Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 232 (Color Image)

0232	Among the Celestials : vol.1

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AMONG THE CELESTIALS.

CHAPTER VIII.

INTO THE HEART OF THE HIMALAYAS.
YARKAND was the last town of Chinese Turke-

stan I visited, and now that I had traversed

the entire length of the country, a brief general

description of it may be interesting. The chief

characteristic of its physical features is un-

doubtedly the amount of desert comprised in it.

The whole country is, in fact, nothing but a

desert, with patches of cultivation along the

streams which flow down from the mountains,

showing out sharp and distinct like green

splotches on a sepia picture. On three sides

this desert is shut in by ranges of snowy moun-

tains very like the letter U, and on the fourth

side it stretches away uninterruptedly for nearly

two thousand miles. The mountain slopes are

as bare as the plains, and were it not for the

oases, no more inhospitable country could be

imagined. But these oases are what save it.

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