point is within two hundred miles of the Siberian Railway. Now go east one thousand miles—Russia to the north, China to the south,—the railway genérally parallel to our line of march, and two hundred miles away. We have reached the western tip of Manchuria—but the distinction between Manchuria and Mongolia, both being Chinese territory, is not politically important. We may go eastward another two hundred miles, into Manchuria, making this second line twelve hundred miles in length —east and west. Now strike south-westward twelve hundred miles,—on a line nearly parallel to the first one,—and we shall have left Southern Manchuria and Northern China proper (the China of the eighteen provinces) to the east, enclosing Mongolia, lying to the west; now westward, on a* line which refuses to be even approximately straight, for it must follow a curve of the great Altyn-Tagh—Kuen-Lun range, but which is roughly an east and west line. We have now nearly closed our z zoo-mile trapezoid. We have reached the Pamirs; and by running north about three hundred miles we are back at the starting-point, having enclosed the area known as Mongolia, and in the south-west corner of the pentagon, which is nearly a trapezoid, we have skirted the region known as Chinese Turkestan—roughly, one million and a half square miles, one half the area of the United States. Now for Tibet.
Go back to the south end of the third line, near the lake known as Kuku-Nor; thence go southward, crossing mountains and streams if you can—a hard journey of, say, six hundred miles. You have the southern part of China on the east, Tibet on the west. Now another twelve-hundred-mile line, trending a little north of east, —Assam, Bhotam, Sikkim, and Nepal are on the south; Tibet on the north,—and you have been cresting the Himalayas all the while. The valley of the Brahmaputra
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