I02 PREPARE FOR DEPARTURE. 



suited their auguries with a similar result, were well 

 content to delay the start, and expected that in a 

 few days the marshes would be frozen over. We 

 held a council and fixed our departure for October 5, 

 till which day we determined to keep our plans secret. 

 The guides received ten lans as earnest-money, 

 and retired to Chobsen, while we returned into the 

 mountains, and encamped on the southern edge of 

 the southern chain, whence my companion rode to 

 the temple of Chertinton and delivered the boxes 

 containing our collections into the charge of the 

 gigen of that place. 



Our twelve days' halt on the southern chain of 

 the mountains was almost unproductive of scientific 

 results ; for no forests grow on the southern slopes 

 of these mountains, and the alpine zone is almost 

 without a flora ; besides which many of the moun- 

 tains were in their higher parts covered with snow 

 and rain, and hail-storms occurred daily. The chief 

 flight of birds took place in the first half of Sep- 

 tember, and on the i6th of that month large flocks 

 of cranes, passing at such a height as hardly to be 

 visible, directed their flight southwards. 



Meanwhile the Chinese troops had begun opera- 

 tions against the Dungans at Si-ning, having marched 

 into Kan-su 25,000 strong in July that year, and esta- 

 blished themselves at Nim-pi and Ou-yam-pu. In the 

 next chapter I will describe their operations before Si- 

 ning; suffice it for the present to remark, that in con- 

 sequence of orders which had been issued, prohibiting 

 the sale of provisions to anyone except the troops, we 



