458 SOUTHERN DZUNGARIA 



and water in sufficient quantity, and formed a regular 

 way of communication between the Irtish district and 

 Southern Dzungaria. We noticed that it was well used 

 by camels and carts carrying coal to Urumchi, from 

 some mines situated three stages from Guchen on the 

 road to the Baitik, the coal being found in great quantity, 

 near the surface, on the northern edge of the sands. 



Between Guchen and the sands is an area of semi- 

 cultivated land. Many small streams, unfrozen even 

 at this season, flowed across the steppe and ended in 

 the sand-belt, beside which were situated a few scattered 

 farms and Chinese villages. None of these streams 

 flowed into the Olon Nor basin, to the north-west of 

 Guchen, but lost themselves in the sand. Irrigation- 

 canals and water-courses could be traced amongst the 

 outermost dunes, while the amount of vegetation and 

 trees on the sand-hills showed that water was close 

 under the surface. The sands seem to have encroached 

 on the cultivated area, for we found a few ruined 

 houses surrounded by sand-hills; this made us pay 

 rather more attention to the story told us by a Chanto 

 who had lived twenty-five years at Sin-tai, a small village 

 on the high-road near the south end of Olon Nor, 

 who said he knew of an old Kalmuk town called 

 Khopuza, to the north-east of the lake, which was buried 

 in sand 



Trees existed only around the villages, and near the 

 water-courses ; the country as a whole was barren, form- 

 ing a pasture-land suitable only for the feeding of camel- 

 herds as described earlier in the chapter. The scattered 

 nature of the farms, which were all Chinese, showed 

 the difference in character between the Celestial and the 

 Chanto. Here were Chinese families living ten miles 



