REPORT OF WORK IN 1915 IN KANSU AND TIBET, 325 
in that lovely pale-blue form that I spoke of as /. " hyacinthina" on 
account of its entrancing hyacinth-fragrance. 
The Da-Tung Alps run south-east from north-west. On their 
far side flows the Da-Tung Hor, but the mountains form no containing 
barrier for the river ; they cut away from it at right angles in a 
succession of herring-bone ridges, that only from a distance give 
the look of one continuous wall of peaks. These peaks rise bleak and 
bare from the bare bleak uplands at their feet ; scant scrub alone is 
all the wood there is on their flanks and folds, till you descend into 
the unique Tien Tang forest on the far side, overhanging the river. 
In point of fact this range has an intermediate position, boding ill for 
its botanical promise. Far south we have left that mountain system 
which descends on Western China in a magnificent series of parallel 
gigantic ranges, of which the Min S'an is the penultimate, and Lien 
Hwa S'an the last northerly effort, before the country dies down into 
the unrelieved dullness of the loess downs that lead to Lanchow. 
On the other hand, we are not far enough yet up the map of Asia for 
that other huge branch of the Kwen Lun, which sweeps round the 
northern curve of the Tibetan Highland, and develops down into 
China and Russia in the various ranges of the Tien S'an, the Ala S'an, 
and the Altai. In consequence here we have lost the opulent forest, 
and lavish splendours of the Szechwan-Kansu March, and have not 
yet ascended within reach of the no less splendid forest-flora that 
adorns the Altai and the Tien S'an. This region, in fact, is the last 
southerly reach of the northern mountain system, too far south to 
represent its riches, and not far enough to acquire reinforcements 
from the advance-guard of the southerly Flora. In consequence, 
this intermediate No Man's Land proves as barren as I feared, in the 
first moment of seeing that its outlines had that monotonous pyramidal 
formation which speaks but too clearly of their granitic nature. I 
shall never regret having explored them ; but their yield, I felt from 
the first, could not compare with that of the earlier year ; and it was 
only the then novelty of their lists that made the Russian explorers 
of the 'eighties convey so lavish and tempting an impression of these 
ranges. The farther north you come up the ranges of Asia the poorer 
grows the flora, until you have definitely got within hail of that second 
floral belt which fringes round the Arctic Circle, and descends into 
the European Alps, there to meet the ascending flora of the central 
belt. 
In Primula and Meconopsis, accordingly, the region proved poor, 
and in Gentiana and Saxifraga correspondingly rich. We spent 
the summer in gradually decaying hope ; visiting the various massifs, 
and the great abbeys that lurk in the green folds of the foothills 
on either side of the range. " Cheterton " is Tien-tang, Chebson is 
what the Russians have variously called Chebsum, Cheibsen, Choibsen, 
Chobsen, and so forth : the map will give the rest of the region, which 
you must imagine thoroughly Tibetan and aboriginal in population, 
but held in peace owing to its position as a long spur of wild mountain 
