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0473 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 473 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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CIi.I,XXVIII ABOVE THE HUO-NING-TO PASS 315

like a range by itself, yet in the line of the same chain : clearly the Uge-shan group indicated in Obrucheff's sketch map. A depression due west of these peaks marked the approximate position of the pass by which Obrucheff first crossed the range. But for our own passage I preferred to seek a route due south of our point of survey, where a wide boulder-strewn river bed suggested a relatively easy access to the watershed.

I was anxious to strike the Su-lo Ho Valley, behind the Alexander I I I. Range, as low down as the obstacle now in full view would permit. So the sight of this promising route was specially welcome. Yet there was one feature which might have caused misgivings. Behind the snowy peaks just before us there rose others in the distance, evidently far higher and glittering under a mantle of ice. Should we have to make our way also past these, or did they belong to the fourth range which I knew to line the Su-lo Ho head-waters on the south, and which had been named by Obrucheff after the great Austrian geologist Suess ? Nothing in the published cartographical sketches suggested that this last range, which I was anxious to survey, was higher than the Alexander III. Range. If the great ice-clad heights now sighted on the horizon really formed part of it, it meant an important modification in our conception of Nan-shan orography.

The atmosphere was delightfully clear, and with the pleasure of getting this chance for a photographic panorama I scarcely noticed the icy wind which played over our narrow arête. So wild was the confusion of its fissured rocks that to keep the camera secure and take exposures all round cost much trouble. So when the work was accomplished I was glad to hurry down to the pass which our baggage train had just crossed in safety. That only one animal had broken down en route—we never saw it again nor its owner, who promptly seized the chance of returning as soon as the donkeys sent back had relieved his beast of its burden—showed that our transport possessed unsuspected powers of endurance.

A steep descent of half a mile over shingle slopes brought us to Alpine verdure. The limit of vegetation