become known. It now,contains the numerous and populous
towns of Ghinps&'Turkistan:, conquered by Kien4on||
in the mi|p|e of the last centurÿpiwhose inhabitants are
Moslims, partly. Tajiks, and in part Turks, speaking the
Ouigour or Eastern Turk!. All these "populous countries
are to the north-west and west and south-weskpf Lop-n6 r.
To the eastward of that lake aFe yast desert regions1
naked steppes' and marshes iöf vast extent, where meres
and ponds receiveMihe waters falling in perpetual cascades'
from precipitous^mountains covered with'. eternal snows/
and destitute' of inhabitants and herds/ reach almost from
Pitshan, thé old Ouigour capital, near Turfan, through a
space of more than ten thousand li to the confines.of Tibet.
Lop-nor- itself supports a few villages vof r;fisbertaeh?
To the eastward is the Sandy 'Desert*of Sham©-, in the
middle of which < is the oasis of Khamil, inhabited by
Turks. All thèse?,countries, unvisitéd by Europeans', are
only known to us by the description of - Chinese^e’ogrM
phers, by whom they are termed,- “ the Region ' oWffaW
New Frontier,” in allusion to their comparatively refeftt
conquest.*
, Further to the eastward than Khamil ps^llS<;coI’d and
lofty wilderness of- Gobi, where the chain of the.Thian-sban
is, as we have said, lost im the.general elevatiomibf^thé
plateau. It was visited by the late traveller TimkousM,
who describes it as resembling the Sahara of Africa, fillàf.
in great part with sandy wastes ' and' mountains,* without
vegetation, whose bare rocky surface reflectsithe solar raysf
In other, places there are wide plains, which, when freed
from their wintry covering of ice and snow, afford pasturage
to the herds of roaming Mongoles. To the southward of
Gobi are the' mountains which surround the Blue Lake or
Koko-nór, near the sources of the Yellow River or Hoang-
ho, which an ancient tradition reports to have been once
united to the now distant Lop. Near the centre of thé
third great valley, formed by the Kuen-lun and the Himalaya,
is the Lake of Tengri or of Heaven, at thè extremity
* Timkouski’s Mission to China through Mongolia.
of the unknówn region ofKatchi, and between it and China
is the fabulous Tangut. To the southward of both, and
immediately under the Himalaya, Proper Tibet, or rather
Tubefc or Tobout, include 11’LaSsa and Diparchi, and the
royal and pontifical residence of the Great Lama of Tishû-
Lûmbû, the perpetual incarnate divinity'of three hundred
millions of civilised Tartars and Chinese. In this region
are thé sacred lakes of Manasa'and Ravana-hrada.
I Besides -tleseûnlahd lake^i which receive streams that
find no exit through thermountainous barrier^ : there are
other rivers which./make * their way through defiles into the
subjacent tracts towards all thè föUr quarters of the compass,
and fertilise with their streams the lower kingdoms and
empires of Asia.
From the«southern margin we have already traced the
Indtfs^the, Sutlej, the,tributaries of the Ganges, the Brah-
maputra^ the Irawadi, and all the streams of the Indo-
Chinese Peninsula. To 41kP eastward, the HoaUg-ho or
Yellow River, the Ta-Kiang-or Great River of China, and
the Arâ’ôr or Sagalian of’Es&Terh Tartary'flow into the- Sea ,
o f Japan and thePacifleGeean. The Frosfeh Ocean receives J
from the northern border® of the Table-land the waters of
tbékena, thoseiofi the Orkhon and Selen'ga from the lake of
Baikal, the Yenisei, and its numerous'contributary streams,
the Obi and the Irtish: K Thel rivers b f the western border of
the Plateau are MSs important in-geography, b u t not lesesO
inotbc' ancient history of the Wlirld. Theéè dre1 the' Oxus
and the JaxarteS# supposed it© be5 the Araxes of Herodotus,
in the lowest midland- tractS*of Asia; *■
S ection I I .—Of the Races of People who still inhabit, or
may be supposed to have originated from High Asia.
Amid ,the vast wilderndsSes included between the extensive
boundaries of thé Altaic and the Himhlayan mountain-chains,
fertilised and in some parts inundated by numerous inland
lakes and rivers, were the pàstur-e lands, whero during immemorial
agès' the nomadic tribes- df High Asia wandered
and fed their flocks and multiplied those hordes,-which from