xiV INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



of their routes, how the representations of the ghb French 

 priest and the Russian soldier agree. Only Prejevalsky's 

 picture of the scene before him is a photograph, careful 

 in accuracy, but not displaying much power of selection as 

 to light or point of view; Hue's is the painting of a clever, 

 perhaps too clever, artist, but still coloured from nature. 

 Artist he is indeed, and as far as may be from science, 

 but, after reading Prejevalsky's narrative, I have felt, more 

 than ever before, the charm of Hue's vivacious touches ; 

 more than ever, because the perusal of the Russian work 

 convinced me that his pictures (I do not refer to the 

 braggadocio, probably imaginary, of his conduct before 

 Chinese officials) are true as well as clever. Who that has 

 read the book, — though probably the generations that have 

 risen since 1851, and that have had so much else to read 

 may not have read them, — who can forget that inimitable 

 picture of the yaks of the caravan, after fording the freezing 

 waters of the Pouhain-gol, staggering under the load of 

 icicles that depended from their shaggy flanks } ^ or that 

 other of the wild company of the same species, nipt by the 

 frost in swimming across the head-waters of the mighty 

 Yangtse, and there frozen hard in cold death, the whole 

 hairy herd of them .•' ^ 



^ ' Les boeufs h, longs poils ctaient de veritables caricatures ; impos- 

 sible de figurer rien de plus drole ; ils marchaient les jambes ecartees, 

 et portaient peniblement un enorme systeme de stalactites qui leur 

 pendaient sous le ventre jusqu'h. terre. Ces pauvres betes etaient si 

 informes et tellement recouvertes de glagons qii4l semblalt qii'ojt les 

 ait mis conjire dans du sucre candP (ii. 201). 



^ ' Au moment 011 nous passames le Mouroui Oussou sur la glace, 

 un spectacle assez bizarre s'offrit h. nos yeux. Dcjh. nous avions re- 

 marque de loin, pendant que nous dtions au campement, des objels 

 informes et noiratres, ranges en file en travers de ce grand fleuve. 

 Nous avions beau nous rapprocher de ces ilots fantastiques, leur forme 

 ne se dessinait pas d'une maniere plus nette et plus claire. Ce fut 

 seulement quand nous fumes tout pr5s, que nous pumes reconnaitre 

 plus de 50 boiufs sauvages incrustes dans la glace. Ils avaient voulu, 

 sans doute, traverser le fleuve h. la nage, au moment de la concrdtion 

 des eaux, et ils s'ctaicnt trouvcs pris par les glagons, sans avoir la 

 force de s'en dcbarrasser, et de continuer leur route. Leur belle tctc, 

 surmontde de grandes cornes, dtait encore Ъ. ddcouvert ; mais le reste 



