INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxxi 



whatever worthy to be called an interpreter, — combined, as 

 Mr. Elias has remarked, with a ' general inexperience of 

 Chinese human nature.' The traveller himself is inclined 

 to indulge somewhat strongly in contemptuous and inimical 

 judgments of the people among whom he found himself; 

 but this very contempt and hostility, with its sure reaction 

 in ill-will from the other side, was certain to be aggravated 

 by the difficulties of communication. The absence also, of 

 a good interpreter renders it necessary to reject or doubt a 

 good many of Col. Prejevalsky's interpretations of names. 



Before closing these remarks it may be well to notice 

 one or two points on which comment may be made more 

 conveniently here than in the Notes appended to these two 

 volumes. 



One of the most novel and remarkable circumstances 

 that come out in this narrative is the existence of an in- 

 tensely moist mountain region in Kansu, to the north of 

 the Hoang-ho, and on the immediate east of Koko-nor, 

 This tract ^ constitutes there what Prejevalsky calls the 

 * marginal range,' a feature everywhere characteristic of the 

 plateau of Mongolia, i.e. a belt of mountain following and 

 forming the rim of the plateau and the descent from it, 

 but also rising considerably above the level of the plateau 

 itself In this range, after a short and easy ascent from 

 the side of the table-land, at a distance of only twenty- 

 seven miles from the arid desert of Ala-shan, the travellers 

 found themselves on a fertile soil, abounding in water, 

 where rich grass clothed the valleys, dense forests darkened 

 the steep slopes of the mountains, and animal life appeared 

 in great abundance and variety.^ The rains, during their 

 stay of some weeks in these mountains, in June and July, 

 луеге incessant, and the humidity in their tents excessive. 

 The facts are not very clearly brought out in the narra- 

 tive, and the scientific records of the journey have not yet 



^ See vol. ii. ch. iii. 



'^ Here Col. Prejevalsky was able to study the real rhubarb plant on 

 its native soil,— the first European who had seen it there, I beheve, 

 since Marco Polo. 



