EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 667 



In oidor to keep tliei)ack-]iuiles in ^ood coiulitioii loins Ion;;' a time as 

 possible, I liad tlie ,i»reater part of their loads carried by donkies from 

 Lusar to the Muri-VVahon country, east of the Ts'aidam. Thence to 

 Shaiii^', yaks relieved them, and in the Ts'aidam, camels did their work 

 to a *;reat extent, so that when we started into the wilds north of Til)et 

 my mules were still in fairly good condition — though very little fed — 

 and stood well the terrible fatigues of the journey, but they finally gave 

 out from foot-soreness and none reached the Journey's end. 



I began a survey of the road at Kalgan, north of Peking, and car- 

 ried it on about L*,4()(> miles, to Bat'ang, in eastern Tibet, where my 

 route joined that surveyed in 1877 by Capt. William Gill.* The method 

 I followed in my work was to run the traverse by prismatic compass 

 and aneroid, taking the distance between consecutive points by mj^ watch 

 and controlling frequently the distances thus obtained by pacing them 

 otf. 



Every day the altitude of one i^oint at least was determined by the 

 temperature of boiling water, and all adjacent points, where aneroid 

 readings were taken, were corrected by this and the one taken the day 

 before. Sextant observations were made whenever possible for posi- 

 tion, and thus the inevitable errors on my survey could not accumulate, 

 but were divided over the whole length of the line. 



Besides the work of surveying I had to take pliotograj)hs, note the 

 general characteristics of the country, keep an eye on the packs to see 

 that they were not awry, and attend to innumerable details connected 

 with the everyday life of the party. The animals gave me less trouble 

 than the men (this is usually the case in this world, and how true is 

 the saying, " Plus je vols les hommes, plus j'aime les betes'') ! 



In 1889, I had, wlien going to the Ts'aidam, taken from Lusar the 

 route leading along the north side of lake Kokouor. This time I de- 

 cided to follow a new trail leading through an unexjjlored country (that 

 of the Panaka living south of the Kokonor), and thence directly by the 

 mountains to Sliang, in the southeast corner of tlie Ts'aidam. I was 

 most anxious to re-visit this place so as to be able to go once more to 

 the Tosu nor (lake) and determine by actual observations its position 

 and altitude. 



The nature of the country to the south of the Kokonor lake is more 

 mountainous than that to the north, but the climatic conditions are 

 the same — violent westerly winds, great dryness,' usually a clear sky, 

 and though the nights are invariably cold, the temperature rises very 

 high during the day. These peculiar conditions result from the high 

 altitude of this region, which is over 11,000 feet above the sea level. 



The route we took was as follows: Leaving the i)rovince of Kan-su 

 at Sharakuto, on the southern main feeder of the headwaters of the 

 Ilsi-ho (which flows by Hsi-ning Fu), we traversed in a general west- 



* See hia River of Golden Saud: "The narrative of a journey through China and 

 eastern Tibet to Burniah," 2 vols. 8vo., 1880. 



