xxxii INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



been published. But we are told (ii. 102) that the most 

 southerly chain of these mountains, viz. that which rises 

 directly from the plain of Sining-fu, is without forest, at 

 least on its southern slopes, and its alpine zone almost 

 without a flora, — expressions which seem to indicate the 

 humid and fertile mountain region as isolated between two 

 arid tracts. Our information as to the mountain regions 

 ■ still further south is very scanty indeed ; but the brief 

 account of Pere Armand David's visit to the highlands on 

 the south-east of the Koko-nor region, and nearly in the 

 same meridian as that of which we have been speaking, 

 describes a similar, but even moister climate. ' The at- 

 mosphere was so charged with moisture that it sufficed to 

 precipitate this in rain, if several men joined in making a 

 loud noise and firing off their guns.' • The mountains were 

 perpetually clothed in mist, which favoured the growth of 

 conifers and rhododendrons ; of the last no less than six- 

 teen species were collected. Further south, again, on the 

 same meridian, we have Mr. Cooper's account of his 

 journey from Ching-tu-fu into Eastern Tibet ; and here also 

 we have a picture of heavy rains between July and Sep- 

 tember (see pp. 219, 367, 395). We are here approaching 

 the Irawadi valley and the mountains that bound Bengal 

 on the east, where the summer rain is so heavy and regular. 

 So that these Kansuh Alps, with their heavy rains and 

 abundant vegetation, seem to fall within the north-western 

 limit of a vast area over which the heavy summer rains, 

 which in India accompany what we call the south-west 

 monsoon, are the rule, presenting so strong a contrast to 

 the dry summers and wet winters of the sub-tropical zone 

 of Europe.' ^ 



Another subject which seems to require notice here 

 consists of those characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism to 

 which allusions frequently occur in Prejevalsky's narrative, 



' Bull, de la Soc. Geog. for 187 1, pt. i., p. 465. 



^ Indeed, it would seem, of the western shores of both continents. 

 The area affected by these summer monsoons, or sea-winds precipi- 

 tating moisture, appears to embrace Manchuria, the coast of the Gulf 

 of Okhotsk, and the Amur region up to the Baikal. (See Dr. Wojeikofif, 

 in Pfh-n/iann's MitthciliDigcn for 1870.) 



