1154 
THROUGH ASIA 
gravel. In some places it flowed in one channel ; there 
the water was open. In other places it was divided into 
several arms ; these were frozen. The terraces on both 
sides of the stream were not less than sixteen feet high. 
For the space of fully forty minutes we rode across a piece 
of ground on which, according to Loppsen, some 20,000 
Dungan rebels, fleeing from Si-ning-fu, had encamped 
eight months previously. Signs of their encampment 
were abundant, for the grass was still trampled down and 
scorched by their innumerable camp-fires. The skulls 
and leg-bones of sheep which they had stolen from the 
Tanguts, besides rags of felt, poles, and such like things, 
lay scattered about all over the ground. Wherever they 
went the Dungans devastated the country like a swarm of 
locusts. In which direction they had turned their steps, 
Loppsen did not know. They had at any rate not gone 
to Tsaidam. In all probability they had marched up into 
the mountainous country of the upper Bukhain-gol. 
All day long we met not a soul, saw not a single hut or 
a single flock. The land was solitary, silent. Khulans, 
wolves, and foxes roamed over it unhindered, without fear. 
We saw no wild yaks, although they were said to exist 
along the upper parts of the Bukhain-gol. In fact, it 
is from that circumstance the river derives its name of 
Bukhain-gol, meaning Yak River. 
