while the river roared far below our path. In this way we continued throughout the day. At times the road led us across a tilled valley with closely growing fruit-trees, at others over or round a projecting spur of the mountains. The ledge was mostly narrow and slippery, the climbs up and down were steep, though by no means breakneck. The road can only be used by horsemen and pack-animals. The mules of the litter and their drivers, a couple of bright Chinese from Lanchow, were admirable and manoeuvred with superb skill and coolness in places, where I could not have believed it possible for them to move. When we dismounted and led our horses by their bridles, they drove the heavy and clumsy object with merry cries as if it were a dance. At the village of Tataku, about 14 miles from Chang-hsien, we crossed the river twice in immediate succession. At midday it was quite io fathoms wide and the water just came up to the packs. — During the greater part of the day's journey the river hugs the right bank, where the tilled fields were far smaller than on our bank. The houses in the villages had been newly built and their roofs only sloped on one side. They were small and stone did not seem to be used any longer in building them. The inhabitants looked frank, kindhearted and rather pleasant. You see no handsome people, but also no very plain ones. Their eyes are seldom slanting. Most of them arc of medium height, but quite a number were above it. — After covering quite 20---2 t miles we reached the village of Tyngtja myng, where the Chang-hsien ho joined the Chinsi ho flowing from the south. It flowed in a valley at least as large as the one we were following and was said to pass Pumali and Chinsihoa. The road that branched off from ours a few miles E of Minchow leads along it. — At Tyngtja myng snow falls between the 8th and the middle of' the 3rd month, but melts immediately afterwards. Rain between the 4th and 7th months, varying greatly in quantity in different years. Easterly burans in spring.
April 11th. It began to drizzle yesterday, but during the night there was heavy rain. The soft
Liohmen ground was soaked when we started, and the paths and ledges were as slippery as smooth ice.
village. In climbing up and down our horses often slid and fell, while the mules of the »tjao» managed excellently. The valley had widened again and was over 2/3 of a mile broad in some places. After a couple of miles it grew very considerably narrower once more, but became broader immediately after, even more than before. Here the Chang-hsien ho ran into the Wei ho flowing from Kung-Chang-fu. The latter was 15-18 fathoms wide; the one we had followed flowed in two arms here, each 16--17 fathoms wide. The current was swift. The water in one arm came up to the horses' bellies, the other we crossed by a poor bridge. Up to this point the road had been a bridle-path and ran mostly along the lowest slope of the mountain on the left. The valley was cultivated during the whole of this distance and its course was NE. There were rice fields in the bed of the river, under water at present. We met some flocks of geese, apparently on their way north.
At the confluence of the rivers about 6 miles from our last camping place we came to a large village, Yöjengtzy, where the road debouched into the main route southward from Lanchow. Here things were quite different. From the height of our road we had an excellent view of the valley and could observe from a distance the traffic on the road that crossed the river. Small groups of 4 or 5 arbahs in Indian file crawled laboriously over the rather
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