XX INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. ' 



pean travellers of the old stamp. These, however, have 

 not been lacking either on the Russian side or on our own, 

 nor, as we shall see, have France and Germany failed to 

 contribute to the series of modern explorations in High 

 Asia. Shaw and Hayward and Johnson were the pioneers 

 of British exploration in Eastern Turkestan ; and these 

 have been followed by the less perilous journeys of Sir D. 

 Forsyth and his companions, by the ride of the latter 

 across Pamir, and by their success in connecting, at least by 

 preliminary survey, our own scientific frontier with that of 

 Russia. Cooper's two daring attempts to traverse the for- 

 midable barriers which- man, even more than nature, has 

 set between India and China, are hardly within the field 

 that we are contemplating 



Since 1865-66 Armand David, like Hue and Gabet a 

 Lazarist priest, but very unlike them in his zeal for natural 

 science, has made a variety of adventurous journeys within 

 the eastern borders of this little-known region. On one of 

 these expeditions (1866) he devoted ten months to the 

 study of the natural history of the Mongolian plateau in 

 the vicinity and to the westward of Kwei-hwa-cheng or 

 Kuku Khoto. In 1868 he visited the province of Szech- 

 wan, and advanced into the independent and hitherto 

 entirely unknown Tibetan highlands on its NVV. frontier, 

 and thence into the eastern part of the Koko-nor territory. 

 On this and previous journeys he claims to have discovered 

 forty new species of mammals, and more than fifty of birds. 

 Among the former are two new monkeys, living in very 

 cold forest regions of the hill country just mentioned, and 

 a new white bear. There has as yet been no publication 

 in extcnsu of the journeys of this ardent and meritorious 

 traveller. 



Baron Richthofen, whose explorations of China have 

 been at once the most extensive and the most scientific 

 of our age, has traversed only a small part of the Mon- 

 golian plateau ; but from his remarkable power of appre- 

 hending, and of indicating in a few words, the most cha- 

 racteristic features of structure and geography, he has 



