1890.] Geography and Travel. 267 
The Prejevalsky Expedition.—The Russian exploring expedi- 
tion, formerly conducted by the lamented Prejevalsky, is now under 
the command of Col. Pievsoff, who is continuing the work energeti- 
cally. Letters have been forwarded to the Royal Geographical Society 
by Lieut. Roborovsky. The expedition left Prjevalsk May 13th, and 
after passing Silvkina ascended the Barskounski Pass, traveled for a 
week over an elevated sirt 10,000 to 11,000 feet above the sea, crossed 
the Tauskan Daria, and then proceeded towards Yarkand. e Kash- 
gar Daria no longer reaches the Yarkand, but is lost in irrigation 
canals at Marat-bash. The flat banks of the Yarkand are bordered 
with a belt of vegetation fifteen to twenty miles in width on each side, 
including two species of poplar and Holostachus. Many ruins of old 
gne unknown cities are to be found in these deserts; the thickets 
abound in tigers and boars, and wild camels graze on the barkhans 
around. 
The town of Yarkand consists of an old Mahometan city with thirty 
to forty thousand inhabitants, and a new Chinese city. ‘The water is 
very bad and there is much goitre. Passing Khoten Col. Pievtsoff has 
reached Nia, where he will winter, and then search for a route into 
Tibet over the Taguz-Daban range, some of the peaks of which were 
estimated by Prejevalsky at 22,000 to 23,000 feet. 
A large portion of the November number of the Proceedings of the 
Royal Geographical Society is occupied by the diary of the journey- 
ings of David Linsday in the interior of Australia, which he crossed 
from north to south, keeping within the boundaries of the colony of 
South Australia somewhat to the west of Queensland. The account is 
accompanied by a map of the route with the survey lines given. 
There is also a glossary of native words. 
Dr. Hagen traces the Malays to West Sumatra, and believes that the 
present natives of the interior of the large islands (the Dyaks of Bor- 
neo, etc.) were the first emigrants from the original site, and crushed 
out the negritos in the countries occupied by them; This migration 
was followed by others, the last emigration of the Malays taking place 
about the twelfth to the fifteenth century. The purest Malay type is 
to be seen in the Battas and Allas of Sumatra. 
A series of articles by A. de Leanarde upon the country of the 
Amur and the Ossory is completed in the Revue Geographique, of 
January, 1890. 
