22 TUB ETHNOLOGY OF SOUTH HASTE KH ASIA. 



which hat the Yarig-tse-kiang (Kin-sha-kiang) on its eastern tide, 

 and the Me-kong (Lachu) on its western. This chain must be very 

 high as a great part of it is always covered with snow. Many of 

 the passes are 10,000 to 11,000 fee* in height, and in some places 

 the summits are supposed to rise to 26,000 feet. The great eastern 

 chain is>*he Yun-ling which extends from the Pe-Iiu grange into 

 Yunnan, the Yang-tse-kiang finding a passage in a great depression 

 across it on the north of that province. Save in this depression 

 and the lower parts of the Tallies of tributaries whicii here 

 join it from the north, the alpine tract appears to be, for the moat 

 part, uninhabitable from snow, barrenness and steepness. But in 

 some districts many of the v allies are hot in summer and inhabitable 

 all the year round. 



The western portion of the middle division consists of the Hima- 

 layan range, — about 1,500 miles in length and with a probable 

 average breadth of about 100 miles, — by which the eastern al pine 

 land is continued without interruption to the mountains which 

 immemorially formed the grand ethnic boundary between Turan 

 and Iran. 



The outer or oceanic division comprises the remainder of the 

 region, the eastern or Chinese, the south or Anam Burmese dis- 

 tricts, and the west or Cis-Himalayan portion of the Gangetic* 

 basin. Its chief features are the great alluvial plains of the principal 

 basins, the long mountain chains which divide the south western 

 ones, and the numerous ranges which traverse the Chinese provin- 

 ces to the west and south of the Great Plain. One of the most 

 remarkable of all the mountain chains is the Malayan, which 

 advances from fhe continent and extends for €40 miles into the 

 southern ocean. The eastern face of the region thus acquires an 

 extraordinary extension, for Pekin near its N.E. extremity is in 

 40" N,L*, while Singapore almost touches the equator. The whole 

 of the oceanic division contains lands eminently adapted for the 

 habitation of man. It is abundantly watered, its alluvial plains 

 are capable of containing an enormous population, the great rivers 

 which traverse them compel and favour internal communication, 

 and the far divergent basins are again united by the highway of the 

 ocean, It is far however from presenting a surface tending to the 

 rapid amalgamation of its human races. It contains twelve great 

 and innumerable small ethnic districts, for from the alpine land 

 numerous mountain chains diverge or are continued, which extend 

 to the ocean, and in the east carry far into the oceanic division 

 many peaks, perpetually covered with enow. By these ranges 

 the plains of the large rivers are secluded from each other. But 

 we must look more closely on the features of the whole region 

 ai affecting ethnic movements. 



• in this I indud* tie Brtm&hputra basin. 



