of such a route is probably due to the diverse physical conditions of tropical India, on the one hand, which give rise to vegetable products of tea, spices, and dress-fabrics, and of temperate Turkestan, on the other, with hemp which the Hindu smokes to while away the monotony of life, and with various animal products of fine wool, felt, and skins. These diverse products, acting on man's acquisitive nature, induce him to keep open this worst of all roads. If the Karakorum plateau and its flanking ranges had extended north and south as the Andes do, and had separated countries no more different than Chinese and Russian Turkestan, there would have been much less incentive to the establishment of such a route, the products of the two regions not being sufficiently diverse.
Chinese Turkestan is connected with the outside world, other than China, by two routes, those of Karakorum and Terek Davan. The latter runs westward from Kashgar, at the western extremity of the country, to Osh and Andizhan, the terminus of the Central Asian railroad in Russian Turkestan. Since the completion of the railroad, it has largely supplanted the Karakorum route as an avenue for the importation of the manufactured products of Europe. In every way it is an easier route than the other, for it rises to an elevation of only about 12,000 feet, and the part at a high altitude can be crossed in a day or two. In the past, however, as now, communication with the west by this route, more frequently than by the other, must have been interrupted by wars, during which travelers and merchants were forced to use the harder, but cheaper and more peaceful Karakorum route. Even lately, so remote a geographic
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