INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxi 



thrown more light on the physical character of the region, 

 so far as he saw it, than any other traveller. 



Our countryman, Mr. Ney Elias, who has shown a 

 remarkable combination of a traveller's best gifts with sin- 

 gular modesty in their display, has carried a new line of 

 observations along the vast diagonal of Mongolia from 

 the Gate at Kalgan to the Russian frontier on the Altai, 

 through Uliassutai and Kobdo, a distance of upwards of 

 2,000 miles. To him these remarks are often indebted. 



Dr. Bushell and Mr. Grosvenor have also passed the 

 Wall at Kalgan to visit Dolon-nor, and Shangtu, the deso- 

 late site of the summer-palace of the great KublaT. 



We cannot attempt to recall even the chief names in 

 the history of exploration from the Russian side, though I 

 should be loath to leave unspecified the successful journey 

 of that accomplished couple, Alexis and Olga Fedchenko, 

 to the Alai Steppe, which is in fact a northern analogue of 

 Pamir, separated from the southern plateaux, so called, by 

 the mighty chain to which Fedclienko gave the name of 

 Trans-Alai, the Kizil-yurt of our own Anglo-Indian tra- 

 vellers. But of all modern Russian incursions on the tracts 

 that we have designated as the Unknown, Lieut.-Col. 

 Prejevalsky's has been the boldest, the most persevering, 

 and the most extensive. 



The scene of his explorations was that plateau of 

 Mongolia of which we have so often spoken, and that 

 region which rises so far above it, the terraced plains, and 

 lofty deserts of Northern Tibet, which spread out at a 

 level equal to that of the highest summits of the Bernese 

 Oberland, whilst the ranges which buttress the steps of the 

 ascent rise considerably higher. 



Captain (now Lieut.-Col.) Prejevalsky was already 

 known as an able explorer, when, in 1870, he was deputed 

 by the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Petersburg, 

 under the sanction of the War Department, to conduct an 

 exploration into Southern Mongolia. With his companion 

 he left Kiakhta on November 29, 1870, for Peking, where 

 they remained till the spring. 



