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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



farther shore of the Kuku-Nor. It was however necessary, first, to 

 go to Peking and obtain a new outfit. A new pass was granted by the 

 Chinese Government, extending to the Kuku-Nor and the borders of 

 Thibet, and, with two fresh Cossack guardsmen, Prejevalski started 

 back by the same route by which he had come from Ala-Shan to Kal- 

 gan. The party had the good fortune to attach itself to a Tangut 

 caravan, which was going to the monastery of Chobsen, within a short 

 distance of the Kuku-Nor, and would be to it as the best of guides, 

 and also a defense against the Dungans, who were making parts of the 

 country very uncomfortable. Having crossed the wilderness of Ala- 

 Shan, to the border ranges of Shan-Su, they came upon a mountain- 

 region, where the high elevation of the land, frequently rising above 

 the snow-line, gave an abrupt and remarkable change to the charac- 

 ter of the landscape. Fields and forests were laid out before the 

 explorers, and the flora and fauna offered so many attractions to 

 them that they spent the summer there. These mountains, which 

 the Chinese call Nan-Shan or Sue-Shan, consist of three parallel ranges, 

 and constitute a wild Alpine region, in the forests of which the Rheum 

 palmatum, or rhubarb, which was for the first time in modern history 

 seen in its native region, is the characteristic plant, while the belt be- 

 tween twelve and thirteen thousand feet of altitude abounds in rho- 

 dodendrons. The mountains rise to the height of fourteen thousand 

 feet, but there are no woods on their southern slopes. The Dungans 

 pass for their most savage inhabitants, but they were not bold enough, 

 with all the advantages of numbers on their side to attack our four 

 travelers. All dangers were avoided by watchful care ; and at last 

 Prejevalski, getting a view of the Kuku-Nor, was able to say, as he 

 has written in his account of the journey: "The dream of my life was 

 fulfilled ; the long-sought end was reached. What I had just before 

 only dreamed of, had now become reality. It is true that this result 

 had been bought only at the cost of many hard trials, but now all the 

 sufferings we had endured were forgotten, and, full of joy, my com- 

 panions and I stood on the shores of the great lake, and enjoyed the 

 sight of its marvelously deep-blue waters." On the 12th of October, 

 1872, he pitched his tent on the shore of the lake, ten thousand five hun- 

 dred feet above the sea, being the first European who had visited it, 

 except the Jesuit Father Hue. Thibet lay before him as a new ob- 

 ject of research, and he hoped to pass over Thibetan land to the upper 

 waters of the Blue River, or Yang-tse-Kiang. He started on the 18th 

 of November, and penetrated into that land along the lofty pass, till 

 he was only about five hundred miles from Lassa, the residence of 

 the Dalai Lama. But, again, the want of money compelled him to 

 turn back. He retired to Zaidam, on the Kuku-Nor, where he re- 

 mained till spring. In May, 1873, he was again in the Desert of Ala- 

 Bhan, which he succeeded in crossing without a guide, and reached the 

 city of Dyu-Yuan-in after a hazardous march of fifteen days from 





