NOR"I'II ANI) WEST OF THE ANAMBARUIN-ULA:
make a circumambulation of the entire mountain-mass without any very great loss of time.
The glens of Dschong-duntsa, -Tsagan-tschiloto, Lu-tschuen-tsa, and Holustä are said to meet together and give rise to a common drainage artery about io km. south of Tuj-murtu. This watercourse is reported to cross over not only a minor belt of sand, but also the small mountain chain which we saw at a distance, and which forms an eastward continuation of the mountains that we climbed over on the north of Kan-ambal. But the oral descriptions that were given to me in this connection are not altogether reliable. From our route there appeared to be two small parallel ranges running towards the east-north-east. Their position would seem to indi-
Fig. 297. MOUTH OF LU-TSCHUEN-TSA.
cate that they probably belong to the same system as the two desert ranges which I crossed over when making for the Kuruk-tagh; though these are not indeed continuous, but are gapped in two or even more places in the same manner as the little ranges are that we saw to the left whilst on the road to Atschik-kuduk. Possibly the large drainage-artery alluded to makes its way out through a similar gap. The mysterious district which my Mongols called Tuj-murtu would appear to be situated to the north of the small desert-ranges. After heavy rains the water is said to descend as far as the locality in which we then were. The stream of Lu-tschuen-tsa in particular, which appears to originate in the very loftiest regions of the Anambaruin-ula, is said to swell in summer to a really imposing flood. In the matter of wind, this present locality is unlike those which we had previously visited at the northern foot of the Anambaruin-ula: gusty winds of a föhnal character are stated not to occur here at all. Strangely enough, the prevailing wind in the spring is said to come from the north-west, quite the opposite direction to the prevailing wind of the Lop region. At that season sand-storms sometimes occur, and on such occasions
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