mur-Usu), on the Tan-la, and a portion of the Yellow River, and the Kuku-Nor. The significance of this achievement is explained by himself when he writes: "European travelers have to encounter great difficulties in these regions, arising out of climatological and local circumstances. The great absolute height and the consequent rarefaction of the air, with sharp changes of temperature, make the ascent of the pathless heights a toilsome work. The opposition of Nature has to be overcome at every forward step, and the traveler must at all times be prepared for hindrances and hostility of every kind from the people. Only by the application of one's entire physical strength and of extreme energy is it possible to overcome the impediments of these mountains." He left Zaidam on the 12th of September, 1879, taking a route between his old one, over the Burchan-Budda, and the Nomachun-Gol, and along the latter into the home of the yak and the antelope. He purposed to pursue a straight course for Lassa; and the character of his march is sufficiently described when it is said that, during all the time he was in Thibet, he never moved at a less altitude than thirteen