loo KU-PEH-KAU. 



successful in hiring a Mongol or Chinaman, even for 

 so short a time, we started a party of four. 



Our route first lay in the direction of Kii-peh- 

 kaii, which commands the pass through the Great 

 Wall,^ and is nearly seventy-seven miles north of the 

 capital. At first the appearance of the country does 

 not change ; the level plain watered by the Peiho and 

 its tributary the Cha-ho is thickly studded with vil- 

 lages, and small towns and hamlets recur frequently 

 along the road-side ; but on the second day the moun- 

 tains, which had been hitherto hardly visible in the 

 distance, appeared nearer, and thirteen miles from 

 Ku-peh-kau we entered the outlying hills of this 

 marginal range. It is somewhat different from that at 

 Kalgan. The two chains, which we will call the Kal- 

 gan and Nankau ranges (after the towns at the foot of 

 the passes by which they are respectively descended), 

 unite towards Ku-peh-kau in a broad belt, which con- 

 tinues to form an outer barrier to the high plateau. 



Ku-peh-kau is a small place enclosed on three 

 sides by mud walls, while on the fourth it is shut in 

 by the Great Wall. A little over a mile from the 

 town stands a mud fort commanding the road to 

 Peking through a small narrow defile. The moun- 

 tains only really begin on the northern side of 

 Ku-peh-kau. 



Although early in March, the weather was warm 

 and springlike in the plains ; it was even hot during 



^ There is one other pass between Kalgan and Ku-pch-kau ; it is 

 dosed by the fortress if a square mud wall is deserving of that name) 

 of Tu-shi kail. 



