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0154 The Pulse of Asia : vol.1
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 / Page 154 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000233
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

the mountain slope is too rugged in its upper portions, and
too arid lower down, to be occupied by man except in the
larger valleys. At the heads of these valleys, hardy nomads
graze their flocks amid the magnificent scenery of loess-
covered moraines and steep valley walls, while far down-
stream, beyond almost impassable gorges, charming villages
lie like green ribbons on narrow terraces of loess. At the
ends of the valleys, a rude transition brings one into the
wearisome desert of the zone of piedmont gravel, like a huge
beach of dark, monotonous shingle. Sometimes the gravel
bears on its lower edge isolated areas of sand-dunes like
lagoons of the great dry sea beyond; but oftener it abruptly
gives place to the refreshing verdure of the zone of vegeta-
tion, a jungle of tamarisks and poplars, broken by broad
expanses of feathery reeds, or by areas of cultivation. The
zone of vegetation is not all a zone of life; frequent areas
contain little except dead plants, slowly worsted in the hope-
less fight against a changing climate. In scores of places
in this, the sole zone where life is abundant, great mounds
from ten to fifty feet in height, capped with the feathery
shoots of dying tamarisk bushes, — easily legible records
of desiccation, — stand like huge boulders capped with sea-
weed between the green tide-flats, so to speak, of the zone
of vegetation and the encroaching waves of the great inte-
rior desert of sand. The desert, white, yellow, or gray on
the edges, reddish in the centre, is beautiful in spite of our
presuppositions. Life, to be sure, is absent, but the graceful
curves of dune and ripple and the harmonious blending
of tints are a continual delight, provided the mind is free
from anxiety.