ITS VEGETATION AND INHABITANTS. 19 



courses, which only contain water after heavy- 

 rains, and even then for not more than a few hours. 

 Along these water courses the inhabitants dig wells 

 to supply themselves with water. No running 

 streams are met with the whole way from the River 

 Tola to the borders of China Proper, i.e. for about 

 600 miles ; the rains in summer forming temporary 

 lakes in the loamy hollows which soon dry up during 

 the severe heat. 



The soil of the Gobi Proper is composed of 

 coarse reddish gravel and small pebbles interspersed 

 with different stones such as occasional agates. 

 Drifts of yellow shifting sand also occur, although 

 of a less formidable character than those in the 

 southern part of the desert. 



Vegetation finds no sustenance here, and the 

 Gobi produces even grass but scantily. Completely 

 barren spots are certainly rare along the Kalgan 

 road, but such grass as grows is less than a foot high, 

 and hardly conceals the reddish-grey surface ; only in 

 those places where the gravel is replaced by clay, or 

 in the hollows where the summer moisture is longer 

 retained, a kind of grass called by the Mongols Diri- 

 siLu {Lasiagi'ostis splendtns), grows in clumps four to 

 five feet high, and as tough as wire. Here and there 

 too some solitary little flower finds an asylum, or if 

 the soil is saline the budarhana [Kalidiu??t gracile), 

 the favourite food of camels, may be seen. Every- 

 where else the wild onion, scrub wormwood, and a 

 few other kinds of Compositcc and Gramiiied, are the 

 prevailing vegetation of tlie desert. Of trees and 



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