APPENDIX. 



invasions from wild Tibetans, who seized the chance of the general anarchy to 

 come up against it from the mountains a few miles west, which, though (like 

 all this border) called " China " and " Szechuan " on maps, are, in reality, pure 

 Tibetan, owing allegiance only to uncontrolled Tibetan princelings or to the 

 august remoteness of Lhasa. In the intervals of repelling these alarms, then, 

 we were able to spend a happy six weeks exploring the fastnesses of Thunder- 

 crown and the great ridge. Thundercrown runs up to some 15,000 feet, and 

 the ridge is little more than a thousand feet lower. Though the conditions 

 are alpine here, and every cloudless day for weeks in succession breeds a thun- 

 derstorm in the afternoon (hence the name Lei-Go-S'an — Thundercrown), yet 

 the high Alps feel the influence of the loess barrens far below, and the Eidge is 

 dry for its altitude — much drier than corresponding elevations in the Satanee 

 range to the south, or the main Min S'an to the north-west, towering as they 

 do over cool woodlands and scantily-cultivated alpine valleys. On the Siku 

 ridge woodland and luxuriance are only found in the huge ravines that dis- 

 embowel the flanks of the mountain, and finally debouch all together in the 

 wide shingle flat of dead rivers that sweeps down to Siku, where the lost waters 

 of the range all come bubbling up again in springs like diamonds, amid the dappled 

 shade of willow and poplar. 



On 6th July we left Siku, rode east some 20 miles down the Black Water, 

 and then struck straight away north, up through the gorges of the South River 

 (the Nan Ho), which here joins the Hei Shui Jang, cutting itself a way down 

 through the last fading battlements of the Min S'an range. 



On 10th July we reached Minchow, on the northern side of the Min S'an 

 barrier, in a country now quite changed — of rolling green dish-covery grass 

 downs, with a curious feeling of being in a saucer on the roof of the world. 

 Whereas Siku, home of fig and palm and pomegranate and persimmon, sits 

 sunning itself at 4500 feet, Minchow stands 2000 higher in a cold, damper, 

 and less kindly climate, where palm and pomegranate are strangers. So 

 now we moved westwards, along the Tao River, up to the dilapidated little 

 Tibetan city of J6-ni, where for some time we fixed, exploring the foothills of the 

 main Min S'an mass, which lies across the river, some 60 miles south, approach- 

 able only by long, open, wooded valleys, river-channels from the endless un- 

 dulating downs of lush hay above on either hand. Here the moist chill summer 

 is much the same as our own, but the winter, of course, is of a far more adaman- 

 tine hardness. Loess still lingers on either side of the Tao, but is no longer in 

 evidence in the landscape, which is here, more especially in its upper reaches, 

 of a quite special character, owing to grass only growing on the south side of 

 the folded downs, and forest only on the northern, with a perfectly definite 

 line of cleavage, diversifying the emerald sea of waves, from one aspect, with 

 stripes and rims of darkness ; while from another, a dark world of forest alone 

 appears. 



On 21st August I returned alone to Siku for the seed harvest, while Purdom 

 worked in the Tibetan valleys and highlands. He rejoined me at last on 16th 

 September, and after our headman had successfully returned from Wen Hsien 



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