ften
encircled by exterior oases. Everywhere the ground is traversable by
horses and carts. This comparatively fertile tract, cutting the Gobi into
two great sections, has been, ever since its conquest two thousand years
ago, of vast importance to China, being the only feasible avenue of
communication with the western provinces, and the more important link in
the only great highway across the empire. A regular line of caravan
stations is maintained by the constant traffic both in winter and summer.
But we were now on a bit of the genuine Gobi--that is, "Sandy Desert"--of
the Mongolian, or "Shamo" of the Chinese. Everywhere was the same
interminable picture of vast undulating plains of shifting reddish sands,
interspersed with quartz pebbles, agates, and carnelians, and relieved
here and there by patches of wiry shrubs, used as fuel at the desert
stations, or lines of hillocks succeeding each other like waves on the
surface of the shoreless deep. The wind, even more than the natural
barrenness of the soil, prevents the growth of any vegetation except low,
pliant herbage. Withered plants are uprooted and scattered by the gale
like patches of foam on the stormy sea. These terrible winds, which of
course were against us, with the frequently heavy cart-tracks, would make
it quite impossible to ride. The monotony of many weary hours of plodding
was relieved only by the bones of some abandoned beast of burden, or the
occasional train of Chinese carts, or rather two-wheeled vans, loaded with
merchandise, and drawn by five to six horses or mules. For miles away they
would see us coming, and crane their necks in wondering gaze as we
approached. The mulish leaders, with distended ears, would view our
strange-looking vehicles with suspicion, and then lurch far out in their
twenty-foot traces, pulling the heavily loaded vehicles from the
deep-rutted track. But the drivers were too busy with their eyes to notice
any little divergence of this kind. Dumb with astonishment they continued
to watch us till we disappeared again toward the opposite horizon. Farther
on we would meet a party of Chinese emigrants or exiles, on their way to
the fertile regions that skirt the northern and southern slopes of the
Tian Shan mountains. By these people even the distant valley of the Ili is
being largely populated. Being on foot, with their extraordinary loads
balanced on flexible shoulder-poles, these poor fellows could make only
one station, or from t