122 Notes on Central Asia. [No. 3, 



Humboldt respecting this range partook, even by the admission of 

 the latter, of the character of conjectural geography, founded on a 

 comparison of the obscure and confused narratives and descriptions 



and Huan-Tsan, in the 4th and 7th centuries. Concise though these accounts 

 doubtless are, the learned critic soon discovers in them such local peculiarities 

 as can only be descriptive of particular spots and localities, and as we become 

 more intimate with the geography of the country to which such accounts 

 apply, the more readily and clearly do we identify the points given in these 

 mai-che-routes. To our great regret we do not find this to be the case in that 

 part of Atkinson's work which relates to Chinese Dj angaria. From the com- 

 mencement, in calling the Tian-Shan Sayan-Shan, he confounds, in name at 

 least, the two principal mountain systems of Inner Asia ; and in all the other 

 portions of his narrative, where he does not confine himself to descriptions of 

 the Steppes, the chase of wild animals, and the social customs of the nomads 

 (descriptions which would apply with equal force and truth to the whole of 

 Central Asia) but wishes to communicate something more definite and locally 

 characteristic, he falls into numerous incongruities. Thus, to cite some exam- 

 ples, he speaks of the Kara-Tyn snowy range, at the upper coarse of the Black 

 Irtysh, as of a level steppe intersected by low ridges; again, from the Tannu 

 mountains, situated at a distance of 120 miles to the N. E. of Ubsa-noor, he 

 sees the Bogdo-Ola in the Tian-Shan, which is about 750 miles away from 

 this point. Lastly from the plain at the base of the Celestial range, he simul- 

 taneously sees not only the Bogdo mountain, but also the Baishan or Pe — 

 Shan (emitting smoke by Atkinson's account), which is aboui 300 miles beyond 

 to the westward, notwithstanding that the snowy Bogdo-Ola group stands 

 out as is well known, considerably in advance of the main chain of the Celestial 

 mountains, and the Baishan mountains rise on their southern slope, that is to 

 Bay beyond its gigantic snowy ridge, in the neighbourhood of the Little Buk- 

 harian town of Kucha. Similarly as little confidence do those inconsistencies 

 inspire which occur in his account of the time occupied in performing the 

 various journeys, and in his description of the distribution of the nomad Kirghiz 

 population, throughout Chinese Djungaria. As regards ourselves personally, 

 the involuntary doubts respecting the abovementioned portion of Atkinson's 

 travels are still further strengthened from information we gathered on the spot 

 regarding his journeys, from the Cossacks who accompanied him, and from the 

 commanders wlio provided him with escorts. Atkinson, during his many years' 

 residence in Siberia, visited the neighbourhood of Kopal, that had then just 

 been founded, many valleys of the Djungarian Alatau, the lake Ala-Kul, 

 Tarbagatai, the rivers Narym and Kurchum in the Southern Altai, the Teletsk 

 Lake, Tunkinsk mountains of the Sayan range, Irkutsk Kiakhta, &c. but as 

 ids his travels over an extent of more than 4000 verts in Chinese territory, 

 accompanied by tlvree Narym or Kwchum Cossacks, I regret to say that I 

 not only could not gather anything to confirm this fact, but I was con- 

 vinced of its utter impossibility, from existing local conditions on the Bussian 

 as well as on the Chinese side. On the Russian, because the protracted 

 d'Kichmcnt of these Cossacks, or their voluntary absence from the corps, is a 

 fact that would leave behind it some record in the official archives, while on 

 the Chinese side, the journey lasting more than six months, of a party unac- 

 quainted with the local dialect, and passing through inhabited districts, along 

 established routes, and across the picket and frontier lines, could scarcely escape 

 the vigilant eyes of the Chinese authorities. Under all these circumstances, 

 and in the absence in Atkinson's narrative of any new data relating to Chinese 

 Djungaria, this work cannot be considered as an acquisition to science, until 

 the author adduces more definite information and stronger proofs, in corrobora- 

 tion of his accounts which involuntarily inspire certain mistrust. 



