Across th(' Roof of the World. 



whistling down t]\c valley did not tend to lessen. It was too 

 cold to pitch tlu' tent, and the ground being much waimcr we 

 made a barricade of the baggage, si)reading our blankets 

 within the enclosure thus formed. The servants were provided 

 with an abundance of " razais " (large quilts stuffed with cotton 

 wool to a thickness of half an inch), woollen blankets, and fur 

 coats made of the thickest sheepskin I had been able to secure 

 in Kulja, so we passed a comparatively comfortable night, 

 if such be possible in the open with 57 degrees of frost. There 

 was very little brushwood, merely the stunted scrub and some 

 " burtsa "and wormwood, though we managed to collect sufficient 

 for a fire to make tea from snow-water, as the real article was not 

 procurable in the neighbourhood. Some Turki bread I had brought 

 from Chuguchak, now frozen as solid as a rock, completed 

 our frugal meal, since it was too Arctic to expect any cooking on 

 a more elaborate scale. 



I left this cheerless bivouac at 8 o'clock on the morning of 

 December 22nd, and marched through low hills over a sand and 

 gravel soil, which supports nothing more than the scrub one 

 sees so much of. 



Four miles beyond camp the country was more undulating, and 

 the route led over broad and rounded hills of no greater height 

 than 50 to 100 feet. I was now in the Black Irtish Valley, 

 which stretched away to the Altai Mountains, the latter forming 

 a snowy wall along its northern boundary. The Irtish rises in 

 the Altai south-west of the town of Kobdo, whence it flows west 

 through MongoHa, and into theZaisan Lake in Russian territory. 

 From here it assumes a wider and more important aspect, being 

 navigable through Siberia, past the town of Omsk on the Siberian 

 Railway, up to the Arctic Ocean, into which it pours its waters 

 after a course of 2,500 miles from its source. 



The Black Irtish Valley, at the point where I crossed it, is 

 about 40 miles wide and everywhere covered with grass, especially 

 in the central parts, where it is high and dense. Here there are 

 trees and brushwood, affording an ample quantity of firewood. 



370 



