INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxix 



the upper stream of the Great Yangtse, known there to 

 the Mongols as the Murui-ussu or Winding Water. In 

 this region, uninhabited by man, wild animals abound ; 

 wolves, argali or wild sheep, antelopes of various sorts, and 

 above all the wild yak, are found in vast numbers. These 

 last our traveller estimates to exist in millions ; strange, if 

 it be true, that such a vast amount of flesh can derive 

 nourishment and growth from those bleak and scanty 

 pastures. For the individual animal also is of enormous 

 bulk, an old male reaching to a weight of i, 600 lbs., 

 measuring six feet to the hump, and eleven feet in length 

 without the tail. 



Their guns thus provided them with animal food in 

 abundance, supplemented only with barley-meal and brick- 

 tea. But their camels were utterly worn out and their 

 funds exhausted, and thus Avithin less than a month's jour- 

 ney of Lhassa they were compelled, with bitter regret, to 

 turn their backs on that almost unvisited city. And the 

 same causes compelled the travellers to leave unattempted 

 an expedition to the mysterious Lob-nor, though the way 

 was open, and a guide procurable. ' 



Retracing their steps over the plains of Tsaidam and 

 the Koko-nor, they again devoted some weeks of spring to 

 extending their zoological collections in the moist region of 

 the Kansuh mountains; and then, after much toil and suffer- 

 ing in crossing the desert tract of Ala-shan, they again 

 reached Din-yuan-ing, where their pockets, not too soon, 

 were replenished by a remittance from General Vlangali, 

 at Peking. So wprn and ragged were they, that as they 

 entered the town the Mongols bestowed on them what 

 Prejevalsky evidently regards as one of the most oppro- 

 brious of epithets ; they called them ' the very image of 

 Mongols ' ! 



Whilst sending out their camels for three weeks' graz- 

 ing, they renewed their zoological explorations of the 



^ The true position of this lake, as well as its character, is very 

 doubtful. See remarks in Marco Polo (2nd cd. i. 204), and by Mr. Ney 

 Ellas in the Proc. R. Geo^. Soc. xviii. 83. 



