432 SOUTHERN DZUNGARIA 



When we eventually tackled the Talki Pass we found 

 it so bad for carts that we feared a long delay. Snow 

 had drifted across the track, and our spades were in 

 constant use. Streams, which flowed across the road, 

 had frozen solid in flowing, and the white track pre- 

 sented the appearance of a miniature glacier. But with 

 five horses to each cart we succeeded in reaching the 

 summit of the pass — hot and panting in spite of 40° of 

 frost and a biting wind. Below the pass was a guard- 

 house, occupied by Chinese soldiers whose business it 

 was to keep the road open. Their laziness, no doubt, 

 accounted for the hopeless state of the track, when very 

 little work would have kept it free from ice-floes. 



We now entered upon the wide plain of Sairam Nor, 

 whose immense sheet of water lay under ice, and whose 

 panorama consisted of an unbroken snow-field. A long, 

 downhill " rough and tumble " brought us to Santai, a 

 rather more numerous collection of hovels and inns than 

 usual, situated on the edge of the lake. Close by here the 

 road was built out round a rocky promontory which jutted 

 out into the lake and which, by the nature of the ground, 

 formed a strategical point. Here the ponderous Celes- 

 tials had built mud fortifications to guard the road, 

 a sign of strength, no doubt, but quite inadequate. A 

 group of twenty-four grave-mounds, near by, suggested 

 a conflict at some time or other. Leaving Santai, we 

 passed through the gaps between the Kanjik and Kuz- 

 imchik ranges, by means of which the whole of the basin 

 of Sairam Nor must, at one time, have been drained, 

 before a land-movement blocked the passage.^ 



Once out of the Sairam Nor basin we made good 

 pace into the plains of Dzungaria. The next stopping- 



^ See Appendix B. 



