XXX INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



adjoining mountain region ; and then started on a journey 

 never before attempted by any European, the direct route 

 from Ala-shan across the Gobi to Urga. 



This arduous journey had to be accomplished in the 

 height of summer, and occupied from July 26 to Septem- 

 ber 17. 'This desert,' the author says, speaking of the 

 depressed basin on their route called the Galpin Gobi 

 (3,200 feet), ' is so terrible that in comparison with it the 

 deserts of Northern Tibet may be called fruitful. There, at 

 all events, you may often find water and good pasture-land 

 in the valleys ; here there is neither the one nor the other, 

 not even a single oasis ; everywhere the silence of the 

 Valley of Death.' Finally, after a week's repose at Urga, 

 the travellers re-entered their country's frontier at Kiakhta, 

 on October I, 1873. 



Their toil had extended over three years, during which 

 they had travelled upwards of 7,000 miles, of which they 

 had laid down about half in routes surveyed for the first 

 time, and accompanied by very numerous observations for 

 altitude by the aneroid first, and afterwards by boiling 

 point. The route surveys were checked by eighteen de- 

 terminations of latitude ; and a meteorological record 

 was kept throughout the journey. The plants collected 

 amounted to 5,000 specimens, representing upwards of 500 

 species, of which a fifth are new. But especially impor- 

 tant \vas the booty in zoology, which is Prejevalsky's own 

 specialty, for this included '^^'j large and 90 smaller mammals, 

 1,000 specimens of birds, embracing 300 species, 80 speci- 

 mens of reptiles and fish, and 3,500 of insects. The journey 

 and its acquisitions form a remarkable example of resolu- 

 tion and persistence amid long-continued toil, hardship, and 

 difficulty of every kind, of which Russia may well be proud. 



A defect in the constitution of the expedition which 

 forces itself on the observation of a reader was evidently 

 the want, not only of any sufficient knowledge of the lan- 

 guages in use, but of any competent interpreter, — indeed, 

 on a large part of the journey,' it would seem, of anyone 



' See vol. ii. p. 1 1 1. 



