376 DZUNGARIA 



rising to eminence, first set up a kingdom. While 

 they, too, after overrunning wide areas of Asia, sud- 

 denly collapsed and left nothing but a name. When 

 the Chinese invaded Dzungaria they killed off her popu- 

 lation to a man — of six hundred thousand inhabitants 

 not one remained. In order to repopulate this newly 

 acquired territory, the Dungans (Chinese Mohamme- 

 dans) were transported from Western China ; but the 

 colonists became more powerful than their masters, 

 and Dzungaria was once again the scene of massacres, 

 for Islam rose against Cathay, and the Dungans killed 

 the Celestials by hundreds of thousands. Small wonder, 

 then, that Dzungaria has remained unsettled and un- 

 civilized, that she has produced neither cities nor large 

 cultivated areas, and that, although for the moment 

 her throbbing deserts are at rest, her atmosphere is 

 still one of uncertainty and alarm. 



Although the name Dzungaria originally denoted a 

 tribal area, it happened also to include a region remark- 

 ably well defined by^^atural boundaries; thus "Dzun- 

 garia " now represents a purely topographical division, 

 standing apart and distinct from the surrounding 

 regions. The Dzungaria of to-day embraces the whole 

 of the inter- Altai-Tian Shan region, and is bordered by 

 Mongolia on the east and Southern Siberia on the west. 

 The land, as a whole, is lowland as compared with the 

 rest of Mongolia, and forms part of the Siberian plains 

 rather than of the Central Asian tableland. Yet, on 

 the other hand, Dzungaria has the character of an 

 inclined plain with a long and gentle ascent from the 

 plains of Siberia to the plateau of Mongolia. The 

 average altitude of the floor of this plain is about 1,500 

 ft, above sea-level ; in the west the level drops to 700 ft., 



