NATURE 



21 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, i{ 



PRJEVALSKY'S FOURTH JOURNEY TO 

 CENTRAL ASIA. 



From Kiakhta to the Sources of the Yellow River, the 

 Exploration of the Northern Borders of Tibet, and the 

 Journey via the Lob-nor and the Basin of the Tarim. 

 By N. M. Prjevalsky. (In Russian.) With 3 Maps, 29 

 Phototypes, and 3 Woodcuts. (St. Petersburg : Pub- 

 lished by the Russian Geographical Society, 1888,) 

 T N this large quarto volume, which the indefatigable 

 -*- traveller brought out before leaving St. Petersburg 

 for his proposed fifth journey to Central Asia, we have a 

 general account of the journey he began at Kiakhta on 

 November 20, 1883, and ended two years later at Lake 

 Issyk-kul, in Russian Turkestan, after having visited the 

 upper parts of both the Yellow and the Blue Rivers. As 

 to the purely scientific description of the invaluable col- 

 lections which were brought in by the Expedition, it 

 has been undertaken by specialists and will be published 

 separately. 



Prjevalsky's aim during his fourth journey was to 

 reach Lhassa, in Tibet ; and it was in the hope that 

 he might more easily make his way to that city that 

 he started from Kiakhta, instead of taking the shorter 

 route via Turkestan. His plan was to be at Lake 

 Kuku-nor early in the spring ; to buy provisions there, 

 and to have them stored somewhere in South Tsaidam ; 

 and thence to proceed southwards, and to cross the 

 north-eastern border-ridges of Tibet. The third part of 

 the scheme could not be accomplished ; and, after having 

 visited the Upper Hoang-ho and the Upper Yang-tzse- 

 Kiang (the Dy-tchu), Prjevalsky was compelled to return to 

 his store-house, and thence he proceeded homewV? Lob-nor 

 and East Turkestan. But the Expedition has thrown so 

 much light upon the orography, the flora, the fauna, and 

 the inhabitants of the outer terraces of Tibet, as well as 

 of Eastern Turkestan, that one can hardly regret that 

 the Russian traveller did not succeed in crossing the 

 highlands to the north of the holy city of Buddhism. 



The chapters devoted to the journey to the west of 

 Kuku-nor will certainly be the first to attract the geo- 

 grapher, for only very brief accounts of that part 

 of Prjevalsky's journey have hitherto been published. 

 But the physical geographer and naturalist will also read 

 with interest the pages devoted to the winter journey 

 across the Gobi, to its terrible sand-storms, and the geo- 

 logical work of these storms, and still more the remarks 

 upon the flora and fauna of the Nian-shan plateaus and 

 the spring migrations of birds about Kuku-nor. It was 

 in the Nian-shan that a new species of antelope, the 

 A. cuvieri, was discovered. As seen from the drawing 

 given by Prjevalsky, it differs widely from the next kindred 

 species, the A. gutturosa. 



It was only on May 13, 1884, that the Expedition 

 reached the spot, Dzun-zasak, in South Tsaidam, where a 

 store-house had to be erected. After having overcome 

 considerable difficulties in getting camels and provisions, 

 it started southwards in order to reach Lhassa. It crossed, 

 first, the Burkhan-buda ridge, which rises like a wall from 

 7000 to 7500 feet high over the plateau of Tsaidam, and 

 Vol. XXXIX.— 'o. Q97. 



reaches the height of nearly 17,000 feet, without, how- 

 ever, attaining the limits of perennial snow. The Burkhan- 

 buda is a border-ridge ; it fringes the next and higher 

 terrace of Northern Tibet, the lowest parts of which are 

 from 3000 to 40D0 feet higher than the Tsaidam plateau ; 

 and therefore it has but a gentle and short slope towards 

 the south. At its southern foot, Prjevalsky found a broad 

 valley, 13,400 feet above the sea, where flocks of wild 

 yaks {Poephagus mutus, a new species discovered by 

 Prjevalsky) and kuku-yamans {Pseudois nahoor) live on 

 the few grazing-grounds which can be found at such a 

 height. A low range of hills separates this valley from 

 the broad depression of Garmatyn, or Odon-tala, where 

 the Expedition reached, on May 29, the upper part of the 

 Hoang-ho and its two lakes, Jirin and Orin, so well 

 known from Chinese sources, but never before visited by 

 a European. " Now we saw the birth-place of the great 

 river, we drank its water, and there were no bounds to our 

 rejoicing," wrote the traveller in his note-book. He tried, 

 of course, to explore the lakes, but a terrible snowstorm 

 overtook the exploring party. Next day the ground 

 was covered with two feet of snow, and the thermometer 

 showed a frost of - 23° C, on June i, under the 35th 

 degree of latitude ! The difficulty of moving on camels 

 under such conditions may be easily imagined. But hunting 

 was excellent, and Prjevalsky's companions killed numbers 

 of the Tibetan bear ( Ursus lagomyiarius). Alpine meadows, 

 16,000 feet above the sea, spread towards the south, 

 but high mountain-ridges separate them from the Dy-tchu 

 (the Upper Yang-tzse-Kiang), and it was only on June 22 

 that the party reached the Dy-tchu, in 33' 47' N. lat., 

 and 95° 54' E. long. It flows in a narrow valley, at a 

 height of 13,100 feet above the sea, and soon enters a nar- 

 row gorge between high mountains. The camels were in 

 very bad condition, and there were no means of moving 

 down the Dy-tchu, as it entered a narrow stony gorge. 

 Neither was it possible to cross the rapid river, so that 

 Prjevalsky was compelled to return. On the return jour- 

 ney the Expedition explored both the lakes of the Upper 

 Hoang-ho, but it had to carry on regular fighting with 

 several hundreds of Tangutes. It was thus obliged to 

 abandon the exploration of the northern shores of the 

 lakes, and to return to the store-house. 



The attempt to reach Lhassa by this route thus proved 

 a failure ; and, in our opinion, a worse route could not 

 have been chosen. True, while going due south from 

 Dzun-zasak, Prjevalsky reached the lakes of the Upper 

 Hoang-ho, and solved a great geographical problem ; 

 but then he had before him a mountainous region which 

 he would have had to cross in an oblique direction— the 

 series of ridges which accompany the great border-ridge 

 of Eastern Tibet undoubtedly having a direction from 

 the south-west to the north-east. Even if he had had 

 horses, instead of camels, he would have met with insuper- 

 able difficulties. The fact is, that, having no knowledge of 

 the orography of the highlands of Eastern Tibet, geo- 

 gra^jhers draw on our maps the mountains of the Amdo 

 as running between the problematic courses of the rivers 

 which flow from Central Asia to Burmah and China ; the 

 ridges thus have on our maps a south-eastern direction, 

 while in reality there is the greatest probability in favour 

 of the mountain-ridges having a north-eastern direction, 

 and being pierced by those rivers. The great border- 



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